text stringlengths 316 100k |
|---|
NISKAYUNA -- A new solar energy farm has gone into operation behind the Hillside Commerce Park in Niskayuna, generating power that will be used by Schenectady County government.
The 792,480-kilowatt panel array on 3 acres of county-owned land was installed in the industrial park by Monolith Solar Associates, of Rensselaer, under an agreement by which Monolith pays the capital costs and the county agrees to buy the power at a rate 30 percent below the standard commercial electricity rate.
The savings to county government are estimated at $20,000 per year, or $400,000 over the 20-year length of the contract.
"Not only will we save on our electric bills, benefiting our taxpayers, but we'll continue our efforts to be environmentally responsible and leave Schenectady County a better place for future generations," said County Legislator Rory Fluman, vice-chairman of the county's Committee on Environmental Conservation, Renewable Energy and Parks.
Together with the solar farm at the county recycling center in Glenville and solar panels installed on a number of buildings, the county is now producing nearly 2 million kilowatt-hours of solar electricity. All of the solar equipment has been installed under the county's contract with Monolith, which does business across upstate New York.
"This past October, the county Legislature committed itself to reaching 100-percent energy independence by Dec. 31, 2020," Fluman said.
Monolith President Mark Fobare said the solar farm cost about $1.5 million to install, and the economics work because of the county's commitment to future power purchases and a 30-percent federal tax credit available to private solar investors.
The array has been in operation since June 1 and has been working, despite days and days of clouds and rain since then.
"As long as the sun is up, you're generating," said Fobare, a Niskayuna native who now lives in New Jersey. "If it's light enough to see, you're generating."
Schenectady County Legislator Rory Fluman and Monolith Solar President Mark Fobare talk in front of inverters that are part of a new county solar farm in Niskayuna. (Stephen Williams)
Still, it works best on sunny days.
"The way we measure is annual," Fobare said. "Regardless of the day to day weather, I can tell you within 1 or 2 percent how much power you will generate."
The panels create direct-current electricity, which a system of inverters converts to alternating current that is then fed into the power grid through a 13,200-kilovolt underground line. The county then gets a purchase credit on its power bills for the electricity generated.
"Philosophically, what's happening is the meter is running backward," Fobare said.
Two more Monolith projects on county-owned properties are expected to open in Rotterdam before the end of the year. Once a site is cleared and ready for development, installation of the rows of panels takes only a few weeks.
Fluman said the goal is to make Schenectady County a statewide leader in converting county governments to alternative energy sources. The county has been working with Monolith since 2011.
Monolith, created nine years ago with its two founders as the only employees, now has 140 employees.
"It's phenomenal what's happening with solar," Fobare said.
Reach Gazette reporter Stephen Williams at 395-3086, [email protected] or @gazettesteve on Twitter. |
The latest app sensation, Draw Something, is being played by over 20 million people. Users can easily get started by downloading the free app for mobile devices.
Draw Something gives players several words to choose from. They have to draw it on their device and have their partner guess what it is. The game is simple but addictive. Below are some tips and samples of drawings done with Draw Something.
- When drawing, be sure to use various thickness in your lines. Using the default line width won't get you far.
- Also try using differetn colors and can earn you bonus points.
- Bombs are also helpful but use them wisely as they can help get you out of james.
- Arrows can be very helpful and using the right indicators can lead to success.
- If you have access to an iPad or tablet, use it. A stylus pen could be a greater advantage over using your finger to draw.
Click "START" to view some great drawings done on Draw Something. |
The court said in a 5-2 decision that the 2015 state law that makes it all but impossible for local governments to use traffic cameras is unconstitutional because it conflicts with cities’ home-rule authority.
The law ended Middletown’s more than 10-year run using the cameras. Despite the new ruling, City Manager Doug Adkins said, “We are not going to consider red light cameras in the future.”
EARLIER: Middletown deactivates 14 red light cameras
The city deactivated 14 red light cameras at eight intersections after the 2015 law.
Now, Middletown Police Chief Rodney Muterspaw — who said he was “not a big fan of the red light cameras” — said resources are needed more to fight crime.
“We have to dedicate an officer every day to review every violation, watch the videos, confirm the violation and send out. We don’t have the people to do that,” Muterspaw said. “We need our officers on the street and investigating crimes, not sitting at a desk watching for traffic violations.”
RELATED: 5 things to know about the New Miami speed camera lawsuit
Dayton issued the legal challenge, attacking three elements of the law:
• that a full-time police officer be posted at each camera in operation;
• that cities conduct a three-year traffic study before deploying a camera;
• that speeders be given “leeway” — 6 miles per hour over in a school zone and 10 mph over elsewhere — before issuing tickets.
The decision impacts Ohio’s 8 million licensed drivers, but New Miami Solicitor Dennis Adams said it won’t change the $3 million speed camera lawsuit that has been dragging on there for years.
The high court decision only applies to home rule cities not villages, but Adams said even if it did apply, the village wouldn’t change its program.
“The village prefers at this time to have officers be the ones who are witnessing the violation, pulling the trigger on the camera to clock the speed, because we think it adds legitimacy to the program,” Adams said.
Speeders are tagged if they go 10 miles or more over the 35 mph speed limit along Ohio 127.
Adams said the 10 mph mark wasn’t just picked “arbitrarily.”
“The federal government did a traffic study years ago that talks about the chances of injuries in automobile accidents,” Adams said. “They found that once you hit that magic number of 10 mph over the speed limit, the chances of serious injuries skyrocket.”
MORE: Ohio’s red-light cameras can come back on, Supreme Court says
The SUV positioned around Hamilton for photo enforcement of speeding drivers has been looked at repeatedly in recent years.
The Ohio Supreme Court decision will not affect the way the city uses its SUV to ticket motorists that are speeding, according to Sgt. Brian Robinson.
“We have been using the SUV as well as a hand-held unit that captures pictures and the data in full compliance with the law as it had been written in 2015,” Robinson said.
RELATED: Some red light cameras still in operation
Robinson said the cameras are requested by some.
“We receive a lot of requests from neighborhood residents in our community to use speed measuring devices as a means to help slow traffic down and make it safer for the residents and their children,” he said.
Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley said they will review the court’s decision to decide how to proceed, and plans for traffic cameras are expected to change considerably.
Even as some city officials look at turning the cameras back on, state lawmakers promised to shut them down.
State Rep. Bill Seitz, R-Cincinnati, the architect of the law declared unconstitutional, said the law is still in place for Ohio’s 1,300 townships and 88 counties as well as villages. When lawmakers return from summer recess in September, Seitz said they’ll consider requiring photo-enforcement tickets go through municipal courts instead of an administrative process.
The state may withhold local government fund money from cities that receive money from traffic cameras, he said.
“Since they’re getting money that way, they obviously don’t need our money,” Seitz said.
Seitz said an outright ban could be put in place through a constitutional amendment — something he said is not being considered at this time.
Senate President Larry Obhof, R-Medina, said, “I think the people of Ohio overwhelmingly oppose red light cameras. The Legislature tends to feel the same way.”
Obhof said he has yet to review the ruling in the Dayton case. He noted that he would consider a ban bill if he believes it has a chance of withstanding a constitutional challenge.
The Ohio Constitution, adopted in 1912, gives municipalities “home-rule” powers of self-governance as long as local ordinances don’t conflict with the state’s general laws.
Dayton began using traffic cameras in 2002, first to enforce red-light traffic violations and later to catch speeders. Accidents decreased where cameras operated. Other cities and villages across the state also used traffic cameras to catch violators.
While Dayton was the lead on the case decided Wednesday, Springfield, Akron, East Cleveland, Toledo and the Ohio Municipal League weighed in with briefs supporting Dayton’s argument. The Municipal League represents 700 cities and villages.
Opponents call traffic cameras automated speed traps used by local jurisdictions to rake money into government coffers. Proponents say the cameras push motorists to change dangerous driving habits. |
Your Italian on the show is pretty good — did you pick it up easily?
I did three weeks of lessons. I realized that I waste so much time on the internet that if I didn’t, I could speak every language fluently.
Was this trip to Italy life-changing?
It was. I always had been scared of the idea of going someplace by myself, and not knowing anyone. I realized, how many more years of my life am I going to have where I don’t have anything that keeps me tied down? I just want to explore living in these places. It really helps me creatively. You always hear that people come up with ideas in the shower — when I live in these places, it’s like living my whole life in the shower.
Did it also help you disengage from social media?
When I’m shooting the show, I give my phone to my assistant. I feel like it’s a life-sucking force. You read about [the director] Christopher Nolan — he doesn’t have a phone, and it seems to work out for him. I saw him once, and I didn’t ask about “Batman.” I asked him, how does this work out for you? His wife was like, he doesn’t have a phone — but I do. So that’s the secret: Fall in love with someone who has a phone.
How did you prepare for the “S.N.L.” monologue?
I didn’t go anywhere for Christmas — I just went to the Comedy Cellar [the New York club] every day. I would do 8, 9 shows a night. The mood [after the election] just kept changing. [The monologue] kept changing, even between rehearsal and the show. It was a lot of pressure to have on set, that’s why I worked so hard on it. I think I pulled it off.
How do you feel now, as an artist in the Trump era?
I have Trump fatigue. It becomes repetitive: He said this crazy thing, and he didn’t apologize! You realize, I don’t know if this is news anymore. It’s more like reading soap opera rumors. |
The Government have accepted and in part apologised for the poor drafting and lack of detail in the Digital Economy Bill.
Following the serious dressing down they received from the Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee the Government have confirmed that they will be amending some key parts of the Bill at report stage in the House of Lords.
This is great news. Many of the concerns held by the Committee are concerns Big Brother Watch have been raising since the Bill was published last year. Indeed, the promised amendments will make 4 of our 12 asks for the Bill a reality.
The promised amendments relevant to our 12 asks are:
All “specified persons” – ie those allowed to access, retain and share our personal information – will be listed on the face of the Bill not buried in the codes of practice. The list will also be “narrowed” down, offering reassurance we hope that not every man and his dog will be accessing and sharing our personal information. This amendment address number 12 of our key asks.
“Specified persons” will only be allowed to share information for the purpose of the specific objective they are working on. Right now, the Bill wants specified people to be able to share any information for any purpose. This amendment therefore goes someway to reaching our ask number 6, that data sharing must be necessary, proportionate and for a legitimate purpose. It also goes some way to addressing the Lords Committee’s concern that the Bill allows for the sharing of data for “any purpose connected with the provision of public service”.
Objectives for why information should be shared will be “narrowed”. A third objective will be added to the Bill – what that will be is unknown. We hope that it will address our ask number 7 that data should be shared when vital not simply to improve wellbeing.
The codes of practice will be laid before Parliament and will not be brought into force until they have been voted on by Parliament. This is not normal procedure and the Government acknowledge this. They also acknowledge that because the codes “comprise such important safeguards and because public authorities would be acting unlawfully by failing to have regard to them” there is a necessity for it to be done properly. We welcome the acknowledgement that the codes will have to be legally binding documents which we called for in point 2 of our asks, however we remain disappointed that the intention is still for “specified persons” to only have “regard to” the codes.
Further amendments which we welcome are:
The purposes for why gas and electricity suppliers will access and share our data will be “narrowed” so they are clearly defined on the face of the Bill. This should restrict opportunities for future mission creep by energy companies looking to access other data for further purposes.
The attempts by Government to give themselves the power to make changes to Chapter 1 of Part 5 of the Bill at any time (as outlined in Clause 37 Regulations under this Chapter), was defined by the Lords Committee as a power that had been added “just in case it may prove useful”. The Government have acknowledged that was the case and will be removing it from the Bill.
Powers to amend or repeal chapters 3 and 4 regarding debt and fraud will also be scrapped. The Government have stated that if after the three year review of the powers changes are required amendments will be tabled and be given “adequate parliamentary oversight”.
These amendments are a really positive move towards improving Part 5 of the Bill and we welcome them, but as ever intention has to be backed up by action, so we will be looking closely at the amendments when they are published, particularly at what the new “objective” for data sharing will be, as we remain very concerned about the continued intention to share data for the purpose of wellbeing.
Whilst we are pleased that 4 of our 12 asks are being addressed there are still 8 other asks we have, many of which were raised in the committee stage of the House of Lords (see our blog). We will continue to work to raise those concerns with the Lords ahead of report stage which will take place on the 20th March.
If the intention of Government continues to be that the technical, legal and privacy safeguards of the law are to be outlined in the codes of practice rather than on the face of the Bill the codes will need to be published sooner rather than later. Lord Keen’s attempts to reassure the Lords that the “intention to run a public consultation before laying the code before Parliament” would have had greater value if he had committed to a timetable for publication, however there is still no clarity as to when the codes are likely to be published.
We cannot stress enough that sharing data is a critical requirement in a data driven world but it must be done properly. Promises that any sharing must adhere to data protection law must be backed up with clear guidance and completely accurate definitions – even down to the critical point of establishing absolutely whether we are talking about information or about data.
The amendments outlined above are a really positive move by Government but there is still a lot to be done. Let’s hope they continue to work with all concerned parties to improve the Bill before it returns to Parliament. |
BALTIMORE (WJZ)—Prince George’s County emergency personnel were on their way home from funeral services for slain firefighter/medic Lieutenant John “Skillet” Ulmschneider when they saved a woman from a burning car.
Assistant Fire Chief Darren Ware, who was assigned to coordinate mutual aid while the funeral was in progress, was on his way home when he noticed a vehicle on fire in the area of northbound Crain highway (Route 301) near Brandywine Road.
Retired PGFD Deputy Fire Chief Tyrone Wells, who was also traveling home jumped right into action with Chief Ware and another bystander as they ran toward the burning car.
“I immediately ran to the vehicle and attempted to open the door and remove her from the driver door,” said Ware. “The door was locked. The occupant looked up at me but was not responsive to my instructions to unlock the door.”
Mark Brady, a spokesperson for the Prince George’s County Fire/Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Department says that the female driver appeared to be suffering from a medical incident and was not cohesive enough to follow instructions from rescuers.
During the rescue attempt, Brady says the driver pushed the accelerator which caused the burning car to go down an embankment and prevent extradition from the driver’s side of the vehicle.
“Because of the new angle of the vehicle access was attempted through the passenger side front door,,” said Ware. “I was able to gain access to the patient and pull her through the passenger side window. We were able to get her up the embankment and away from the burning vehicle.”
Other department members returning from the funeral services also stopped to help, Brady said.
The woman was not injured in the incident, but appeared to have suffered from an unknown medical incident.
“Had it not been for the quick actions of Assistant Fire Chief Ware, Tyrone Wells and a yet to be identified Good Samaritan citizen the outcome would have had a tragic ending,” Brady said. |
Please enable Javascript to watch this video
HENRICO COUNTY, Va. -- Friends and family are mourning the tragic death of 16-year-old Frank Woolwine Jr., a Douglas Freeman High School football and lacrosse player, who died early Saturday morning when his car struck a tree in a West End neighborhood near the University of Richmond.
Henrico police say Woolwine was traveling at a high rate of speed, when his car veered off Westham Parkway, just north of Pinetree Road, and down an embankment.
Investigators say the tree Woolwine struck, is just six feet from another tree where two 22-year-old college students crashed in June of 2013.
Michael J. Marks and Warren G. Kraft, a University of Richmond student, died on impact. Police believe speed and alcohol were both factors in the crash.
Westham resident, Kimberly Gentil Grubbs, says the two crashes aren’t the only tragedies to unfold in that same location.
She says a teenage girl died more than a decade ago, after the car she was traveling in flipped over and careened into the median before striking the same two trees.
Gentil Grubbs, a 20 year volunteer paramedic with Henrico County, says she remembers pulling the teens from the car and speaking to the victim’s parents at the hospital before the girl’s death was announced.
“It was tough,” Grubbs says. “I actually told the parents this was a very serious accident.”
Grubbs says she’d like to see the county take steps to improve the safety of the winding road, where drivers are often misled by a blind curve that leads them straight into the tree lined median.
She says it’s also difficult to see bikers and pedestrians when traveling that stretch of Westham Parkway.
“This can be improved and it needs to be,” Grubbs says. “I’d like to see these trees gone and I’d like to see some kind of guardrail put up here on this big drop off.”
Grubbs says she hopes to organize a meeting between Westham residents and county leaders because she says another family shouldn’t have to live the nightmare of losing a child.
37.584735 -77.547280 |
If you haven't gotten your application in for one of the thousands of air traffic controller positions that the FAA is recruiting for, better hurry. There are fewer days left to apply than originally anticipated.
As I wrote last week, the FAA's website indicated at the time that applications were expected to be accepted until February 24, 2014. But that date is incorrect and has been removed from the FAA's website. The official application website gives the last day to apply as February 21, 2014. In a different section titled How To Apply, the website notes that "your application must have a status of 'submitted' by 11:59 PM Eastern Time on the Close Date to be accepted."
The website contains all the detailed requirements for applying for the job. And they are detailed. Like many jobs today, there are likely to be thousands of applicants for these jobs and failure to comply with any of the myriad details could render your application ineligible. It might be a good idea to find someone with experience filling out online job applications - especially government ones -to proofread your application before submitting it. But hurry, only a few days left. |
WASHINGTON -- It may be years before unmanned aircraft are common in the sky, but lobbyists for the industry that develops and manufactures the drones are already buzzing around Capitol Hill.
"This is one of the few areas where the government is still spending money and investing," said Alex Bronstein-Moffly, an analyst at First Street Research, which collects lobbying data.
Lobbyists are pushing on legislation, regulations and appropriations, Bronstein-Moffly said. "This is the trifecta of lobbying."
Mention drones and most people conjure up missile-firing Predators hovering high above Yemen in search of al Qaeda terrorists. Yet even as the Obama administration defends its use of the drones, the future of unmanned aircraft lies in peaceful applications here at home.
The Association For Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), an industry trade group, has said once drones are allowed to fly in U.S. airspace, "the civil market has the potential to eclipse the defense market."
That day is coming. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorization bill, passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama in February, ordered the agency to safely allow unmanned aircraft to fly in U.S. commercial airspace by 2015. The FAA recently issued streamlined licensing rules for drones for police and other public safety agencies and the Department of Homeland Security is working to speed their introduction. The FAA is expected to finalize a new rule next year for small drones weighing less than 55 pounds.
While privacy advocates fret over the implications of going from 300 licensed drones to as many as 30,000 by 2020, the industry is salivating over myriad applications that include agriculture, energy exploration, weather research, traffic control, wildlife tracking and movie production, to name a few.
A recent study by the Teal Group, an aviation and defense consulting firm, estimated that global spending on unmanned aircraft will almost double over the next decade, from $5.9 billion annually to $11.3 billion. Most of that growth will be in the U.S.
“The expansion of remotely piloted vehicles will create jobs and boost local economies across the country," AUVSI President Michael Toscano said in an emailed statement to The Huffington Post. He cited the group's study that estimated drones would create 23,000 new jobs by 2025. “In addition to the positive impact on jobs, the expansion of remotely piloted vehicles also holds the potential to save money for local governments and taxpayers, as they cost much less to operate than helicopters and other manned aircraft.”
For now, though, money is flowing into campaign war chests and covering many billable hours for lobbyists.
AUVSI more than doubled its lobbying budget in 2011, spending $280,000 to work on the FAA bill that authorizes the expanded use of drones outside the military. As a PowerPoint presentation recently obtained by Republic Report shows, the industry group all but wrote the legislation. "Our suggestions were often taken word-for-word," it says.
No wonder. Political action committees affiliated with drone manufacturers donated a total of $2.3 million to the nearly 60 members of the bipartisan House Unmanned Systems Caucus, according to First Street Research. Most of that, 77 percent, went to Republicans.
The top recipient was Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), the caucus co-chair who also heads the House Armed Services Committee. He received $176,500 in donations from major defense contractors, including Northrop Grumman, whose Global Hawk drone is made in his district.
Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), chairman of the House Science, Space, and Technology Subcommittee, came in second with $112,000 from drone-related PACs. His district includes the Army's Redstone Arsenal, which conducts drone research.
When it comes to diversified defense contractors, it is difficult to determine how much money is being spent specifically on drones. Many defense contractors facing reduced Pentagon spending are scrambling to rebrand and tweak their products for the domestic market. Bronstein-Moffley has said financial disclosure data indicates that military contractors like Raytheon, Bell Helicopter Textron and General Atomics have increased their spending on lobbying.
"Military vendors are trying to craft the regulations around their products," said Patrick Egan, a small-business consultant in the industry. "Money talks."
Companies that specialize in drone technology are clearly getting their messages across.
According to data compiled by the Influence Explorer, a project by the non-partisan, non-profit accountability group Sunlight Foundation, drone-maker AeroVironment gave nearly $23,000 in campaign contributions to Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.). In 2010, the soon-to-retire congressman inserted a $1 million earmark for the company to develop a small but lethal handheld drone. Last year, AeroVironment -- which has federal contracts worth more than $100 million -- spent almost $2.6 million on lobbyists.
Proxy Aviation, a small Gaithersburg, Md., company that makes software for unmanned aircraft, gave $160,000 last year and $60,000 in the first quarter of 2012 to the lobbying firm of former Republican Texas Rep. Beau Boulter.
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, maker of the Army's Predator drone as well as a surveillance version for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, has shelled out $730,000 since 2003 for lobbying.
Companies aren't the only ones making their case. More than 30 communities are competing to be one of six FAA test sites that will be chosen by December.
Wilmington, Ohio, is among them. The small city near Dayton lost 9,000 jobs when the shipping company DHL left in 2009, and now hopes to turn its underused airport into a showplace where the FAA can test the integration of drones with piloted aircraft.
The Dayton Development Coalition, a regional business group, spent $60,000 to tout the site's proximity to research labs at nearby Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. The University of Dayton has spent $180,000 since 2010 to lobby for increased funding for drone research, according to Bronstein-Moffly.
Other academic institutions also are hiring lobbyists. First Street said at least a dozen universities with engineering programs are seeking federal grants for drone research. The University of Alaska, which this winter used drones to gauge ice thickness for a fuel convoy rushing to Nome, paid the high-powered Washington law firm of Patton Boggs $50,000 in the first quarter of 2012 to lobby on "unmanned aerial systems."
Carnegie Mellon University spent $85,000 during that period to make its case for drone grants to the Department of Defense. |
President Obama signed legislation into law on Friday that ensures sexual assault survivors in federal criminal cases have access to forensic evidence collection kits.
The bill, known as the Survivors' Bill of Rights Act, guarantees the right to materials for gathering and preserving physical evidence, known as rape kits.
Under the new law, sexual assault survivors can request preservation of the kits throughout the maximum statute of limitations and must be notified 60 days in advance prior to destruction of the kit. Survivors are also now guaranteed that they don't have to pay for the rape kits.
ADVERTISEMENT
The legislation passed without opposition in the House and Senate last month.
The lawmakers behind the measure — Sen. Jeanne Shaheen Cynthia (Jeanne) Jeanne ShaheenCongress must step up to protect Medicare home health care Dems slam EPA plan for fighting drinking water contaminants Bipartisan Senators reintroduce legislation to slap new sanctions on Russia MORE (D-N.H.) in the upper chamber and Calif. Reps. Mimi Walters (R) and Zoe Lofgren (D) in the House - said it would help provide consistency amid a patchwork of varying statutes regarding sexual assault cases across the country.
"This law guarantees these rights in the federal criminal justice system, but it is my hope this law will set an example for states to adopt similar procedures and practices," Walters said in a statement.
The push to ensure access to rape kits was led by Amanda Nguyen, a sexual assault survivor who has had to request extending preservation of her kit every six months in Massachusetts because state laws allow it to be destroyed if the crime isn't reported before then.
Nguyen, a Washington, D.C. resident, explained in a recent People profile that she hasn't formally pressed charges for a 2013 rape because she works outside of Massachusetts and doesn't want to commit the time or resources to a lengthy trial right now.
"Sexual assault remains one of the most underreported crimes and I hope that these basic rights will encourage more survivors to come forward and pursue justice," Shaheen said in a statement. |
Two potentially habitable planets in a nearby system are confirmed to be rocky. Astronomers have spotted three Earth-Sized Planets orbiting a dwarf system 40light years from Earth. Now a new study suggests two of these planets are most likely habitable worlds. Researchers have determined that the atmospheres of both planets seem to be compact and similar to those of Earth, Venus, and Mars.
Not long ago, researchers announced the discovery of a star system with THREE planets located in the so-called habitable zone of their star system, a mere 40 lightyears away from Earth.
Now, a new study published in the Journal Science reveals fascinating details about the planets of the star system.
In May 2016, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Liege in Belgium, announced the discovery of three planets of similar size of Earth and potentially habitable located just 40 light years from Earth, orbiting a dwarf star.
Now, in a new article published in the journal Nature, the same group of scientists reported that the two inner planets in the system are rocky, like ours, a fact that reinforces the possibility that these worlds could harbor life. Researchers have also determined that the atmospheres of both planets seem to be compact and similar to those of Earth, Venus, and Mars.
Scientists came to the conclusion after they used the Hubble Space Telescope to spy at the star system deducing that the innermost planets of the star system are rocky like our own and are encompassed by a compact atmosphere similar to that of Earth.
But even before taking a peek at the star system with Hubble, researchers concluded that based on the size and temperature of the three planets, they may be one of the best candidates to harbour life, ever discovered in the universe.
The three alien worlds are orbiting a super cool Brown Dwarf Star about one-eighth the size of our Sun. The Star is known as Trappist-1.
According to researchers, and based on new studies, the two innermost worlds orbit in 1.5 and 2.4 days while the orbit of the third planet is more uncertain and could be anywhere from four days to seventy-three days.
The discovery of the alien worlds was made possible after Michaël Gillon of the University of Liège, Belgium, and his team set up the Trappist survey specifically aimed at scanning the 60 closest dwarf system to Earth.
In a statement, Gillon said that: „Systems around these tiny stars are the only places where we could detect life on Earth-sized exoplanets with our current technology. So this is where we should start to look.“
To make the discovery, the group of researchers observed how the light emitting from the star dipped as the planets made their way in front of it in a number of different wavelengths.
According to researchers, if the dips varied significantly as the observational wavelengths carried, this would have meant that the planets have lighter, larger and puffy-like atmosphere similar to that found on Jupiter.
However, the dips remained relatively constant which demonstrated that both rocky planets have extremely compact atmospheres comparable to those of Venus, Earth, and Mars.
„Now we can say that these planets are rocky. ‘Now the question is, what kind of atmosphere do they have?“ Dr. Julien de Wit, the lead author of the paper, said.
„The plausible scenarios include something like Venus, where the atmosphere is dominated by carbon dioxide, or an Earth-like atmosphere with dense clouds, or even something like Mars with a depleted atmosphere. The next step is to try to disentangle all these possible scenarios that exist for these terrestrial planets.“
“A rocky surface is a great start for a habitable planet, but any life on the TRAPPIST-1 planets is likely to have a much harder time than life on Earth,” says Joanna Barstow, an astrophysicist at University College London, who was not involved with the research.
The next step is to understand the alien planets more, and in order to do so, they hope to point larger ground-based telescopes ni their direction in addition to further observations performed from space.
“With more observations using Hubble, and further down the road with James Webb, we can know not only what kind of atmosphere planets like TRAPPIST-1 have but also what is within these atmospheres,” de Wit says. “And that’s very exciting.”
More Information: Two potentially habitable planets in nearby system are confirmed to be rocky
Source: Ancient Code |
These cults have some very clear similarities that classify them, by definition, as a cult. One of these is: the group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s), and members (for example: the leader is considered the Messiah or an avatar; the group and/or the leader has a special mission to save humanity). Joseph Smith, in starting his Mormon Church of Latter Day Saints, proclaimed he was a direct descendant of Jesus and his followers can become gods themselves, replete with their own worlds to rule with a plethora of wives. He urged followers to take up arms against the U.S. militia and died as a “martyr”. Branch Davidian leader David Koresh proclaimed messiah status in 1990 when he changed his name from Timothy Howell and strongly favored polygamy for himself and also dealt in illegal firearms. People’s Temple cult leader James Jones proclaimed exalted status where members even signed over custody of their children to Jones. All three men proclaimed a sense of divinity and demanded allegiance through intimidation and threats towards their followers. All three led their followers to an untimely, violent death in defense of the cult and its leaders.
My primary issue with the Mormon candidate, Mitt Romney is, how can he believe the fallacious assertions made by Joseph Smith as veritable and still be considered a logical human being, let alone a candidate for president if he’s a devout follower of such cultish nonsense? In my opinion, all religions have fantastical notions but usually, have some fairly valid historical premises, based on love and inclusion essentially. The Mormon cult is another case altogether. Everything about the history of this religion has categorically been proven false by scientific evidence. Joseph Smith was a magnanimous megalomaniac with a penchant for drama. A church without theater wouldn’t last long, Smith believed. The ritualistic nature of Temple Endowment Ceremonies, for instance, show a unique interpretation of the Masonic rites they were modeled after. People need the fantasy, the performance and the mystery, which Smith provided in his founding of a new church—rife with rituals, stories of travel from faraway lands and theatrical acts of mystical translations that are at the core of the church’s history. A new “gospel” is easier to sell with the extravagant pomp, circumstance and surreptitiousness of the Mormon Church.
The utterly violent and devastating end to both the Branch Davidians and the Guyana Settlement at Jonestown are eerily similar to Brigham Young ordering non-LDS settlers to be slaughtered in the Mountain Meadows Massacre. A cult that will kill with the intention of protecting its interests and the secrecy of its faith should be considered suspect. Moreover, the incident remains buried in political turmoil, even to this day, and was a media sensation for more than 20 years after it happened. Most Mormons know nothing of the original 9/11 and they’d like to keep it that way.
Another technique used by cults is to discourage the acquisition of information and to keep the indoctrinated firmly rooted in the faith. A recent ploy used by LDS hierarchy to keep its young cult members in the dark is the lowering of the age of missionary service to 18 (from 19). Years of indoctrination and brainwashing could easily be lost with a year spent at a liberal arts college, so LDS President Monson and Company aren’t taking any chances. They are reluctant to lose any potential tithing members who will perpetually contribute 10% of their net worth to the post mortem afterlife insurance policy. It is absolutely amazing how many people buy into this fraud, yet it is far more terrifying for our President to subscribe to this nonsense.
End Times predictions abound in cults, the Mormons being no exception. Gun ownership is certainly encouraged. The Mormon Church owns one of the most active and unregulated gun sale portals on the web, according to a national investigation released by the New York City Mayor’s office. The website in question is KSL.com, the online hub for Utah’s NBC affiliate and sister radio station, which are both owned and operated by the for-profit arm of the Mormon Church. In addition to local news, KSL.com produces a popular classifieds section that reaches millions of users well beyond Utah. Jim Jones’ murdering of Congressman Leo Ryan in 1978, the mass suicide and the fiery Branch Davidian siege in 1993 remind us of the drastic measures cult leaders and their followers will resort to if they feel threatened.
Anyone can say that all religions have cultish characteristics, and, to a degree, they’d be right. But for a religion, in this era of technology and information, to assert such provably false claims as veracious is preposterous. Jesus Christ was a figure who preached peace, tolerance and acceptance. The Mormon Church, like others cults, has a history of violence, exclusion and bigotry, no matter how much they try to hide the facts. It is certainly not a faith which should supercede the United States Constitution by the Leader of the Free World. |
Small-business bankruptcies rise 81% in California
With credit tight and consumers still pinching their pennies, many business owners find they can't go on.
The actual number of small businesses in trouble is probably higher, experts said, because many owners file for personal bankruptcy rather than seek protection for the business.
California has been particularly hard hit. The latest data show small-business bankruptcies up 81% in the state for the 12 months ended Sept. 30, compared with the previous year. Filings nationwide were up 44%, according to the credit analysis firm Equifax Inc.
"While bankruptcies are up, overall, small-business closures are up even more," Headd said.
As credit lines have shrunk and consumers have cut back on spending, thousands of small businesses have closed their doors over the last year. The plight of struggling firms has been aggravated by the reluctance of banks to lend money, said Brian Headd, an economist at the Small Business Administration's office of advocacy.
The Obama administration's new plan to give a boost to small businesses reflects continued trouble in that sector, which is facing new failures even as much of the nation's economy is stabilizing.
Dennis McGoldrick, a bankruptcy lawyer in Torrance, said his clients are all stuck in similar situations -- capital is hard to come by, customers are tough to attract and debt is piling up.
"We can't keep up," McGoldrick said. "There's more people that want to come in every day than I can see."
Cecily McAlpine, who filed for bankruptcy protection for her Cold Stone Creamery franchise this spring, said the experience was humiliating but she had no choice.
Receipts at the fledgling Compton ice cream shop plunged dramatically during the recession, and by late 2008 she was paying her employees out of her pocket.
"When the refrigerator died, that was it; I'd just had it," McAlpine said. "That was the day I broke. I just started throwing stuff away."
McAlpine recently withdrew her bankruptcy filing after selling all the store equipment and paying off her creditors. She is slowly paying off some back-rent and utility debt, and will officially dissolve her business in the next couple of weeks, she said.
"I still feel scarred and like a loser," she said. "Even though I'm not in it anymore, it's still there."
Recognizing the problems of business owners like McAlpine, the Obama administration has proposed using federal stimulus money to help funnel more loans to small businesses. The White House has also asked Congress to eliminate capital gains taxes for one year on new investments in small-business stock, and called for a new tax incentive to encourage small businesses to hire more employees.
On Dec. 14, Obama called a meeting of executives of Wells Fargo & Co., Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp. and nine other large banks, and told them that they owed it to the nation to make more loans to small businesses and help rebuild the economy.
In California, the need is great.
Over the last year, the Los Angeles, Riverside/San Bernardino and Sacramento metropolitan areas have led the nation in small-business bankruptcy filings, said Tim Klein, a spokesman for Equifax.
About 19,000 small businesses filed for bankruptcy in California during the 12 months ended Sept. 2009, up from 10,500 the previous year.
During September alone, 2,229 small businesses filed for protection, up from 1,503 filings in September 2008, the firm reported.
Kathleen March, a bankruptcy lawyer in Los Angeles, said she often pushes her clients to file for personal bankruptcy instead of a business filing because it's easier. |
Update: If you read this post, I recommend you also read this one. It clarifies a few things I got wrong or expressed poorly here.
Whether or not ageing ought to be considered a disease is still matter of controversy, both among experts and laypeople. Particularly, the latter tend to turn up their noses at the thought of ageing being pathological and not ‘normal’, especially if they’re outside the life-extension/rejuvenation community. Clearly, they ignore the fact that ‘normal’ and ‘pathological’ aren’t mutually exclusive at all. It’s perfectly normal to suffer from hearing loss in old age; notwithstanding, it is out of the question that hearing loss is a pathology and we have developed several ways to make up for it. It presently can’t be cured, because like all age-related diseases, it can only get worse as long as the age-related damage that causes it keeps accumulating.
In my humble opinion of quasi-layperson (I’m nowhere near being an expert, but I do think I know about ageing more than your average Joe), whether or not ageing is a disease is merely a matter of semantics, depending largely on what we want to label as ‘ageing’—not to mention how we define ‘disease’.
If we say that ‘ageing’ is the set of age-related pathologies that affect a given person, then ageing isn’t a disease any more than a box of crayons is itself a crayon. Nonetheless, if you have a box of crayons then you have a bunch of crayons; if you have ageing as we defined it, then you have a bunch of diseases, and the grand total of your ailments doesn’t change whether you consider ageing as a disease as well or not. Quite frankly, I’d pick the box of crayons over ageing any time.
We could define ‘ageing’ differently. We could define it as the damage accumulation processes that eventually give rise to the pathologies of old age. This is a much more sensible definition, because it emphasises the fact ageing is a process that happens gradually over time, starting on day 1. You don’t ‘get’ ageing late in life; you were born with it. When ageing is in its early stages, for example in your 20s or 30s, you can’t really call its effects a ‘disease’ any more than you can call a spec of dust a ‘dust cloud’; when you’re 20, you’re no more ‘sick’ with ageing than a table with a single dust spec on its surface is ‘dusty’. However, during later stages of ageing pathologies are the norm, and the progression of the ageing process exacerbates them further. According to this definition, ageing is still not a disease, but its the cause of many diseases, in pretty much the same way a virus is not the disease it causes: Rhinoviruses are not the common cold; they merely cause it. (This is where the analogy stops. All ageing and viruses have in common is that they both cause diseases. Ageing is certainly not an infectious pathogen!) Notice that, even though HIV, for example, is not itself a disease, we can all agree that we should get rid of it because it causes a horrible disease, namely AIDS. For the same reason, even if ageing did not fit our definition of disease, it is clear that it causes horrible diseases; this should be enough to stop bickering over semantics and just focus on getting rid of ageing already.
We could also think of ageing as an ‘über disease’: A disease whose symptoms are diseases themselves; a ‘disease of diseases’. This is more along the lines of what Aubrey de Grey calls ageing, and he’s not wrong, because what we currently see happening in old age is essentially the sum of different age-related pathologies all happening at more or less the same time.
If you ask me, even without going into the details of the biology of ageing, I’d say that, strictly speaking, it’s probably not a disease (some say it’s neither a disease, nor a non-disease), but it obviously causes crippling pathologies; however, if classifying ageing as a disease may help us get sooner to a world free of age-related diseases, I’m definitely in favour of doing it. I’ll gladly discuss the semantics of the matter after the diseases of old age will no longer be a problem. (*)
(*) Please, do have a look at my first comment below for a further clarification of my stand on the matter. |
The German government wants to encourage rejected asylum seekers to voluntarily return to their home countries with a cash incentive, Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere told newspaper Bild am Sonntag on Sunday.
For years, Germany has provided rejected asylum seekers and others with financial help to return to their countries, including costs associated with travel and restarting life back home.
On top of that, de Maiziere said families can receive up to €3,000 ($3,570) and individuals up to €1,000 if they voluntarily return home by the end of February.
Read more
— EU threatens visa restrictions for countries that don't take back rejected asylum seekers
— 30,000 rejected asylum seekers 'disappeared' in Germany, tabloid claims
Watch video 03:55 Share @dwnews - #RumoursAboutGermany aims to dispel myths for potential migrants Send Facebook google+ Whatsapp Tumblr linkedin stumble Digg reddit Newsvine Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/2mRiu @dwnews - #RumoursAboutGermany aims to dispel myths for potential migrants
"When you voluntarily decide to return by the end of February, in addition to startup help you can provisionally receive housing cost help for the first 12 months in your homeland," de Maiziere said in a direct appeal to rejected asylum seekers.
Kitchen equipment
According to the news report, in addition to previous payments rejected asylum seekers can receive money in their homeland for rent, building, home renovations or even basic equipment for a kitchen or a bathroom.
The program is called "Your country. Your future. Now!"
"There are opportunities in your homeland. We will support you with concrete help for your reintegration," de Maiziere said.
Pro Asyl's Günter Burkhardt: An "underhanded strategy"
The German refugee organization Pro Asyl slammed the offer, calling it an underhanded strategy.
"[The government] is trying to entice people to give up their rights in the basest manner," managing director Günter Burkhardt told the German news agency DPA on Sunday.
Going underground
De Maiziere's offer comes as Bavaria, which deports the most Afghans of any German state, reports problems in finding the people due to be sent back.
The Bavarian Interior Ministry told the weekly Welt am Sonntag that Afghans who discover that they are about to be deported often disappear days before their flight is to leave. It said it suspected that many of the planned deportees, most of whom it says are criminals, were receiving help from German pro-refugee groups to go underground.
Objections to Syrian deportation plans
Plans floated recently by state interior ministers from the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU) to restart deportations of Syrians by mid-2018 have meanwhile met with opposition from other leading CDU politicians.
The head of the CDU/CSU bloc in the German parliament, Volker Kauder, told Welt am Sonntag that such deportations were "currently not an issue [for him] with regard to the security situation," adding, however, that "the situation has to be constantly reassessed."
Peter Altmaier, who is chancellery minister and refugee coordinator, also spoke out against the proposal, telling Bild am Sonntag, "The civil war is not over, and many people have fled from the Assad regime, which is still in power."
Altmaier said although many refugees had returned to Iraq, Syria's neighbor, "we haven't seen this development in Syria yet."
Read more: Syria's White Helmets blame Assad regime for hunger crisis
Up for discussion
The deportation proposal, which has been put forward by the states of Bavaria and Saxony, has been approved for discussion at a meeting of interior ministers in Leipzig next week.
It has been severely criticized by the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Left party.
The proposed deportations would affect mostly criminals and rejected asylum seekers.
Watch video 12:03 Share On borrowed time - an Afghan in Germany Send Facebook google+ Whatsapp Tumblr linkedin stumble Digg reddit Newsvine Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/2h0Hf On borrowed time - an Afghan in Germany
tj/sms (AFP, Bild am Sonntag) |
Either Steve, Vanessa or Liz will win Big Brother 17 on Wednesday, but who cares at this point? The best part of the season went out the door last week: the one and only Johnny Mac. Was he the greatest player ever? Nope. Was he loud in the Diary Room? Yup. Was he totally and completely awesome? Hell yes. While Vanessa was crying and Austin couldn't keep his tuna beard off Liz, JMac was endlessly entertaining in his fantastically weird, randomly quirky ways — and just downright fun. We could all live life a little more like the Rockstar Dentist.
Here are 26 reasons why Johnny Mac was the best houseguest this season (and needs to win America's Favorite Player).
1. He's a dentist...
(via)
2. And figured out the twin twist because of Julia's crown on good ol' No. 9.
3. He taught us all how to properly floss.
(via)
4. His laugh.
5. He spelled "boogers" for a nose-themed Veto.
(via)
6. He has his priorities in order.
7. He wore a hoodie to a shower party.
(via)
8. It was awkward.
(via)
9. His back hair.
10. He has requirements for being a pawn.
(via)
11. But he won't stay on the block for you.
(via)
12. This is how he celebrated when he found out he wasn't going on the block.
(via)
13. He kept the Chenbot on her toes.
14. He was part of the best eviction of the season.
15. JMac + Power of Veto = #friendshipgoals
16. He quoted Halo in his (second) eviction speech...
17. And shaded Liz, who had no idea. :/
18. He had an alliance with Perry the praying mantis.
19. He gave us insight into Vanessa's mind.
21. His brother has the same laugh.
22. He dragged the twins hard.
23. He reacted appropriately to Frankie.
24. He's as disgusted by Liztin as you are.
25. Really, flossing is important.
26. JMac, in a nutshell.
Never change, JMac, never change.
The Big Brother 17 finale airs Wednesday at 9:30/8:30c on CBS.
(Full disclosure: TVGuide.com is owned by CBS.) |
It’s hard to believe that it’s been over seven long years since Arrested Development went off the air, but with the revival of the show coming later this year, I stitched up a little homage to Mr. Tobias Fünke. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to embroider an Arrested Development themed piece and how to frame it in an embroidery hoop. Put your denim cut-offs on and make this fun tribute to nevernudes everywhere (there are dozens of us!).
Supplies
Cotton fabric, approximately 23 x 23 cm (8 x 8 inches). You’ll be transferring the pattern directly on to this and depending on what technique you use, lighter-coloured fabric is generally much easier to use.
Black embroidery thread.
Embroidery needle – use whatever size you like.
Transfer pen.
Scissors.
Iron-on denim fabric and red-coloured fabric. I found these at my local fabric store, but you could alternatively use regular denim and red fabric and applique it on or use fusible web, a type of material that bonds two pieces of fabric together when ironed.
15.25-cm (6-inch) hoop.
Glue gun.
Click on the photo above to download the full pattern (also includes a reverse image if you're using a different method of transfer).
1. Prepare Your Project
Step 1
To begin your project, you first need to transfer the downloadable pattern in this tutorial on to your fabric. There are many different ways of doing this, from printing out the pattern onto iron-on paper (make sure you choose the reverse image if you go this route) to using carbon transfer paper.
I use the old-school method of a window, some tape and a transfer pen. Tape your pattern onto a window, tape the fabric on over top, centered over the image, and carefully trace the pattern using a transfer pen. I use a fine-tipped washout pen, so that I can easily redo any mistakes I might make while tracing over the design. There is no need to trace the circle surrounding the pattern; that’s just to show you the approximate placement inside the embroidery hoop.
Step 2
Now you need to cut the shorts and underwear out so you can attach them to the fabric. You can do this one of two ways: cut out the shape templates included in the pattern, place them over the red and denim fabrics and cut around them; or wing it like I did. If you choose the latter option, cut pieces a bit larger than you might need and then snip them down as needed.
Step 3
To fray the denim, just pull at the end of one side of the denim until a few rows of threads unravel. Fluff up the ends of the threads to give it a frayed appearance just like real cut-off jeans.
Step 4
Now you need to attach the fabric pieces. If you’re using an iron-on denim patch, simply place the frayed piece you’ve cut out over the correct spot on your transferred image. Following the instructions that came with the patch, iron the patch on. I used an iron on the 'cotton' setting, and simply pressed it down on the patch for about 10 seconds. Your piece will probably never be washed, so it just needs to adhere well enough to be hung on a wall.
Repeat with the red fabric, centering it over the denim and ironing it in the same way (or using fusible web if fabric isn’t iron-on). Now place your embroidery in a hoop (you’ll be reframing it later after ironing it flat again, so don’t worry about perfect placement, and feel free to use a smaller hoop if it feels more comfortable in your hand).
2. Start Stitching
Step 1
Cut a piece of black embroidery floss to 45cm (18 inches). Gently separate the threads into two-strand segments. Thread the two-strand floss through the needle and pull it halfway up the length of floss.
Step 2
Start stitching. I used backstitch for this entire project, with the exception of French knots for the dots over the letter ‘i’ and at the bottom of the question mark, and for the belly button.
Backstitch is a really simple embroidery stitch that’s great for outlining, and probably the easiest stitch to learn! Pick a place to begin – I started on the outline of the body. You’ll be working from right to left. Leaving about a 2.5-cm (1-inch) tail, bring the needle up to the left of the end of the transferred line and then make a small stitch down, to the right of where you brought it up. Bring it back out to the left of this stitch, coming back down as close to the first point of entry as possible.
You want your stitches to be approximately the same size, but don’t get too fanatical about it. The beauty of this stitch is that it all blends together nicely. Continue stitching in this method until you’ve finished the area you’re working on.
Step 3
To secure your thread properly, you can hold down the end of the floss at the back and make your stitches over it, “catching” it as you stitch.
Alternatively, make a small knot and bring the thread up until the knot bumps up against the back of the fabric. This is a little less smooth, but for a piece like this that’s just hanging on the wall, no one will be able to tell.
Step 4
When you reach the end of one section (or the end of a word), or if you’re running out of embroidery floss, complete your last stitch, and then run the needle through a few of the stitches on the back of the piece. Cut the threads close to the back of the piece, then re-thread your needle and keep going.
Step 5
French knots can seem a bit tricky at first, but just practice on some scrap fabric and you’ll get the hang of them quickly. I also do them in an non-traditional way, so if this isn’t making sense to you, there are tons of great tutorials and videos out there! Begin the stitch by bring the needle up from back to front, then gather a few threads of fabric right next to where you brought the needle out.
Bring the tip of your needle out – the stitch will be gathered on the needle – and wrap the floss around the needle two or three times. Using your thumb to push the embroidery floss down, continue bringing your needle out until the thread is taut, then bring the needle back down right next to the little knot you’ve created, and pull the floss all the way down.
To secure the stitch, just gather a few threads on the back and snip the floss close to the fabric.
3. Prepare Your Project for Framing
Step 1
After you’ve completed all your stitching, remove the fabric from the embroidery hoop, and, if you’ve used a water-soluble pen, rinse it under a tap until the marks have disappeared, then let it air-dry completely before ironing.
Step 2
Now it’s time to iron your piece. Turn the piece over and iron the back, so as not to crush any of your stitches. I usually cover the fabric with a tea-towel, then lightly spray the towel with water and iron on the cotton setting until the piece is nice and smooth.
4. Frame Your Project
Step 1
Once your piece is ironed and ready to go, lay the bottom piece of the embroidery hoop (the one without a screw) down and centre your fabric over it. Loosen the screw on the top part of the hoop and press it down over the fabric and bottom hoop, making sure the screw is centered at the top. Once the fabric is taut and centered, tighten the screw to secure the frame.
Step 2
Now you need to get rid of some of that excess fabric. Cut around the perimeter of the piece, leaving about half an inch of excess fabric.
Step 3
It’s time to secure the fabric to the back of the frame. Using a glue gun, apply a thin line of glue to the inside of the back of the hoop. Just do a few centimeters at a time, and be careful of the hot glue! As soon as you’ve applied the glue, use your fingers to smooth the excess fabric down, pressing on it until it’s secure. Repeat all the way around the edge of the hoop.
There are so many ways to display your project – I simply hung mine from the screw at the top of the hoop, but you could loop some ribbon or twine around the screw and then hang it, or display it on a plate stand. Play around and find the best solution for your space.
Congratulations! You're done.
In this tutorial you’ve learned how to transfer an embroidery pattern, a couple of basic stitches, and how to finish your piece in an embroidery hoop. This is a great jumping-off point for many embroidery projects – with just these two stitches you can embroider countless images, words or song lyrics. I also love the look of fabric framed in an embroidery hoop – it’s such a quick and easy way to add colour to any room. Get creative and have fun!
Do you have any suggestions for other projects mixing embroidery and applique? What are other ways you could display this? Leave your ideas in the comments below. |
SPRING, Texas - A homeowner was killed and his younger brother was assaulted during a home invasion Sunday night in Spring.
The incident happened about 8:45 p.m. at a home in the 21500 block of Canvasback Glen Court in the Gosling Pines neighborhood.
According to Harris County Precinct 4 deputy constables, someone reported a shooting at the home.
When authorities arrived, investigators said, they learned that two men forced their way into the home and demanded money. One of the men shot and killed the homeowner, identified as 33-year-old Adrianus Kusuma. The same man then beat Kusuma's younger brother.
Kusuma and his brother own the 'Sunny Side of the Street' restaurant on FM 2920, about a half mile from the brothers' home.
"He was in shock," neighbor Tammy Cameron said about the younger brother. "He had a black eye. His lip had blood around it, and his ankle. He was in shock."
Investigators said the men then grabbed some cash and fled the scene in a white car.
A source close to the investigation told Channel 2 News, Monday, that in August, an unknown assailant robbed the restaurant.
The Harris County Sheriffs Office is investigating whether to two crimes are connected.
"They didn't deserve to have that happen to them, just two hard working people trying to make money, chasing a dream," neighbor, Kadeer Jackson, said.
Anyone with information regarding the case was asked to call Crime Stoppers at 713-222-8477.
2016 Click2Houston/KPRC2 |
THERE was a rare moment this week in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, when a crowd of protesters marched through the ruined seaside city and burned the black flag of the Shabab, the jihadist militia that is threatening to take over the country. The Shabab, which means youth, hunts down its critics, sometimes beheading them, so torching its battle banner in broad daylight was a brave act. But the courage was perhaps born of desolation. Most of the protesters were family and friends of Benadir University medical students killed by a suicide-bomber on December 3rd.
Get our daily newsletter Upgrade your inbox and get our Daily Dispatch and Editor's Picks.
It has been 18 years since Somalia has had a properly functioning government. Since 2007, 19,000 Somali civilians are reported to have been killed and 1.5m displaced; over 3m in a population of 8m need emergency aid. Yet amid all the violence and despair, people often overlook the lion-hearted efforts of institutions like Benadir University to turn the country around. Against the odds, the embattled university trains young Somalis to serve as doctors in Mogadishu's dire hospitals.
A graduation ceremony for its newest physicians was meant to be a moment of celebration. It took place in a hotel in the only part of the city that Somalia's feeble transitional government still controls; several government ministers were present. Survivors say the bomber was a man dressed in a burqa. He approached the students and blew himself up, killing at least 22 people, many of them just-qualified doctors, and injuring 60. Three ministers perished; a fourth was badly wounded. So cruel was the attack that even the Shabab did not dare claim responsibility.
The bodies of the dead ministers wrapped in blue and white Somali flags have stirred an uncommon wave of national feeling in a normally bitterly fractious society. Some hope the bombing may even mark the beginning of the end for the jihadists.
But that is unlikely. The Shabab controls most of south and central Somalia. If anything, its area of operations is widening. The Shabab covers its expenses from taxes, tariffs and roadblocks. It includes some opportunists but at its core are ferocious fighters linked to al-Qaeda who are intent on creating a caliphate of Greater Somalia, including chunks of Ethiopia and Kenya. The Shabab appears to run at least two suicide-bomb brigades, mostly made up of teenage boys. The bomber at Benadir University may have been one of them.
The death of the ministers is a big blow to a government already struggling to keep its less stoical ministers and parliamentarians in the country. The well-meaning president, Sharif Ahmed, a moderate Islamist who was once a geography teacher, has been ineffectual. His more secular-minded prime minister, Omar Sharmarke, whose father was an assassinated president of Somalia, says he wants more help to train his country's army and police. He also wants a massive programme of apprenticeships for young unemployed Somalis. International navies, he says, should not just chase pirates but should also protect Somali waters from illegal fishing.
Outsiders seem unable to hold the ring. The African Union (AU) still has a force of around 5,000 peacekeepers, mostly from Uganda and Burundi, 17 of whom were killed by a Shabab suicide-bomber in September. But the AU force cannot patrol freely beyond a few streets in one section of Mogadishu. America has been sending arms and money. European countries have pledged support—but not nearly enough to defeat the Shabab.
Somalia's neighbours, especially Kenya, are increasingly worried. Shabab commanders controlling south Somalia say they will not spread their jihad across the border provided the Kenyan army leaves them alone. Yet for decades many Kenyan ethnic Somalis, whose territory covers a swathe of north-eastern Kenya, have hankered after joining their brethren. Western intelligence people in Nairobi, Kenya's capital, have long feared that Somali jihadists will spread their wings into neighbouring countries or even farther afield. |
Less Than A Week After His Outburst Over “Mexican Judges,” Top Surrogate Says Trump Has Never Said Anything Racist
Jeffrey Lord, CNN’s favorite Trump defender and “colorblind” ideologue, says Trump has never said anything racist.
You have to give Donald Trump a small measure of credit: No matter what he says, no matter the reaches of its vulgarity, he has found a small army of opportunistic attack dogs strategically placed in each media outlet willing to defend him at all costs.
Coming on the heels of his remarks that Indiana-born Judge Gonzalo Curiel could not preside impartially over his Trump University lawsuit because “he’s a Mexican,” the presumptive GOP nominee told his surrogates and campaign officials not to back down from bipartisan attacks calling him racist, saying simply “The people asking the questions – those are the racists. I would go at ’em.”
Tuesday morning saw the first of this strategy’s deployment, with Congressman Lee Zeldin (R, NY) bizarrely claiming the Democrats, President Obama, and anybody else except the man he happily endorsed is racist, but the real coronation of this strategy came last night from CNN contributor Jeffrey Lord, Trump-apologist extraordinaire.
The former GOP strategist in the 1980s who came out of retirement to sing salacious praises for Trump on national television, the man who loves to profess his and Trump’s “colorblind” views on race in America, found himself in a prickly situation last night when conservative commentator S.E. Cupp last night asked him “If the Republican party is supposed to be colorblind, then why is Trump the first to bring up the fact that this judge is Mexican?”
“Because what he’s saying here, is that the judiciary has been politicized and racialized,” Lord quipped.
“That’s not all what he’s saying. That’s not at all what he’s said,” Cupp fired back.
Things intensified a few moments later with Lord insisting about Curiel that, “the guy has a political conflict of interest.”
“That’s what I want to respond to, I uncorked this and I want to try and explain this to people at home because there’s a danger here that undermines the entire judicial system so here it is,” said Contributor Michael Smerconish.
“If S.E. Cupp were the judge and I were the litigant, and it were a divorce case, or a child custody case, by Trump’s logic; well she must recuse herself because she’s a female. If I had a discrimination case and Judge Van Jones were presiding, I’d say ‘hell, he’s a black guy, he can’t treat me fairly.’ And if the case involved the Catholic Church, because you’re a Catholic, Paul, you must recuse yourself. Because, after all, we know where you worship on Sunday. Who’s left to serve? If on that thin basis…Donald Trump gets away with it.”
“That’s the point,” Lord attempted to argue, “This is exactly the point, this is what the American left has done to the judiciary.”
At this point, the entire panel laughed with one person saying “You’re too smart for that Jeff.”
The most definitive moment came from Van Jones, who brilliantly exposed not only the hypocrisy of Lord’s continual defense of Trump, but additionally the fallacy of defending anything bigoted the GOP nominee has uttered in the name of “America First.”
Speaking in response to Trump’s call to ban all Muslims, Jones said that theoretically, “There was a higher moral principle to which he could appeal, which is ‘I’m trying to protect America.’ I don’t agree with that, but at least you could make a case. When he says, ‘I’m gonna build a wall,’ that’s very offensive, but there’s a higher appeal, ‘I’m trying to protect America.’ He is now only, not about his patriotism, this is about him, this about his pocketbook, this about his reputation, and its the same appeal to race.”
“Now, you are the one that says appeals to race should be taken out,” Jones continued with Lord nodding, “and what I’m saying to you is you now have two problems sir, as you try and defend this man. Number one, we are way down the rabbit hole, this is not about defending America, this is about him. That is a problem, but number two. If I said, you can’t be my judge because you’re a white man, and white men have done horrible things to me, you would say I’m a racist. But if Donald Trump says a Mexican can’t be a part of his judge, jury, he’s a hero? And, he’s an anti-racist? This does not make sense. And I’m saying, you have been brilliant sir, figuring out before anybody else, what he was going to be able to do. And you have found ways to defend him. You are now out of defenses. You can’t say this is racism!”
“I now think you are beyond the reality of a rational mind to follow you,” Jones concluded.
“If I thought he was a racist, I would never have been here,” Lord fired back.
“Fair,” Jones replied, unconvinced. “Just one question, I don’t think he’s a racist either. I think he’s a racial opportunist, which is different…I think he says things that are racist. Do you think he’s said anything that’s racist? Said it, not is.”
No,” replied Lord.
Watch the short clip below of Jones sparring with Lord and the full segment below further. |
Poke is taking over Vancouver! The city is quickly falling in love with this traditional Hawaiian dish. It’s all kinds of perfect, because it’s everything the city and its foodies already love: fresh ingredients, seafood, spices and tantalizing sauces with distinctly Asian fusion flavors. Well, a newcomer at 1258 Robson Street, Poké Time , opening its doors for the first time this Saturday at 11am is confident that Vancouverites will fall for its brand of traditional poke with a modern twist. Offering changing seasonal menus and up-beat environment, Poké Time will serve customizable bowls to customers who can choose from a range of bases, sauces, and toppings. We’re drooling over Fresh Ponzu Ahi Tuna and Korean Gochu Organic Tofu bowls. Nom nom nom.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BE6NzxpNBl8/
Owners Johnny Ung and Sandra Kwon, are the perfect duo to open the sunny little bar-style spot at a busy Robson and Jervis intersection. These two avid travelers and passionate foodies, partners in business and in life, decided to open Poké Time after desperately looking for something fresh and light to satisfy their cravings one night, and realizing that poké bars simply did not exist in Vancouver. The couple then took matters into their own hands, and Poké Time was born!
https://www.instagram.com/p/BEl6urzNBl2/
“Vancouver is a city that loves raw seafood, is health conscious, and current with the food trends. We had no doubt that Vancouver would share our love for poke” said Ung and Kwon. Fresh and seasonal menus will certainly draw the foodie crowds. And for those what can’t eat raw seafood, Poke Time will offer alternatives such as tofu and cooked shrimp. Can't get enough of the hottest new dish in town? Check out these 6 great places for it. |
As a result of Russia’s occupation and attempted annexation of Ukrainian territory, the United States has taken several immediate steps to demonstrate our continued commitment to Article 5 collective defense and reassure our NATO allies, including Romania, who are closest to the crisis. The United States and NATO are committed to maintaining an augmented, persistent forward presence in Central and Eastern Europe through at least the end of 2014.
New U.S. Measures:
Maritime Deployments to the Black Sea : In early April, the United States deployed the USS Donald Cook to the Black Sea where the Cook conducted operations to improve interoperability, increase readiness, and develop professional relationships with Allies. The Cook conducted presence operations and a port visit in Constanta, Romania, as well as a passing exercise (PASSEX) with the Romanian Navy.
: In early April, the United States deployed the to the Black Sea where the Cook conducted operations to improve interoperability, increase readiness, and develop professional relationships with Allies. The Cook conducted presence operations and a port visit in Constanta, Romania, as well as a passing exercise (PASSEX) with the Romanian Navy. In late April, the USS Taylor , a frigate and our contribution to the Standing NATO Maritime Group, was deployed to the Black Sea where Taylor conducted bilateral operations with Romania and Georgia, including port visits to both countries.
, a frigate and our contribution to the Standing NATO Maritime Group, was deployed to the Black Sea where Taylor conducted bilateral operations with Romania and Georgia, including port visits to both countries. The USS Vella Gulf will soon enter the Black Sea to conduct port visits and combined maritime training with Allied naval forces.
will soon enter the Black Sea to conduct port visits and combined maritime training with Allied naval forces. Air-to-Air Refueling Missions : Since mid-March, the United States has been flying refueling missions in support of NATO Airborne Early Warning and Control System (AWACS) flights over Poland and Romania.
: Since mid-March, the United States has been flying refueling missions in support of NATO Airborne Early Warning and Control System (AWACS) flights over Poland and Romania. NATO Response Force (NRF): The Department of Defense is exploring options for increasing the readiness of its U.S.-based, NRF-committed Brigade Combat Team.
Enhancements to Previously Planned U.S. Operations:
USS Truxtun: The USS Truxtun entered the Black Sea through the Turkish Straits on March 7 to conduct a port call in Constanta, Romania and a PASSEX with Romanian and Bulgarian naval forces. Truxtun extended its stay in the Black Sea until March 21 to conduct a port visit in Varna, Bulgaria, hold an onboard maritime planning conference with Bulgarian and Romanian officers, and conduct a second PASSEX.
U.S. Ongoing/Steady State Measures: |
Public controversy over the safety of fluoridation programs continues, in some towns leading to successful resistance to water fluoridation. As a public health issue, the scientific evidence for risks vs benefits should be at the core of this debate. A new study sheds significant light on this question.
Some anti-fluoridation activists will latch onto any claim they feel supports their opposition (common behavior in any context), and this leads to a great deal of nonsensical conspiracy-mongering. My favorite is the claim that public water fluoridation is all a plot to allow companies to cheaply dump industrial waste into the public water supply.
These sorts of claims distract from the real issues, and in my opinion does a disservice to the anti-fluoridation movement. I don’t mind the existence of opposition movements, even if I disagree with their position. They can serve a useful function in driving public debate and keeping the powers that be honest and transparent.
When they utilize highly emotional but irrational arguments, however, they relegate their own movement to the crank fringe, they marginalize what might be legitimate issues, and they can lead segments of the public into making fear-based and ultimately harmful decisions. They also miss their opportunity to run an effective and ethical opposition which focuses on legitimate scientific issues, and to effectively advocate for the rights of individuals. (Again, I am not saying I agree with any particular such campaign – but at least focus on the real issues.)
Public water fluoridation programs are a proven safe and effective method to improve oral health. It should also be noted that such programs do not always add fluoride to water – they deliberately adjust the level of fluoride in the water supply to optimal levels. Sometimes this involves reducing fluoride levels, but often involves adding fluoride.
The new study involves the safety of such fluoride programs, and specifically addresses the question of whether or not there is an adverse effect on neurological development, as measured by standard IQ testing.
This issue was recently in the news following the infamous “Harvard study” that claimed to show an adverse effect from fluoride on IQ. I discussed the study here – which was really a systematic review and meta-analysis. In short, the researchers looked at studies that compared high vs low exposure to fluoride and measured IQ. They found that the high exposure group had a lower IQ compared to the low exposure group.
There are two main flaws with concluding from this study that fluoridations programs are not safe. The first is that the high fluoride exposure group (2-10 mg/L range) had exposures that were much higher than what is deliberately maintained in public fluoridation programs (0.5-1.0 mg/L range), which was considered the low fluoride exposure group in these studies.
In other words – the review really showed that the level of flouride in public water supplies with deliberate fluoridation is safe when compared to much higher levels of exposure.
The second major flaw was that the high exposure groups had exposure from toxic sources, such as burning coal, or from high natural sources of fluoride. These types of exposure potentially introduce many confounding factors, that were not controlled for.
The bottom line is that this review of studies provided no evidence that fluoridation programs are a risk to intellectual development, and if anything adds to the evidence for the safety of fluoridation programs (since that level of exposure was associated with a higher IQ).
The new study, unlike the studies in the Harvard review, is a study of exposure to fluoride through a public fluoridation program. This is an impressive study, in that it is a prospective study with a 38 year follow up involving over a thousand subjects with a 95.4% retention.
We conducted a prospective study of a general population sample of those born in Dunedin, New Zealand, between April 1, 1972, and March 30, 1973 (95.4% retention of cohort after 38 years of prospective follow-up). Residence in a CWF area, use of fluoride dentifrice and intake of 0.5-milligram fluoride tablets were assessed in early life (prior to age 5 years); we assessed IQ repeatedly between ages 7 to 13 years and at age 38 years.
The results were dead negative – no difference in IQ among any of the groups, regardless of fluoride exposure. There was a trend toward higher IQ in the fluoride exposed group, but this was not statistically significant, so the study was negative. The lack of correlation held up even when they corrected for possible confounders, like socioeconomic status.
This is as good as it gets for an observational study – a nicely controlled environment, large population, good long term follow up.
Conclusion
This latest study adds to the body of evidence showing that public fluoridation programs are safe, and specifically addresses the issue of IQ that was raised by the Harvard systematic review (which, to reiterate, wasn’t really relevant but was seized upon for anti-fluoridation propaganda).
For public controversies such as whether or not to adjust the level of fluoride in public water supplies, my wish is for the debate to be centered on and informed by the relevant science. If the question comes down to – what does the best scientific evidence say? Then that is something that can be objectively resolved.
Questions about ethics and the rights of individuals vs the duty of the state are more difficult to resolve objectively as there is a measure of personal value in the mix. That is where democracy comes in – we have to collectively decide what freedoms we will surrender in exchange for which public benefits.
But at least let the discussion be informed by proper science, and not obscured by pseudoscience, fear-mongering, and nonsense. |
Atlas Obscura on Slate is a blog about the world's hidden wonders. Like us on Facebook, Tumblr, or follow us on Twitter @atlasobscura.
At 4 am on April 29, 1903, the 600 residents of Frank in Alberta, Canada, were sound asleep when a terrific rumble rang out above them. Less than two minutes later, 15 percent of the population was buried beneath 90 million tons of rock.
Founded as a coal mining town just two years earlier, Frank lay at the base of Turtle Mountain, a 7,251-foot-tall limestone peak. On the morning in question, a section of rock 1,400 feet tall — the height of the Empire State Building — 3,280 feet wide, and 500 feet deep plunged from the summit of the mountain. The southeastern part of Frank, home to 100 people, two miles of railroad, and the coal mine, instantly disappeared beneath 50 to 150 feet of rock.
Advertisement
Amid the destruction came tales of extraordinary survival. The parents of Gladys Ennis, 15 months old at the time, found her choking on mud after the rock slide destroyed the family home. Two-year-old Marion Leitch landed safely on a pile of hay when the rock torrent threw her from her house. Seventeen coal miners, trapped inside the mine, spent 14 hours digging their way out.
Multiple factors led to the rock slide, but Turtle Mountain's unstable geology was a primary cause. Tectonic shift during the creation of the Rocky Mountains caused structurally stronger rock layers to sit on top of weaker ones. Water seeped into the mountain through surface cracks, eroding the limestone. When it froze and thawed, the cracks widened, breaking apart the rock from the inside. Mining operations may have contributed to the mountain's instability, but they were not the main cause of the slide.
Of the approximately 90 victims of the slide, only 18 have been recovered. Those found were beneath shallow rubble — the rest are still buried under the rocks that killed them in 1903.
Other geological oddities: |
A bill passed by the Michigan State Senate would endanger the health of Michiganders by granting sweeping new powers to practitioners of unscientific bogus medicine and treatments, said the Center for Inquiry.
The Conspiracy Meme
Many of these theories are clearly absurd, but some are plausible and others actually contain elements of truth.
Conspiracy theories are easy to propagate and difficult to refute. Having long flourished in politics and religion, they have also spread into science and medicine. It is useful to think of conspiracy theorizing as a meme, a cultural invention that passes from one mind to another and thrives, or declines, through a process analogous to genetic selection (Dawkins 1976). The conspiracy meme competes with other rhetorical memes, such as the fair debate meme, the scientific expertise meme, and the resistance to orthodoxy meme.
The central logic of the conspiracy meme is to question, often on speculative grounds, everything the “establishment” says or does and to demand immediate, comprehensive, and convincing answers to all questions. Unconvincing answers are taken as proof of conspiratorial deception. A good example is the film Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup (Avery 2009), which started out as a short fictional 2005 video about the World Trade Center attacks that was marketed as if it were a truth-seeking documentary. The 2005 video went viral on the Internet and has been viewed by over ten million people. Loose Change raises a long series of questions illustrated by tendentious information, such as the fact that the fires in the World Trade Center were not hot enough to melt steel. But no one had claimed that the steel had melted, only that it had gotten hot enough to weaken and collapse, which it did. The video presents the fact that the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is keeping certain people's tax returns secret, set to an ominous musical background suggestive of evildoing-despite the well-known fact that the IRS keeps everyone's tax returns secret.
When an alleged fact is debunked, the conspiracy meme often just replaces it with another fact. One of the producers of Loose Change, Korey Rowe, stated, “We don't ever come out and say that everything we say is 100 percent [correct]. We know there are errors in the documentary, and we've actually left them in there so that people [will] discredit us and do the research for themselves” (Slensky 2006).
When the conspiracy meme is reinforced by a regular diet of “alternative” videos and one-sided literature, it can become a habitual way of thinking. People who believe in one conspiracy are more likely to believe in others (Goertzel 1994; Kramer 1998). A young self-declared conspiracy theorist challenged me to debate one conspiracy theory per week with him, including theories about genetically modified (GM) foods, vaccine neurotoxins, AIDS, and September 11, 2001. He expressed his “true belief” that there is a “kernel of truth” in almost every conspiracy theory and claimed that once you understand the kernel, all you have to do is “connect the dots to make a picture.”
Conspiracy theorists have connected a lot of dots. The ninety-two conspiracy theories described in a recent handbook (McConnachie and Tudge 2008) range in topic from Tutankhamen and the curse of the pharaoh, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and satanic ritual abuse to the alleged scheming of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and the British royal family. Other theories involve religious cults, alien abductions, or terrorist plots. Some are merely amusing, but others have fueled wars, inquisitions, and genocides in which millions of people died.
Scientific and technological conspiracies often allege the misuse of science by government, the military, or large corporations, and they include bizarre claims that the military suppressed technology that could make warships invisible, automobile or oil companies possess hidden technology that can turn water into gasoline, and the military is secretly in cahoots with space aliens. Conspiracy theorists have argued that the AIDS virus was deliberately created as part of a plot to kill black or gay people, the 1969 Moon landing was staged in a movie studio, and dentists seek to poison Americans by fluoridating public water supplies. Other theorists claim that corporate officers and public health officials suppress evidence that preservatives in vaccines cause autism and silicone breast implants cause connective-tissue disease (Specter 2009; Wallace 2009).
Conspiracy theories include claims that a major drug company hid reports stating that its leading anti-inflammatory drug caused heart attacks and strokes (Specter 2009) and that environmental scientists have conspired to keep refereed journals from publishing papers by researchers skeptical that global warming is a crisis (Hayward 2009; Revkin 2009). There are many theories about physicians or drug companies conspiring to suppress non-mainstream medical treatments, vitamins, and health foods. One author alleges that big business and the medical establishment conspired to obstruct the search for a cure for AIDS so that they could sell their ineffective drugs and treatments (Nussbaum 1990).
Many of these theories are clearly absurd, but some are plausible and others actually contain elements of truth. How can we distinguish among the amusing eccentrics, the honestly misguided, the avaricious litigants, and the serious skeptics questioning a premature consensus? With scientific claims, the only definitive answer is to reexamine the original research data and repeat the experiments and analysis. But no one has the time or the expertise to examine the original research literature on every topic, let alone repeat the research. As such, it is important to have some guidelines for deciding which theories are plausible enough to merit serious examination.
One valuable guideline is to look for cascade logic in conspiracy arguments (Susstein and Vermeule 2008). This occurs when defenders of a conspiracy theory find it necessary to implicate more and more people whose failure to discover or reveal the conspiracy can be explained only by their alleged complicity. Another guideline is to look for exaggerated claims about the power of the conspirators, claims that are needed to explain how they were able to intimidate so many people and cover their tracks so well. The more vast and powerful the alleged conspiracy, the less likely that it could have remained undiscovered.
For example, the claim that the Moon landing in 1969 was a hoax implies the complicity of thousands of American scientists and technicians, as well as that of Soviet astronomers and others around the world who tracked the event. It is incredibly implausible that such a conspiracy could have held together. On the other hand, the theory that a few individuals in Richard Nixon's campaign conspired to break into their opponents' offices in the Watergate building was plausible and proved worth investigating. Similarly, the theory that a group of climate scientists conspired to suppress research that they believed to be misleading and harmful to public policy is plausible and worth investigating, despite the small likelihood that such a conspiracy would remain undetected for long.
Definition of ‘Conspiracy'
The conspiracy meme works because conspiracies do exist in the real world. Claims of conspiracy cannot be reflexively dismissed, but they are difficult to test because lack of evidence can be interpreted as proof of how cleverly the conspirators have hidden it. The first step in testing claims of conspiracy is to establish precisely what is being claimed. There is no single accepted definition of “conspiracy,” and people apply the term differently depending on their point of view. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a conspiracy quite loosely as “an agreement between two or more persons to do something criminal, illegal, or reprehensible.” There are legal definitions of criminal conspiracy, but whether something is “reprehensible” is in the eye of the beholder. When Hillary Clinton protested that her husband was the victim of a “vast right-wing conspiracy” and Lyndon Johnson accused the media and liberal activists of a “conspiracy” to oppose his Vietnam War policies, these claimants were intentionally vague as to whether they referred to illegal or merely reprehensible behavior (Kramer and Gavrieli 2005). Any group of people organizing for a cause the speaker does not like may be denounced as “conspirators.”
But the word conspiracy also usually implies something that is secret and hidden. Pigden (2006, 20) defines a conspiracy as “a secret plan on the part of a group to influence events in part by covert action.” Conspiracies so defined certainly do take place, and it may be that the most successful ones are never discovered. They include the (failed) conspiracy to assassinate Adolph Hitler; the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks; and the Watergate conspiracy. But the term “conspiracy theory” usually refers to claims that important events have been caused by conspiracies that have heretofore remained undiscovered (Coady 2006). The claim that the World Trade Center was bombed by al-Qaeda would not be a conspiracy theory in this sense, but the claim that it was bombed by Israeli agents or that American authorities knew about it in advance would be. There is no chance of getting agreement on an “official” definition, but people alleging conspiracy should be challenged to be clear about their meaning.
The conspiracy meme flourishes best in politics, religion, and journalism, where practitioners can succeed by attracting followers from the general public. It isn't essential that practitioners actually believe the theory; they may just find it plausible and useful to raise doubts and discredit their competitors. But this strategy should not be enough for scientists. Scientific findings are just that-findings, not speculations about undiscovered goings-on. These findings must be replicable by other scientists.
In their routine work, scientists have little use for the conspiracy meme because success in scientific careers comes from winning grant applications and publishing significant findings in peer-reviewed journals. Attacking other scientists as conspirators would not be helpful for most scientists' careers, however frustrated they may be with referees, editors, colleagues, or administrators who turn down their manuscripts or grant proposals or deny them tenured jobs. But the conspiracy meme may be useful for scientists who are so far out of the mainstream in their field that they seek to appeal to alternative funding sources or publication outlets. The conspiracy meme also occasionally surfaces when a scientist's mental health deteriorates to the point that he or she loses touch with reality.
Trial lawyers, on the other hand, have a great deal of use for the conspiracy meme because they succeed by convincing juries. It is part of the standard repertoire of memes they use to discredit evidence offered by “experts” of all kinds, including scientists. Lawyers focus on the motivations of the experts, on who hired them, on what they are being paid for their testimony, and so on. They also seek out an “expert” who will testify on their side, implying that expertise is for sale to the highest bidder and that opinion is divided on the issue in question. The rewards can be very great if a class-action lawsuit results in a settlement against a wealthy corporation.
Vaccine Conspiracies
Conspiracy theories about vaccines were given a tremendous boost when the esteemed medical journal the Lancet published a study reporting a hypothesized link between the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism (Burgess et al. 2006). The media highlighted the story despite the study's very small sample size and speculative causal inferences, and the public reaction was much larger than medical and public health authorities anticipated. Reasons for the public reaction included resentment of pressure on parents, distrust of medical authorities, and the potentially catastrophic nature of possible risk to a vulnerable population. There was also the potential for large class-action settlements in favor of parents who believed their children were injured by the vaccines, some of whom desperately needed help to care for autistic children.
The result was a decline in the proportion of parents having their children vaccinated and a subsequent increase in disease, especially in the United Kingdom. The authorities responded by citing findings from large epidemiologic studies, but much of the press coverage highlighted anecdotal accounts and human-interest stories. Recovery of public confidence in vaccination may be due more to revelations of conflicts of interest on the part of the physician who published the original article-which was eventually withdrawn by the journal-than to the overwhelming evidence for the lack of a relationship between vaccination and autism rates.
Conspiracy theorists typically overlook lapses in logic and evidence by their supporters, but they are quick to pounce on any flaw on the part of their opponents. When a leading Danish vaccine researcher was accused of stealing funds from his university, the vaccine conspiracy theorists pounced. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., son of a former U.S. Attorney General, used the occasion to denounce the “vaccine cover-up” on the influential blog Huffington Post (Kennedy 2010). He explained away the research findings on vaccines and autism on the grounds that there had been a change in the Danish law and the opening of a new autism clinic. He criticized vaccine researchers for receiving money from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for their studies and for “being in cahoots with CDC officials intent on fraudulently cherry-picking facts to prove vaccine safety.” But if the CDC had not funded this research, largely in response to popular concerns, vaccine opponents would have denounced it for not doing so.
Genetically Modified Food Conspiracies
Public alarm about GM foods was aroused when a scientist, Árpád Pusztai, claimed in a television interview that rats had suffered intestinal damage due to eating GM potatoes (“Genetically modified” 2010; Enserink 1999). The finding was clearly preliminary; there were only six rats in each of two groups, and one group was fed GM potatoes for only ten days. The reported effects on the rats were minor, but the study received tremendous publicity because it fed into fears that had long been cultivated by environmentalist and anti- capitalist social movements. As the controversy progressed, questions were raised about the integrity of the study, leading Pusztai to leave his research institute. But anti-GM activists denounced criticisms of the research as a conspiracy and circulated a petition among scientists supporting Pusztai's rights. Finally, the Lancet published his study, which had not yet appeared in a refereed journal. They sent it to six reviewers, only one of whom opposed publication. But one of the reviewers who favored publication said he “deemed the study flawed but favored publication to avoid suspicions of a conspiracy against Pusztai and to give colleagues a chance to see the data for themselves” (Enserink 1999).
By releasing his findings on television, Pusztai received extraordinary attention for a study that otherwise might never have been accepted by a leading scientific journal. At least, that was the opinion of the editor of a competing journal who asked “when was the last time [the Lancet] published a rat study that was uninterpretable? This is really lowering the bar” (Enserink 1999). Releasing controversial findings on the Internet or through press releases is justified as a way of making important discoveries available quickly, but it also serves to circumvent the normal scientific review process. Sometimes these “findings,” such as the claim that the decline in crime in the United States in the 1990s was due to the legalization of abortion in the 1970s, become part of the conventional wisdom before other scientists have a chance to debunk them (Zimring 2006).
The Fair Debate Meme
Dissenters from mainstream science often invoke the meme that there are two sides to every question and each side is entitled to equal time to present its case. George W. Bush famously suggested that students be taught both evolution and creationism so that they can judge which has the most convincing argument. Similarly, holocaust deniers demand equal time for their side of the argument, and they might travel to Tehran or wherever they can find a receptive audience. If these dissenters, or “revisionists,” succeed in getting an opportunity to present their case, they will hammer away at any gaps or contradictions in the evidence presented by mainstream researchers, using rhetoric that questions their opponents' motivations while avoiding any hint of weakness or bias in their own case.
This advocacy meme is widely used in law courts and political debates, and it can work well when the question at hand is one of taste or morality. It doesn't work well for scientists because there are objectively right and wrong answers to most scientific questions-they can't be resolved by votes of schoolchildren. Schoolchildren in 1945 might have agreed with U.S. Admiral William Leahy's famous statement that “the [atomic] bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert on explosives.” But once the bomb went off, there were no longer two sides to the question.
The Scientific Expertise Meme
In deciding to pursue the atomic bomb project, President Harry Truman relied on another meme that is very powerful in western societies, that of reliance on scientific expertise. Decision makers and the general public are most likely to be persuaded by this meme when scientists are in agreement and when their advice and policy prescriptions have a good track record. There is an inherent tension between the policy makers' desire for consensus and the scientists' need to remain open to alternative theories and evidence. Scientists who wish to influence policy may be tempted to claim a scientific consensus when the facts do not yet warrant one.
We social scientists have forfeited much of our potential influence because we are too often perceived as advocates for a cause rather than as objective researchers. Our ability to predict policy outcomes is very limited, yet we sometimes fall into the trap of claiming to know more than we do. Econometricians have been publishing conflicting analyses of the relationship between capital punishment and homicide rates for decades without making any real progress, yet they continue to use their findings to advocate for or against capital punishment (Goertzel and Goertzel 2008). When President Bill Clinton proposed welfare reform in the United States, social scientists specializing in the topic almost universally predicted that a disastrous increase in poverty and hunger would result. In some cases they defended their predictions with elaborate statistical models, despite the fact that these models had no demonstrated track record for predicting trends in poverty (Goertzel 1998). President Clinton deferred to politicians and conservative activists who predicted that poverty and dependency would decline as, in fact, they did.
Memes Collide: HIV/AIDS Deniers
The conflict between the fair debate meme and the scientific expertise meme was pronounced in the dispute between the late Nature editor John Maddox and biologist Peter Duesberg, who opposes the theory that HIV causes AIDS. Relying on the norms of fairness in debate, Duesberg (1995) sought the right to reply to scientific papers that defend mainstream views about the HIV-AIDS connection. At a certain point in the debate, Maddox refused to continue to give Duesberg “the right of reply,” arguing that Duesberg had “forfeited the right to expect answers by his rhetorical technique. Questions left unanswered for more than about ten minutes he takes as further proof that HIV is not the cause of AIDS. Evidence that contradicts his alternative drug hypothesis on the other hand is brushed aside.” Maddox argued that Duesberg was not asking legitimate scientific questions but rather making demands and implying, “Unless you can answer this, and right now, your belief that HIV causes AIDS is wrong” (Maddox 1993).
Maddox observed that “Duesberg will not be alone in protesting that this is merely a recipe for suppressing challenges to received wisdom. So it can be. But Nature will not so use it. Instead, what Duesberg continues to say about the causation of AIDS will be reported in the general interest. When he offers a text for publication that can be authenticated, it will if possible be published.” As an editor of a scientific journal, Maddox was justified in saying that he would publish papers that offered new findings, not ones that just picked at unanswered questions in other people's work. But Maddox was realistic in realizing that his refusal to publish additional comments by Duesberg would be portrayed as censorship by believers in the AIDS conspiracy theory.
The Resistance to Orthodoxy Meme
Duesberg and other dissenters also rely on another well-established rhetorical meme, that of the courageous independent scientist resisting orthodoxy. This meme is frequently introduced with the example of Galileo's defense of the heliocentric model of the solar system against the orthodoxy of the Catholic Church. And there are other cases of dissenting scientists who have later been proven right. Thomas Gold (1989) reports confronting the “herd mentality” of science when advancing his theories on the mechanisms of the inner ear and the nature of pulsars as rotating neutron stars, both of which later came to be accepted. This “herd mentality” is not the product of a deliberate conspiracy, although it may be perceived as one. It is a collective behavior phenomenon: a belief is reinforced and becomes part of the conventional wisdom because it is repeated so often. This is why those who offer differing views are important. Being a dissenter from orthodoxy isn't so difficult; the hard part is actually having a better theory than the conventional one. Dissenting theories should be published if they are backed by plausible evidence, but this does not mean giving critics “equal time” to dissent from every finding by a mainstream scientist.
In his response to Duesberg, Maddox refers to the philosophical argument, associated with Karl Popper, that science progresses through falsification of hypotheses. Maddox says, “True, good theories (pace Popper) are falsifiable theories, and a single falsification will bring a good theory crashing down.” But he goes on in the next sentence to implicitly rely on a different philosophy of science, often associated with the work of Imre Lakatos, which is that science normally progresses by correcting and adding to ongoing research programs, not by abandoning them every time a hypothesis fails. Maddox says, “Unanswered questions are not falsifications; rather, they should be the stimulants of further research.”
Scientists do change their ideas in response to new evidence, perhaps more often than people in most walks of life. Linus Pauling abandoned his triple-helix model of DNA as soon as he saw the evidence for the double-helix model. But he never abandoned his advocacy of vitamin C as a treatment for the common cold and cancer, no matter how many studies failed to show a significant difference between experimental and control groups. Pauling found flaws in each study's research design and insisted that the results would be different if only the study were done differently. He never did any empirical research on vitamin C himself, research that would have risked failing to confirm his hypotheses. He instead limited himself to debunking published scientific studies. Unfortunately, Pauling is probably better known by the general public for this work than for his undisputed and fundamental contributions to chemistry. Pauling did not claim that he was the victim of a conspiracy; he saw himself as challenging the herd mentality of science. But his scientific prestige lent credibility to those who sought to discredit scientific medicine as a conspiracy of doctors and drug companies (Goertzel and Goertzel 1995). Scientific expertise is usually quite specialized, and scientists who advocate for political causes only tangentially related to their area of specialization have no special claim on the truth.
Conspiracy theorists often seem to believe that they can prove a scientific theory wrong by finding even a minor flaw or gap in the evidence for it. Then they claim conspiracy when scientists endeavor to fix the flaw or fill the gap. If the scientists persist in their work, on the assumption that a solution will be found, they are again charged with conspiracy. In fact, the occasions when an entire scientific theory is overthrown by a negative finding are few and far between. This is especially true in fields depending on statistical modeling of complex phenomena for which there are often multiple models that are roughly equally good (or bad), and the choice of a data set and decisions about data-set filtering are often critical. The more important test of a research program is whether progress is being made over a period of time and whether better progress could be made with an alternative approach. Progress can be measured by the accumulation of a solid, verifiable body of knowledge with a very high probability of being correct (Franklin 2009).
Climate Change Conspiracy
The conspiracy meme has been especially prominent in the debate about global warming. When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published its report in 1996, an eminent retired physicist, Frederick Seitz (1996), accused it of a “major deception on global warming” on the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal. Seitz did not offer a scientific argument that the report's conclusions were wrong. Instead, he attacked the committee's procedure in editing its document, accusing the editors of violating their own rules by rewording and rearranging parts of the text to obscure the views of skeptical scientists. This seemingly obscure point about the editing of a UN technical document proved remarkably effective in providing a rallying point for opponents of the report's conclusions.
A careful review of the incident (Lahsen 1999) concluded that the editors did not violate any of their own rules and that the editorial changes were reasonable. Editors, after all, do edit texts, all the more so when the texts are written by a committee. The skeptical arguments were not deleted from the report, but they were repositioned and rephrased, perhaps giving them less emphasis than Seitz thought they deserved. But the conspiracy meme was successful in shifting much of the public debate from the substance of the issue to criticism of personalities, procedures, and motivations. The climate scientists felt attacked and apparently began to think of themselves more as activists under siege than as neutral scientists. In 2009, computer hackers released private e-mails apparently showing that some climate scientists had pressured editors not to publish papers by skeptics and that the climate scientists had looked for ways to present their data to reinforce their advocacy views (Revkin 2009; Hayward 2009; Broder 2010).
Climate science is heavily dependent on complex statistical models based on limited data, so it is not surprising that models based on different assumptions give differing results (Schmidt and Amman 2005). In presenting their data, some scientists were too quick to smooth trends into a “hockey stick” model that fit with their advocacy concerns. Several different groups of well-qualified specialists have now been over the data carefully, and the result is a less linear “hockey stick,” with a rise in temperature during a medieval warm period and a drop during a little ice age. But the sharp increase in warming in the twentieth century, which is the main point of the analysis, is still there (“Hockey stick controversy” 2010; Brumfiel 2006).
This is not the place to review the substance of the issue, which has already been debated extensively in this journal. An encouraging thing, however, is that despite the bitterness is the debate about scientists' behavior, there is considerable consensus on the issue of global warming itself. One of the responsible critics, for example, frankly states that “climate change is a genuine phenomenon, and there is a nontrivial risk of major consequences in the future” (Hayward 2009). But there is no consensus on how high the risk is, how quickly it is likely to materialize, or the costs and benefits of strategies needed to counter it.
The less responsible critics simply dismiss the issue as a hoax and focus exclusively on the peccadilloes of the other side. The climate scientists gave the conspiracy theorists an opening by letting their advocacy color their science, which compromised the legitimacy of their enterprise and, ironically, weakened the political movement itself. This is especially unfortunate because the underlying science is fundamentally correct.
Conspiracy Consequences
Faced with assaults on their professional credibility, scientists may be tempted to retreat from the world of public policy. But allowing the conspiracy theorists to dominate the public debate can have tragic consequences. Fear of science and belief in conspiracies has led British parents to expose their children to life-threatening diseases, the South African health department to reject retroviral treatment for AIDS, and the Zambian government to refuse GM food from the United States in the midst of a famine. Fear of science is not new. Benjamin Franklin was afraid to vaccinate his family against smallpox and regretted it deeply when a son died of the disease in 1736. Parents are making the same mistake today.
Advocacy groups sometimes find it easier to arouse fears of science than to advocate for other goals that may actually be more fundamental to their concerns. The movement against GM foodstuffs in Europe was mobilized largely by anti-capitalist, anti-corporate, and anti-American activists who found it more effective than attacking corporate capitalism directly (Purdue 2000; Schurman 2004). These ideologies have much less support in North America, and efforts to organize against GM food here were much weaker. North Americans have suffered no significant ill effects from the integration of these foods into their diet, a fact that Greenpeace and other advocacy groups studiously ignore. One suspects that if GM seeds had been invented by a socialist government, these advocacy groups would have heralded them as a great victory in the war against hunger.
Public policy requires reaching consensus to make decisions, even though some uncertainty usually remains. If scientists cannot do this, surely it is too much to expect politicians or journalists to do it. Efforts to define a consensus are vulnerable to attacks by conspiracy theorists who portray a consensus as a mechanism for suppressing dissent and debate. But there will always be dissenters, and at a certain point arguing with them becomes unproductive. In 1870, Alfred Russell Wallace allowed himself to be drawn into an extended conflict with Flat Earth theorist John Hampden, editor of the Truth-Seeker's Oracle and Scriptural Science Review. Their dispute over whether the Earth is round involved measuring the curvature of the water on the Old Bedford Canal in England. There was a public wager, which Wallace won, followed by a lawsuit when Hampden refused to pay, a threat against Wallace's life, and a prison term for Hampden. Hampden and his followers were never convinced the Earth is not flat, and belief in the “round Earth conspiracy” apparently persists to this day (Garwood 2008; O'Neill 2008).
Scientists will never reach a consensus with Flat Earthers or with those who believe the Earth was created in 4004 bce. Nor do they need to. The best that science can provide is a clearly specified degree of consensus among scientists who base their conclusions on empirical data. Efforts to reach consensus on important questions have been discouraged due to the influence of philosophers of science who emphasize conflicting research programs, paradigm shifts, and scientific revolutions (Franklin 2009; Stove 1982). Although these events do occur in the history of science, they are exceptional. Most sciences, most of the time, progress with an orderly, gradual accumulation of knowledge that is recognized and accepted by specialists in the field. Opposition rooted in religious or ideological concerns is acceptable as part of the democratic political process, but it need not prevent scientists from reaching a consensus when one is justified.
Peer Review
The peer review process in scientific journals plays a central role in determining which research findings deserve to be incorporated in the scientific consensus on an issue. As such, this process is a target for conspiracy theorists. Peer reviewers are usually anonymous, which suggests they may have something to hide. Although authors' names are usually removed from studies to be reviewed, reviewers are specialists in the same field and can often guess who the authors are. Reviewers are not in a good position to detect actual fraud; they can't redo the experiments or the data analysis. And they may reject papers that go against the conventional wisdom or political consensus in their field (Franklin 2009, 205–11). No adequate alternative to peer review has been proposed, but initiatives to make the review process more transparent may help, including making reviewers' comments and the original data sets available on the Internet.
The credibility of peer review has been undermined in the recent dispute over global warming because the reviewers are drawn from a fairly small pool of specialists who are known to have a policy agenda. The appointment of panels of distinguished scientists to review the body of research in the field is an excellent step to rebuilding credibility (Broder 2010). The review panels must have full access to all the data sets, as well as the time and expertise to conduct their own analyses if necessary-which cannot normally be expected of volunteer reviewers for a journal. It is important that these reviewers give qualified specialists an opportunity to present alternative views, as long as these views are based on scientific analysis of appropriate data and not just polemical criticism. No matter how well they do their work, however, these panels are likely to be attacked by conspiracy theorists.
If the blue-ribbon scientific commissions confirm the original research findings, perhaps with only modest caveats, many people will be convinced. But individuals with strong feelings about the issue may resort to cascade logic, suspecting that the review panel is also part of the conspiracy. Cascade logic can easily develop into a generalized distrust of anything that comes from a mainstream or elite source. In the past, social psychological studies found that this kind of generalized belief in conspiracies was most common among people who were discontented with the established institutions and elite groups in their society, believed that conditions were worsening for people like themselves, and believed that authorities did not care about them (Goertzel 1994; Kramer 1998).
The conspiracy meme can convert a dry scientific issue into a human drama in which malefactors can be exposed and denounced. Scientists are not trained in dealing with this kind of debate, and there is no reason to expect them to be especially good at it. If they also have strong feelings about the issues, they may fall into the conspiracy meme themselves. But when scientists succumb to the temptation to “fight fire with fire,” they risk losing their credibility as experts. It may be tempting to exaggerate findings in mass media outlets by using graphics that highlight the most extreme possibilities. This may be effective in the short run, but the public feels deceived when today's newest scare is refuted by tomorrow's press release; their belief in science is diminished. In today's political climate, scientists need to be careful about releasing their findings on controversial issues; they must make sure the findings have been thoroughly reviewed and that the data sets are available for others to analyze.
Political decisions will inevitably reflect economic interests and emotional concerns that conflict with what scientists believe is best. But scientists can be more effective if they avoid using the conspiracy meme and other rhetorical devices and instead clearly separate their scientific work from their political advocacy as citizens.
References
Avery, Dylan. 2009. Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup. Distributed by Microcinema International. Released September 22.
Broder, John. 2010. Scientists taking steps to defend work on climate. New York Times (March 2). Available online at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/03/science/earth/03climate.html
Brumfiel, Geoff. 2006. Academy affirms hockey-stick graph. Nature 441(7097) (June): 1032–33.
Burgess, David, Margaret Burgess, and Julie Leasak. 2006. The MMR vaccination and autism controversy in United Kingdom 1998–2005: Inevitable community outrage or a failure of risk communication? Vaccine 24(18): 3921–28.
Coady, David. 2006. Conspiracy theories and official stories. In Conspiracy Theories: The Philosophical Debate, edited by David Coady. Hampshire, UK: Ashgate.
Dawkins, Richard. 1976. The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Duesberg, Peter. 1995. Infectious AIDS: Have We Been Misled? Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic.
Enserink, Martin. 1999. The Lancet scolded over Pusztai paper. Science 286 (October 22): 656.
Franklin, James. 2009. What Science Knows and How it Knows It. New York: Encounter.
Garwood, Christine. 2008. Flat Earth: History of an Infamous Idea. New York: Thomas Dunne.
“Genetically modified food conspiracies.” Wikipedia. Accessed March 15, 2010. Available online at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies#cite_ note-Enserink1999B-64
Goertzel, Ted. 1994. Belief in conspiracy theories. Political Psychology 15: 731–42. Available online at http://crab.rutgers.edu/~goertzel/conspire.doc.
---. 1998. Why welfare research fails. Available online at http://crab.rutgers.edu/%7Egoertzel/fail2.html.
Goertzel, Ted, and Benjamin Goertzel. 1995. Linus Pauling: A Life in Science and Medicine. New York: Basic Books.
---. 2008. Capital punishment and homicide rates: Sociological realities and econometric distortions. Critical Sociology 34(2): 239–54.
Gold, Thomas. 1989. The inertia of scientific thought. Speculations in Science and Technology 12(4): 245–53. Available online at www.suppressedscience.net/inertiaofscientificthought.html.
Hayward, Steven. 2009. Scientists behaving badly. The Weekly Standard 15(13) (December 14). Available online at www.weeklystandard. com/Content/Public/Art cles/000/000/017/300ubchn.asp.
“Hockey stick controversy.” Wikipedia. Accessed February 27, 2010. Available online at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy.
Kaufman, Leslie. 2010. Darwin foes add warming to targets. New York Times (March 3). Available online at www.nytimes.com/2010/03/04/science/earth/04climate.html.
Keeley, Brian. 2006. Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition! More thoughts on conspiracy theory. In Conspiracy Theories: The Philosophical Debate, edited by David Coady. Hampshire, UK: Ashgate.
Kennedy, Robert F. 2010. Central figure in CDC vaccine cover-up absconds with $2m. Huffington Post (March 11). Available online at www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/central-figure-in-cdc-vac_b_494303.html.
Kramer, Roderick. 1998. Paranoid cognition in social systems. Personality and Social Psychology Review 2(4): 251–75.
Kramer, Roderick, and Dana Gavrieli. 2005. The perception of conspiracy: Leader paranoia as adaptive cognition. In The Psychology of Leadership, edited by D. Messick and R. Kramer, 251–61. Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Lahsen, Myanna. 1999. The detection and attribution of conspiracies: The controversy over Chapter 8. In Paranoias within Reason: A Casebook on Conspiracy as Explanation, edited by G. Marcus. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 111–36.
Maddox, John. 1993. Has Duesberg a right of reply? Nature 363: 109. Available online at www.virusmyth.com/aids/hiv/jmrightreply.htm.
McConnachie, James, and Robin Tudge. 2008. The Rough Guide to Conspiracy Theories. London: Penguin.
Nussbaum, Bruce. 1990. Good Intentions: How Big Business and the Medical Establishment are Corrupting the Fight Against AIDS. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press.
O'Neill, Brendan. 2008. Do they really think the Earth is flat? BBC News Magazine (August 4). Available online at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7540427.stm.
Pigden, Charles. 2006. Popper revisited, or what is wrong with conspiracy theories? In Conspiracy Theories: The Philosophical Debate, edited by David Coady. Hampshire, UK: Ashgate.
Purdue, Derrick. 2000. Anti-GenetiX: The Emergence of the Anti-GM Movement. Surrey, UK: Ashgate.
Revkin, Andrew. 2009. Hacked e-mail data prompts calls for changes in climate research. New York Times (November 27).
Schmidt, Gavin, and Caspar Amman. 2005. Dummies guide to the latest “hockey stick” controversy. Available online at http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/02/dummies-guide-to-the-latest-hockey-stick-controversy.
Schurman, Rachel. 2004. Fighting “Frankenfoods”: Industry opportunity structures and the efficacy of the anti-biotech movement in western Europe. Social Problems 51(2): 243–68.
Seitz, Frederick. 1996. Major deception on global warming. Wall Street Journal (June 12). Available online at www.sepp.org/Archive/controv/ipcccont/Item05.htm
Slensky, Michael. 2006. The loose cannon of 9/11. AlterNet.org (August 21). Available online at www.alternet.org/story/40476.
Specter, Michael. 2009. Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives. New York: Penguin.
Stove, David. 1982. Popper and After: Four Modern Irrationalists. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Susstein, Carl, and Adrian Vermeule. 2008. Conspiracy theories. Available online at papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1084585.
Wallace, Amy. 2009. An epidemic of fear. Wired 17(10): 128–36.
Zimring, Franklin. 2006. The Great American Crime Decline. New York: Oxford University Press. |
At first glance, he was just a journeyman striker shipped in to Harrison to partner Thierry Henry. Just the latest in a long line of players the Red Bulls had paired with Henry: Luke Rodgers, Kenny Cooper, Fabian Espindola, Tim Cahill; BWP was just another striking option for a team that had made a habit of cycling through striking options fairly quickly.
Bradley Wright-Phillips arrived at RBNY with a lot of experience. He had played for Manchester City, Southampton, Plymouth Argyle, Charlton Athletic, and landed in MLS after a short loan stint at Brentford.
He was not famous, though he had spent his life in close proximity to soccer celebrity. We knew about his famous father, Ian Wright - a legend at Arsenal. We knew about his older brother, Shaun Wright-Phillips, who found success with both Manchester City and Chelsea, and collected several England caps. And in its own way, perhaps having lived in the shadows cast by his better-known relatives recommended BWP to the job of playing in the shadow cast by Thierry Henry at RBNY.
BWP had been almost 10 years a pro when he arrived at Red Bull Arena. He landed with an open mind and an understandable interest in seeing RBNY's best-known player up close:
I came to play first of all to train, to see what it's like. I wasn't sure about playing in America, obviously Thierry (Henry) is here and I also know Lloyd from home - so that was a nice opportunity to play with him again. And now we're here.
His friendship with Lloyd Sam was instrumental in convincing both player and club (helmed by Sporting Director Andy Roxburgh at the time) to give each other a try. And, of course, there was the attraction of playing alongside Henry, the man who broke Ian Wright's Arsenal scoring record.
BWP signed in late 2013, mostly providing off-the-bench depth for RBNY's run at the Supporters' Shield. He scored his first goal for the Red Bulls on October 20, 2013, knocking in his team's third against a Houston Dynamo side that had been floored by Tim Cahill's (at the time) record-breaking fastest goal in MLS history.
Every fan in BBVA Compass Stadium knew history had been made that day, they just didn't realize it had been made twice: Cahill's wonder-goal was accompanied by the beginning of one of the most productive scoring careers MLS has ever seen.
BWP was on the pitch when RBNY clinched its first-ever trophy: the 2013 Supporters' Shield. And he was the last player to score for the team that season, bagging his first playoff goal (and first at Red Bull Arena) in the team's doomed effort to get by Houston in the post-season.
He was the first player to score for RBNY in 2014, grabbing a consolation goal against Vancouver in the Red Bulls' opening-day defeat by the 'Caps. Still there was no great sign of what was to come. BWP stayed quiet as his team struggled through the first six games of 2014: four ties and two losses, and just that solitary first-day goal from Wright-Phillips.
If you had been watching RBNY, you saw potential in BWP's movement off the ball. He made the right runs for a team that increasingly depended on Henry as a play-maker rather than a goal scorer. He looked like he could be the piece the Red Bulls were missing: a disciplined, dedicated, run-the-channels striker to make something of the vision and ability of a midfield featuring Henry and Peguy Luyindula. But he needed to start finishing chances.
Houston came to the rescue. On April 23, 2014, the floodgates opened: BWP bagged a hat-trick against the Dynamo and has really never looked back since.
What followed was one of the all-time great single-season scoring sprees in MLS history. BWP was rarely off the scoresheet for the rest of the year. He scored 27 in the regular season, matching the league record held by San Jose Earthquakes striker Chris Wondolowski and former Tampa Bay Mutiny and DC United Striker Roy Lassiter.
His early dominance in MLS was astonishing. A near-unknown on the cusp of 30, tearing up the league, outscoring more illustrious reputations. A closer look at his career history suggested this was within the spectrum of BWP's ability: he had back-to-back 20+ goal seasons in England in 2010-11 and 2011-12. But those were achieved in League One - the third tier of English football. And it was a dramatic fall-off in scoring in the 2012-13 season that meant he was available to RBNY in the first place.
Comfortable in his role with the Red Bulls, we saw what BWP could do: he could score. His job was to provide the finish to service provided by Henry, his buddy Lloyd Sam, Peguy Luyindula, Eric Alexander and even the fledgling star, Ambroise Oyongo (who was traded to the Montreal Impact for Felipe in 2015). A curious narrative emerged: "the Henry effect" - it was the service that made BWP look good. It became part of a remarkable effort to diminish the striker's achievements, one that succeeded in excluding him from even the top three in the 2014 MVP voting.
It seemed suspiciously as though the league's taste-makers simply couldn't accept that a guy whose previous biggest achievements had been on a modest stage could tear up MLS. You can judge a player by the achievements of the present or the past. In BWP's case, it seemed his past was held against him, and one of the all-time great single-season performances in league history was buried under a barrage of nonsense: "all he does is score goals" (that is how games are won: it's not a bad talent to have); "he scores too many penalties" (BWP has always maintained that PKs aren't his strength, and he proved it by missing so many in 2015 he was relieved of the responsibility).
No matter. Perhaps the absence of accolades is what fueled Wright-Phillips. He scored multiple goals six times in 2014 and three of them were hat tricks - against the Dynamo, Chicago Fire and the Seattle Sounders, all at Red Bull Arena. The Dynamo deserves special mention, since it was the club that got BWP scoring in 2013 and 2014. He plundered seven goals in all competitions against Houston over those two seasons - more than 20% of his two-year total (33).
While the league's promoters closed their eyes and ears and hoped BWP would go away, he proved his stand-alone talent to anyone who cared to see it at the end of 2014. In the last game of the regular season, the Red Bulls - who had struggled on the road all year - went to Kansas City without Thierry Henry. BWP scored twice, and his record-equaling 27th goal of the season was a single-handed demolition of one of the league's best center back pairings.
All future teammate Aurelien Collin could do was watch.
BWP scored twice again in RBNY's very next game: the opening match of the 2014 playoffs, also against KC. The last-minute winner that sent the Red Bulls through to the next round was a header off a scuffed cross that skewed awkwardly in the air for a long time. Only BWP judged its flight correctly.
He scored again in the first legs of the series against DC and the New England Revolution. But he was suspended for the second leg of the Eastern Conference final against the Revs - and that is where RBNY's 2014 season ended.
It seemed possible that might also have been the end of BWP's incredible work for the Red Bulls. The midfield creators with whom he had enjoyed such chemistry - Henry and Luyindula - were gone by the start of the 2015 season. So too was the coach, Mike Petke, who installed the tactical plan that played so well to BWP's strengths.
In 2015, RBNY turned a page. A new coach, Jesse Marsch, brought in new players - like Sacha Kljestan from Anderlecht, and Glen Cove Long Island native, Mike Grella. There would be a new playing style, one that tasked every player with doing work on both sides of the ball. BWP's magnificent 2014 had been achieved with him single-mindedly chasing passes into the 18-yard box. He didn't get many assists because there was almost never anyone around him to pass to: he was the tip of the spear, not the handle.
With new teammates and a new system, and BWP now 30, if you accepted the "Henry effect" hypothesis, then you were surely convinced Wright-Phillips' days at RBNY were numbered. It was a predictable story: a player shows his very best, the club changes everything, the player struggles, and seeks out a new place to play where he can better make use of his talent. Or for those stubbornly unconvinced by his ability: he'd get found out as a one-note, chase-and-shoot player who wouldn't fit into a tactical plan that wanted every attacking player to work all sides of the ball.
Didn't happen. BWP finished 2015 as the team's top-scorer, and proved to be an essential part of the senior core that took almost immediately to the new system and made it work from the start. RBNY claimed another Shield, and BWP claimed another share of a scoring record: the MLS record for regular-season goals in back-to-back seasons.
In 2016, the horrible 1-6 start coincided with a scoring drought for Wright-Phillips. Those still troubled by where he came from had fresh hope: perhaps this would be the year his limitations would be exposed.
Nope. He scored twice in RBNY's 3-2 win over Orlando on April 24. Since then, he's added another 18. He has torched the club and league record books. He passed Juan Pablo Angel's RBNY scoring record, and has a sign with his name on it at Red Bull Arena tasked with keeping up with the club's new top scorer's achievements.
And he has two league scoring record all to himself: most regular-season goals in a three-year span, and that third year isn't over yet; the first player to reach 20 goals in a regular season in MLS on two occasions.
Did he foresee this sort of success?
I never think that far ahead. I didn't think I would break some of the records I did, if I'm being honest. I felt playing with Thierry, I'd get chances to score and that's as far as it went. Sometimes you see some players go to England or go to Spain and it doesn't work out completely, but this league has been good to me.
Jesse Marsch has seen BWP up close during that difficult transition from the tactics of 2014 to those of the present day. In training before RBNY's 1-0 win over Montreal Impact, he shared his thoughts:
"I think that one of the most unique things about Brad is that he is the complete package. Sometimes I talk to the staff and I ask them - how do I play against Brad, what are you going to do?
Are you going to stop service from the flank? Because he is good in the box and he's good in the air. So are you going to need to have a deep line, because he's really good in moving behind. But if you do that you are going to give him space to operate underneath and he's a great player, and he can find combinations to set up plays that way.
Are you going to try and play a high line and catch him offside? But his movement is so good. Are you trying to be physical against him? That's been part of the book to play against him, but as time moves on here he's gotten more focused and he doesn't get frustrated anymore. He only needs one chance to bury it and he does it."
Perhaps his greatest personal achievement is yet to come. The past that seems to have been held against him might yet be eclipsed by his achievements in MLS. BWP scored a combined 80 goals in all competitions for his various English clubs. He has 71 in all competitions for RBNY. He's just nine goals short of making nearly a decade in English soccer a mere prelude to his best work: his time in MLS.
The MetroStars and Red Bulls have had many great scorers on their books over the year: Giovanni Savarese, Clint Mathis, Adolfo Valencia, Juan Pablo Angel and, of course, Thierry Henry. Bradley Wright-Phillips has surpassed them all, and he has answered every question thrown at his ability since he arrived in MLS.
Yes, other clubs have superstar players, but what is perhaps unique about Bradley Wright-Phillips is his honest, unpretentious hard work. Lothar Mattaus recently told Empire of Soccer that he wasn't treated like a superstar by MetroStars management. Ali Curtis recently complained to Metro (no relation) that BWP and Sacha Kljestan aren't treated like stars by MLS referees. You won't hear that complaint from Wright-Phillips. His career in MLS is just what you see on the field: he got a chance, and he buried it.
And all that remains for him to cap his career is to secure that elusive MLS Cup for RBNY. If he's on the field when that happens, it will be hard to challenge Jesse Marsch's suggestion that BWP is the club's greatest ever player. |
In all of the discussions we’ve had since the season ended six weeks ago about the various choices the Nationals have for their 2017 outfield, we’ve kind of glossed over one more option that isn’t all that outrageous: bringing Ben Revere back as the starting center fielder.
Revere turned into a forgotten man over the season’s final two months, once he was bumped from his starting job by Trea Turner. That bumping was more than deserved, but it left Revere with virtually no role down the stretch. He started only seven of the Nationals’ final 36 games, compiling only 41 plate appearances in that time, then was left off the roster for the National League Division Series.
Despite all this, Revere does remain under the Nats’ control in 2017 ... if they choose to keep him. He’s eligible for one more year of arbitration, and considering the fact he’s likely to earn more than $6 million through that process, it’s widely assumed the Nationals won’t tender him a contract before Friday’s league-wide deadline.
That may yet prove the case, but it’s not out of the question to wonder if the Nats might actually decide to keep Revere and hope his awful 2016 was an anomaly.
And make no mistake, it was an awful year. He hit .217 with a .260 on-base percentage and .560 OPS that ranked last in the majors among all batters with at least 300 plate appearances.
But is that who Revere really is at this stage of his career? There’s legitimate reason to think it’s not.
Consider how consistent he was the previous four seasons. His batting average always fell between .294 and .306, his on-base percentage between .325 and .342.
Consider how his batting average on balls in play between 2012 and 2015 was always between .325 and .344, only to plummet to .234 this season.
And consider that he pulled his oblique muscle on opening day, and despite returning from the disabled list a month later admitted at season’s end he never did fully heal.
“I know guys that have done it and they say it’s tough to come back that year from an oblique injury, their swings were just different,” Revere said in September. “But it’s a lot easier the next year because they had time in the offseason to let it heal.”
All of that suggests Revere is due for a healthy bounceback performance in 2017. But can the Nationals afford to take the chance it’ll actually happen?
They can move Turner to shortstop, leaving center field available once again for Revere. But if he doesn’t bounce back, where does that leave them. And even if he does return to form, are his longstanding weaknesses - a lack of power, a lack of walks, a lack of a strong throwing arm - enough to overshadow whatever offensive contributions he would make?
The safest bet still appears to be a parting between the Nationals and Revere, perhaps before the end of the week.
But don’t discount entirely the chance of him getting a chance to redeem himself after a disappointing debut season in D.C. |
Play Facebook
Twitter
Embed Exclusive: NBC Analysis of Early Voting Shows Clinton with Advantage 1:31 autoplay autoplay Copy this code to your website or blog
Donald Trump’s campaign is "pulling out of Virginia," a move that stunned staff in the battleground state, three sources with knowledge of the decision told NBC News.
The decision came from Trump’s headquarters in New York and was announced on a conference call late Wednesday that left some Republican Party operatives in the state blindsided. Two staffers directly involved in the GOP’s efforts in Virginia confirmed the decision.
The move to pull out of Virginia shows Trump is "running essentially a four state campaign," with the focus now shifting to battlegrounds critical to his chances in November: Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio, a source with knowledge of the decision told NBC News.
Related: Four Women Accuse Trump of Inappropriately Touching Them
Trump's former Virginia state chairman, Corey Stewart, who was recently fired by the Trump campaign for organizing a protest outside Republican National Committee headquarters, called the move "totally premature."
Stewart was not on the conference call, but said he was informed by a staffer who was.
"I think it’s totally premature for the campaign to be pulling out of Virginia after so much work and all the hundreds ... of hours of volunteer time and thousands and thousands of volunteers," Stewart said. "The only thing the campaign had to do was spend money on an ad campaign and it would have been competitive ... I’m just disgusted."
“It’s fair to say money was allocated,” one source said of the Virginia operation, declining to confirm what the specific amount allocated was. “But now they’re looking to move personnel to a state that some people think is more important.”
But "by giving up now, with 26 days to go, you’re giving the Clinton campaign the opportunity to go spend money somewhere else,” the source added.
Another Trump campaign staffer, who declined to be named, pushed back on the characterization, insisting that the decision hadn’t been finalized. "There have been conversations about shifting resources," the source said, "but I haven’t gotten any definitive answer on anything."
Of the latest move out of Virginia, the source read it as “this says the RNC is not helping.”
Virginia has been considered a battleground state since President Barack Obama won it in 2008 after decades of Republican presidential victories there. Trump has trailed Clinton in every poll in Virginia since August, by a margin that’s only widened over the last month.
The decision, Stewart said, "makes it next to impossible to win the state," though he insisted it was winnable if the campaign had just invested in advertising
"They have not been spending money on an ad campaign for months. They’ve had a fraction of the number of paid staff as the Clinton campaign, despite promises by the RNC to boost that up," Stewart said. |
Today, USA Weightlifting named Jenny Arthur (Gainesville, Ga.) to the 2016 U.S. Olympic Team.
Arthur, who has been lifting since 2009, has consistently competed at the top for the past several years. Her cumulative score of the 2014 and 2015 International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) World Championships is the highest among American female athletes – this fact alone qualifies her for her Olympic nomination based on USA Weightlifting selection criteria. In 2014, she placed 14th in 69kg division and just this past month in Houston, she came in 8th in the 75kg category.
Arthur began competing in 2010 in the 69kg division and transitioned to the 75kg division in 2013; she has primarily been lifting at 75kg since then. She is a two-time National Champion, American Open Champion, Junior World Silver Medalists and Pan American Championship Silver Medalist and has competed in the past three consecutive IWF World Championships.
In the 75kg division, Arthur holds the senior and junior American records in the snatch, clean and jerk, and total. The clean and jerk (138kg) and total (244kg) records were set at Worlds last month. She is also the senior and junior American record holder of the clean and jerk in 69kg division.
Arthur has been a resident athlete at the U.S. Olympic Training Center (OTC) in Colorado Springs, Colorado, since 2012. She trains under the guidance of National Team Coach Zygmunt Smalcerz, a retired weightlifter and 1972 Olympic gold medalist. Prior to moving to the OTC, she was coached by Team Georgia Weightlifting’s Stan Luttrell (Gainesville, Ga.)
“We are extremely pleased to have our first athlete nominated to the 2016 Olympic Team. Over the past several years, Jenny has thrived as a resident athlete at the Olympic Training Center, and her nomination is very well deserved. We will look forward to supporting her on the Road to Rio.” said Carissa Gump, Director of Corporate Services.
Off the platform, Arthur is very passionate about getting involved in the community and is a regular volunteer at a local children’s hospital. She aspires to volunteer at different homeless shelters around the world throughout her life.
The 2016 U.S. Olympic Weightlifting Team is subject to approval by the United States Olympic Committee. For selection procedures CLICK HERE.
CAREER ACCOMPLISHMENTS
2015
· IWF World Championships – 8th place, 75kg
· USAW National Champion – 75kg
2014
· IWF World Championships – 14th place, 69kg
· USAW National Champion – 75kg
· Pan American Silver Medalist – 75kg
· Grand Prix & Russian President’s Cup Invitee – 6th place, 75kg
2013
· IWF Junior World Silver Medalist – 75kg
· Pan American Silver Medalist – 75kg
· Junior Pan American Champion – 75kg
· USAW Junior National Champion – 75kg
· USAW American Open Champion – 75kg
2012
· USAW National Silver Medalist –69kg
· USAW Junior National Champion – 69kg
· USAW American Open Champion – 69kg
2011
· USAW Junior National Silver Medalist –69kg
· IWF Junior World Championships Team Member
2010
· USAW Youth National Champion – 69kg |
A new poll by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life reveals that the more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of prisoners.
What in the world is going on?
According to the survey, 54 percent of Americans who attend church at least once per week said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified, while only 42 percent of Americans who “seldom or never” attend church services agreed with that viewpoint.
Wow.
So is that would Jesus do?
Torture helpless prisoners?
Just think about this question: Is a prisoner more likely or less likely to become a Christian if he gets tortured mercilessly by “Christians”?
What about his family? Are they more likely or less likely to become Christians if they know their husband or their father or their son has been mercilessly tortured by “Christians”?
What ever happened to the concept of doing good to those who persecute you?
Well, the truth is that the church is quickly becoming as corrupt as the nation as a whole is, and that is saying a lot.
Imagine a government that cruelly tortures thousands of prisoners endlessly for years and years and then announces to the world that nobody will ever be held accountable for the torture.
That’s torture “American style”.
Where else in the world can you be waterboarded an average of 6 times per day?
It has now been revealed that terror suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in March 2003and Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times in August 2002.
The following is how Wikipedia defines waterboarding:
Waterboarding is a form of torture that consists of immobilizing the victim on his or her back with the head inclined downwards, and then pouring water over the face and into the breathing passages. By forced suffocation and inhalation of water the subject experiences drowning and is caused to believe they are about to die.
Imagine having to go through that once.
Now imagine having to go through it 183 times in one month.
How could we treat any human being that way?
But now it is being announced that nobody will ever be held accountable for all of this torture.
President Barack Obama recently released four top secret memos from during the Bush administration that discussed the torture of terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay and at other secret detention centers around the globe.
In a statement accompanying the release of the memos, Obama said very clearly that those who had been involved in the torture would NOT be prosecuted. Obama stated that this is a “time for reflection, not retribution.”
What in the world?
No prosecution for anyone?
President Obama correctly acknowledged that this was a “dark and painful chapter in our history.”
So why is nobody being held accountable?
“Nothing will be gained,” Obama said, “by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.”
Is he serious?
Is anything gained when we put a rapist in jail?
Is anything gained when we put a serial killer behind bars?
How can he say that nothing would be gained from prosecuting those people who have committed horrific torture crimes?
Apparently Barack Obama thinks that all of this torture is not that big of a deal.
The new attorney-general, Eric Holder, also stated that there will be no prosecution of CIA operatives working within the guidelines set by the Bush administration: “It would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the justice department.”
Unfair?
Was it unfair to prosecute the Nazis after World War II who were “just following the orders of Hitler”?
You can read the four torture memos that Obama released here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/page/torture-memos
The torture techniques described in these memos include…..
*Forced nudity
*”Walling”, which is slamming a prisoner into a wall
*”Cramped confinement” which means “placement of the individual in a confined space”
*Stinging insects placed inside “a confinement box”
*Waterboarding – one of the memos actually admits that “the use of waterboarding constitutes a threat of imminent death”
*Sleep deprivation for several days
*Sleep deprivation while wearing a diaper
*The use of “stress positions” to cause “muscle fatigue”
*”Dietary manipulation”
*Facial and abdominal slapping
One of the most shocking things in these memos is that they recognized that the techniques that they were authorizing were ones that we condemned other countries for using.
However, the reality of American torture goes far beyond what was described in those four memos.
The truth is that it is documented that the torture of American prisoners around the world has been absolutely sadistic and brutal.
The following is list of some of the torture acts that U.S. military personnel committed against “terror suspects” as recorded in the executive summary of the Article 15-6 investigation of the 800th Military Police Brigade by Major General Antonio M. Taguba. A full copy of this report can be found at MSNBC.com…..
*Videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees
*Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing
*Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time
*Forcing naked male detainees to wear women’s underwear
*Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped
*Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them
*Positioning a naked detainee on a MRE Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture
*Writing “I am a Rapest” (sic) on the leg of a detainee alleged to have forcibly raped a 15-year old fellow detainee, and then photographing him naked
*Placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee’s neck and having a female Soldier pose for a picture
*A male MP guard having sex with a female detainee
*Using military working dogs (without muzzles) to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one case biting and severely injuring a detainee
*Taking photographs of dead Iraqi detainees
*Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees
*Threatening detainees with a charged 9mm pistol
*Pouring cold water on naked detainees
*Beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair
*Threatening male detainees with rape
*Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick
Does that sound like sadistic torture to you?
I certainly hope so.
Don’t you think that those who participated in such acts should be held accountable?
So do I.
But apparently Obama does not, so all of the torturers are going to escape punishment and will never be brought to trial.
For even more reports of American torture that are almost too horrific to describe, read these articles:
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=30291
http://arabwomanblues.blogspot.com/2009/05/news-from-iraqs-underworld.html
The word “shame” is not nearly strong enough to describe this state of affairs.
Have the American people sunk so low that they are now perfectly willing to accept that their government brutally tortures people with absolutely no accountability?
Has the church sunk so low that it now applauds the sadistic torture of helpless prisoners?
Growing up I always regarded torture as something that the “bad guys” did.
That was something that the Nazis and the Soviets and the North Koreans did.
Are we now becoming the bad guys?
It is a fair question. |
Students at Dwyer Middle School have knocked on doors, designed fliers and canvassed their Huntington Beach neighborhood -- and they've even sacrificed 30 precious minutes of sleep on school days to protest solar panels planned for the front lawn of the school.
Thirteen-year-old Katie Cason is one of the students. For the last week, she's been protesting in the mornings before class by holding signs, urging drivers to honk horns, and cheering. She said the panels are infringing on a popular grassy area used for socializing.
"It won't be the same at all," she said Thursday morning before class. Cason and a group of students and parents will also be protesting outside the school at 1:30 Thursday, a culmination of months of complaints. Though the students plan to protest at the school, if they are told to leave, they will move to Lake Park, where attorney Gloria Allred is scheduled to hold a news conference.
Parents say they were not properly informed of an $8-million district plan to install solar panels on the front lawn of the middle school. Feasibility studies began in June 2008, but various parents say they didn't know about the panels until October 2010. A contract with Chevron Energy Solutions was signed in April 2010 and includes four other schools.
The district superintendent, Kathy Kessler, acknowledged a breakdown in communication at Dwyer, but she said the school board has weighed all options. The panels are expected to save the district about $75,000 in energy costs annually. Construction costs are to be offset by rebates, savings and other incentives. |
Of the 41 states in the union that have a Football Bowl Subdivision team within their borders, none have more than Texas.
For 12 days, as teams nationwide dig into preseason drills, USA TODAY Sports’ college football reporters are traversing the state of Texas and visiting each of its one dozen FBS programs. AT&T presents Two Weeks in Texas …
Day 10: Texas State
SAN MARCOS, Texas — On a wall just outside Dennis Franchione’s office at Texas State University’s football complex, framed newspaper covers trace the arc of a career that barely seems possible.
At 38, he was an NAIA coach scratching out wins in nowhere Kansas and thrilled to get his big break making $60,000 a year at the school then known as Southwest Texas State. Fewer than a dozen years later, he was the head coach at Ala-freaking-Bama, a meteoric rise worthy of respect in and of itself even if the way that particular chapter ended (or others in Franchione’s career) left some hard feelings in his wake.
But the last act of Franchione’s career may turn out to be his most fulfilling. After the journey that took him to New Mexico, TCU, Alabama and Texas A&M, “Coach Fran” has come back to his roots and back to the place that, in many ways, started it all.
“I’ve always taken over the down jobs or rebuilds or whatever you want to call them,” Franchione said. “Coming back here, this pony probably doesn’t buck quite as hard as some of them I’ve had, but that’s OK. I get to coach, and I really like our players right now. I’m kind of an old ballcoach, I guess. I’m having more fun coaching right now than in a long, long time.”
So little is known nationally about the football program at Texas State — the “Southwest” prefix got chopped off in 2003 — it couldn’t even get one of the Sun Belt Conference’s bowl bids last year despite a 7-5 record and a resounding head-to-head victory against Arkansas State, which also finished 7-5 but was invited to the GoDaddy Bowl.
Despite the extreme disappointment of staying home for the holidays — “Telling the team we didn’t get (a bowl bid) is one of the hardest things I’ve had to do in coaching,” Franchione said — simply having more wins than losses was a major step for the Bobcats, who are entering their fourth season in FBS.
And even though Franchione may be remembered more for the clumsy way he left Alabama after just two years or the controversy that bubbled at Texas A&M around his ill-advised decision to sell an inside information newsletter to boosters, it is undeniable that he can build a winner.
He did it at New Mexico, a program so bad it lost a game 94-17 the year before Franchise arrived but was contending for the WAC title by the time he left. He did it at TCU, which had been to just one bowl game the previous 13 years, posting three winning seasons and laying the foundation for what Gary Patterson turned into a national power. Heck, he even did it in Tuscaloosa, cleaning up the mess left by Mike DuBose and winning the SEC West in 2002 despite NCAA sanctions that prohibited the Crimson Tide from playing in the league championship game.
Now he’s doing it at a place he knows well, albeit from 25 years ago when its profile was smaller and its athletic ambitions weren’t so big. But Texas State, like a handful of other schools, seized opportunity during the realignment wave of 2010 and moved up from FCS with dreams of cashing in on its location and exploding enrollment of 31,000 undergraduates.
“I was in the back yard messing around and got the call about this job and I had to go and talk to (my wife) about it because I’m not sure she wanted me to coach anymore,” Franchione, 64, said. “I said, ‘How’d you feel if I went back to Texas State to coach?’ She said, ‘I could do that’ because we loved being here the first time. We were both fired up.
“I always felt, and I feel even stronger about it today, that this school can do whatever it wanted to. It has the enrollment, it’s developing the alumni base. I don’t think there’s any limit to what this school can be.”
Still, there have been and continue to be challenges. Initially, Franchione struggled to pull players out of the Dallas-Fort Worth area because Texas State had no identity as an FBS program. The players he inherited were recruited to play FCS, and some probably weren’t even that good. The schedule was tougher than anything this school had ever faced.
Then, even when the school found some success last season, it didn’t receive a just reward.
“It was frustrating, but if we had made one more play, done something different maybe things would’ve gone our way,” quarterback Tyler Jones said. “A lot of it has to do with attendance, who you beat, when you beat them, how you travel, stuff like that, but we had some things we needed to do as a team that fall back on us. Our slogan this year is ‘Leave No Doubt,’ so it’s a mentality we have to have and remember the goal.”
Making a bowl game was Franchione’s goal when he took the job, and it seems the Bobcats are getting closer all the time. The school has upgraded the stadium. It’s funding full cost of attendance scholarships. The roster, top to bottom, is now full of players recruited with FBS in mind.
And Franchione is well on his way to bringing his career full circle; a turnaround artist putting some final brushstrokes on his last project.
“It’s not ‘Mission Accomplished’ yet,” Franchione said. “I like our coaches. We’ve had good continuity. I like our players. We’ve got a good administration. We’ve got good people here, a great community. I think we have a chance to win, and at the end of the day, when you get on the bus you hope you have a 50/50 chance. At some places you don’t, but we do.” |
A Lord's Resistance Army rebel commander who surrendered to US troops last week will be taken to The Hague for trial, Uganda's military has said.
Dominic Ongwen is now in US custody in Obo, a town in eastern Central African Republic, the country where he surrendered on January 6, said Uganda's army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Paddy Ankunda.
"It has been finally decided that Dominic Ongwen will be tried at The Hague. Victims will get justice as much as Ongwen," Ankunda told the Reuters news agency.
"Arrangements for his transfer are being made and it will be CAR that will transfer him," he said.
The capture of Ongwen, 34, marks a major success in the Africa-US military campaign to crush the Lord's Resistance Army led by Joseph Kony, which according to the United Nations has killed more than a 100,000 people and kidnapped mor than 60,000 children.
The United Nations, African Union, Uganda, a critic of the ICC, and United States consulted on the decision, Nkunda said, the Associated Press news agency reported.
US officials say the US is trying to orchestrate a transfer of Ongwen to the court via the Central African Republic or Ugandan authorities because Washington is not a signatory to the court's Rome Statute, the charter that led to the court's formation.
The Central African Republic, one of the nations where the Lord's Resistance Army has been active in recent years, is a signatory.
Trial concerns
Although Uganda wanted to try Ongwen itself, the US has concerns about how he would be treated there and whether high standards of detention and prosecution would be upheld, officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly on the ongoing diplomacy.
Asuman Kiyingi, Uganda's state minister for Regional Co-operation, had said on Monday that Uganda wanted to try him.
The LRA launched an armed rebellion in Uganda in the 1980s and committed widespread atrocities, raping and maiming civilians who were reluctant to join its campaign.
Ongwen, Kony and three others who have reportedly since died were charged by the ICC. The ICC warrant of arrest for Ongwen lists seven counts of alleged individual criminal responsibility, including crimes against humanity, enslavement, murder and inhumane acts of inflicting serious bodily injury.
Kony became internationally well-known in 2012 when a US-based advocacy group produced a widely viewed video. Despite an intensified hunt, Kony is believed to be constantly on the move across Central Africa. |
For 14 years the SafetyAid program has been going into homes to help make Manitoba seniors safer through pretty simple steps — better locks, peepholes in apartment doors and just talking about precautions.
The last thing they expected was for their funding to be slashed, said Amanda Macrae, CEO at Age and Opportunity, the non-profit organization providing specialized services for older Manitobans, including the SafetyAid program.
"We just really had no indication that SafetyAid would be one of our programs that would have funding cut," Macrae said.
At the beginning of May, the non-profit received a letter from Manitoba Justice outlining the terms of how $150,000 in funding for the program would be phased out.
"No real explanation has been provided to date," Macrae said.
The program sees workers go into homes of older Manitobans, particularly those who are low income, and do a crime prevention assessment before working to enhance safety.
It was expanded to include fall assessments and will also install deadbolts, peepholes, swing bars, smoke alarm batteries, non-slip bath mats, night lights, flashlights, fluorescent stair tape, ice melt for sidewalks and ice grip tips for canes for no cost.
"The agency has provided over 7,800 home audits and they've reached out and provided safety presentations and different outreach initiatives at housing expos, booths and health fairs to over 44,000 older Manitobans," Macrae said, adding they also speak about how seniors can avoid online and phone scams.
Throughout the years, it has expanded to service 39 communities in the province.
Amanda Macrae is the Chief Executive Officer at Age and Opportunity, a non-profit organization that provides specialized services for older Manitobans. (CBC) Macrae said they have reached out to Manitoba Health, who provide some funding for the fall assessments, and were told there is no word on the continuation of that money.
That means the crime prevention portion will be finished in July and the slip prevention's future is completely uncertain.
"It's an incredibly important program and I think something that really provides support to older Manitobans to continue to age in place successfully, to help people maintain their independence and to feel secure and comfortable within their own homes and communities," she said.
NDP justice critic Andrew Swan brought the cuts up in the legislature on Tuesday. Speaking to journalists after question period, he said it's a small program but also a smart one.
"For the $150,000 the Department of Justice is going to cut, I just don't see that being a wise use of money and it's going to wind up costing the government way more in future years," he said.
He said it's better for taxpayers if seniors are prepared to stay in their own homes.
"This program helps people's grandparents and parents stay in their homes," he said.
NDP justice critic Andrew Swan says its a small but smart program and the cuts don't make sense. (CBC )
In response, Justice Minister Heather Stefanson emailed a statement to CBC which said the government is committed to putting the health and safety of Manitoba's seniors first.
"The justice component of the SafetyAid program was reviewed. It was found that Manitoba Justice's goals for this program were not being met with measurable results," the statement said.
Macrae said she hopes there is an opportunity to speak to the minister about how it was an exceptional program.
"We would like the opportunity to understand maybe why the cut has been made and work with government to look at some solutions," she said.
"Maybe there have been discussions and there are plans to do something different and we would like to be part of that. We just want to make sure that older Manitobans have access to really important programs and services that really support people to age successfully, healthfully and independently." |
One of Philadelphia’s most intriguing buildings stands at a prominent intersection on the north side of the city, a Victorian beauty that once housed wealthy residents and later served as a hotel. The ten-story structure is now a monument of decay, covered in graffiti, many of its windows boarded up. Empty for over a decade, the Divine Lorraine Hotel is an enticing site for urban exploration.
Arguably Philadelphia’s most famous abandonment, the Divine Lorraine was built between 1892 and 1894. The ornate style chosen by architect Willis G. Hale was considered outdated by the time it opened as the luxury Lorraine Apartments and one of the first high-rise buildings in the city, but it was still a magnet for the newly-rich who had made their fortunes in the industrial revolution. It offered all the latest modern amenities, like electricity, and had its own staff, eliminating the need for servants. It was also open to whites only.
In 1948, it was sold to Father Divine, leader of the Universal Peace Mission Movement, who had a new idea for it: turning it into the first racially integrated hotel of its kind. Open to all who were willing to obey the rules of the movement, which included abstaining from smoking and drinking and separating men from women (even if they were married), the hotel also offered spaces for public use, like a low-cost dining hall and a place of worship. After Divine’s death in 2000, the hotel was sold; it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2002. |
Share
This story has been updated.
Residents of Kirkwood’s Bixby Street apartments are being given 60 days to find a new place to live so a developer can demolish the property and replace it with new multifamily housing.
Stan Sugarman, the Kirkwood Neighbors’ Organization zoning chairman, said the developer, Euramex, is will seek a demolition permit and will likely knock the old apartments down this summer.
There are around 60 apartment units at Bixby now. Euramex wants to develop 250 to 260 apartments on that property and on nearby property behind Kirkwood Station. The first phase will consist of 85 units. The development will consist of one-bedroom apartments that will be available for $1,100 to $1,200 and two-bedrooms available for $1,500 to $1,600. The apartments will wrap around a secured parking deck.
Some Kirkwood residents half-jokingly offered to help knock the apartments down. The Bixby Street apartments were built in the 1960’s and are notorious for some of the criminal activities that took place in and around it.
“It’s been such a problem that nobody’s going to be sad to see it go,” Sugarman said, while adding. “There are some good people that got caught in there.”
Sugarman said Euramex is referring the tenants to nonprofits to help with their relocation. He said the tenants have been in month-to-month leases since 2013. The company told Kirkwood residents at a KNO meeting in August that it does not develop tax credit or income restricted housing.
Decaturish requested a list of crimes reported at 1910 Bixby Street Southeast since 2010. Atlanta Police sent over a list of 174 calls since 2010. It should be noted that the list includes a few dozen non-criminal offenses, like traffic violations.
Here is the full list of calls provided by APD:
1910 Bixby St
Editor’s note: At the time this article was written, Stan Sugarman was the outgoing zoning chairman for KNO. He has since decided to stay on for another term. |
To build and supply a lunar base, astronauts will need heavy-duty space trucks for transporting gear. There's just one problem: no roads. That's why NASA engineers designed the rover they call ATHLETE (All-Terrain Hex-Limbed Extra-Terrestrial Explorer)—to handle any terrain, whether dusty, rocky, or crater-y.
The key is the rover's six bendable spider legs and wheeled feet. On smooth surfaces, it rolls on those wheels; when it runs into an obstacle it can't clear, it simply steps over it. ATHLETE can also split into a pair of robots that together pick up and haul specially designed shipping containers. (A lander would bring a container to the surface separately.)
So far, engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory have demonstrated that their $2 million half-size prototype—which consists of two semiautonomous, three-legged robots—can move cargo, walk on inclines, and use tools. The researchers say the actual, 26-foot-tall rover could be ready to start working in space by 2017.
1) The ATHLETE moon rover has 48 stereo cameras, which stream 3-D video from its limbs, frame, and wheels to human operators on Earth or the moon, allowing them to look for hazards and maneuver tools. ATHLETE will have more cameras than any previous rover. (Curiosity has 17.)
2) The rover can refill its hydrogen fuel cells at a solar-powered station that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen (for astronauts to breathe).
3) ATHLETE's wheeled limbs let it walk, drive, or climb, depending on the environment. Each has seven motorized joints that bend and twist. ATHLETE controls each leg separately so that it can keep cargo level even while climbing uneven terrain.
4) Drills, scoops, and grippers collect rock and soil samples for analysis. One set of motors operates both the wheels and tools, which saves weight and makes the rover cheaper to launch into space.
5) Clamps on the wheels hold interchangeable tools.
6) A tool belt stores gear when not in use.
7) Airless tires can't burst or go flat.
HOW IT HAULS
8) Drive: People in mission control (on Earth or on the moon) tell the ATHLETE rover to drive to a lander that has just touched down, carrying a cargo pallet. Incoming supplies must land far from the astronauts' base to prevent jagged moondust from damaging equipment.
9) Split: ATHLETE divides into two identical, three-legged rovers, called _Tri-ATHLETE_s, by lifting motorized hooks that latch across its center.
10) Stretch: The rovers straighten their legs until they're 27 feet tall—high enough to reach above the lander to the cargo pallet—and use their motorized hooks to grab pins on either side of the cargo.
11) Walk: If the rovers travel over rocky terrain too uneven for driving, they can walk while keeping the cargo level.
12) Deliver: The rovers crouch down until the pallet is on the ground and then release it. |
by Rebecca Alpert and Katherine Franke (originally published in Tikkun Magazine)
This week we were scheduled to speak at the Constitution Center as part of the Equality Forum’s 2012 LGBT Summit. Instead we, a rabbi and a law professor, have withdrawn our appearances at the event, disturbed that the Equality Forum, a major mainstream gay rights group, chose Israel as the conference’s “featured nation” and gained sponsorship for the 2012 Summit from the Israeli Embassy and Ministry of Tourism.
Why boycott a conference that is celebrating the gay rights record of Israel when Tel Aviv was just voted “the world’s best gay city”? Lesbians and gay men have been openly serving in the Israeli military for years, same-sex couples’ marriages have been recognized by the state for some time, and Israel has much better sexual orientation discrimination laws than we do. The Israeli Ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, often notes: Israel “provides shelter to Palestinian homosexuals seeking safety from Islamists in the West Bank,” claiming Israel is a “gay mecca.” Ambassador Oren was mistaken when he said that Israel gives asylum to gay and lesbian Palestinians. Israel does not grant asylum to any Palestinians, regardless of their sexual orientation, and in fact won’t even let an Israeli who marries a Palestinian share their Israeli citizenship with their spouse. Tel Aviv may have a great gay scene, but most Palestinians will never see it since, regardless of their sexual orientation, they are not allowed to pass through the checkpoints and the Wall to enter Israel from the West Bank.
The Equality Forum’s partnership with Israel comes as a key moment in the process to create a just end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and a fair resolution to the claims both sides have to land and sovereignty in this region. Just last week, the U.N. Human Rights Commissioner, Navi Pillay, added Israel to a list of countries that restrict the freedom of domestic human rights groups, and the Israeli government has stepped up the pace of settlement construction to unprecedented levels, despite an international consensus that this encroachment into Palestinian territory violates clearly established international law. It is in this context that we have decided to boycott an event that peels off and celebrates Israel’s good gay-rights record rather than locating it within the larger problems that plague Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. The one cannot be separated from the other in our view.
Tel Aviv may have a hot and hunky gay bar scene, but the tolerance or acceptance of homosexuality is not as common elsewhere in the country. Israel, like the United States, is a complex place, and is increasingly religiously conservative. A recent report documents that almost half of the out gays and lesbians serving in the Israeli military have been sexually harassed by other servicemembers, and a member of the Knesset who is also an Education Minister recently said that gays “are not people like everyone else,” and that “their lifestyle harms the Jewish people.” If you talk to gay and lesbian Palestinians, Israel’s reputation as a “gay mecca” in the region becomes more of a myth. Since 2000 Shin Bet, the Israeli security service, has had a policy of blackmailing Palestinians who are gay or who are perceived to be gay and threatening to out them unless they become informants against their own people. For this reason, gay people in Palestine have a reputation as collaborators with Israel—as a result some of the homophobia gays and lesbians in Palestine experience is the direct product of the occupation itself.
Palestinian gays and lesbians have urged the gay community in the United States to become more aware of how we have become an unwitting partner in Israel’s efforts to improve its much-criticized human rights record—especially with respect to the Palestinians. Through a policy that some have called “pinkwashing,” Israel has self-consciously sought to rebrand itself as less religious, less militaristic and less hostile, and in so doing wants to deflect attention from the International Court of Justice and UN Human Rights Council’s findings that many of Israel’s policies with respect to the Palestinians violate international law. Through events such as the Equality Forum’s celebration of Israel this week they have enjoined the U.S. gay rights community to become cheerleaders for Israel. It’s one thing to express our solidarity with gays and lesbians in another country such as Israel, it’s quite another to become pawns in that country’s foreign policy strategy.
While it may seem natural for gays to side with Israel—after all they have such good gay rights laws—this support reflects a major weakness of so many human rights movements that tend to prioritize their own struggles without considering the ways in which all forms of discrimination are linked. In Israel/Palestine, gay rights and human rights more broadly are necessarily connected to one another, and treating one domestic minority well does not excuse or diminish the immorality of the state’s other rights-abridging policies. Had South Africa enacted good gay rights laws during the Apartheid era no one would have seen that as excusing their treatment of black and colored people.
To uncritically celebrate Israel at a conference organized around notions of equality and liberty, and have Michael Oren serve as the keynote speaker at the “international equality dinner,” is taken as a slap in the face by our queer brothers and sisters in Palestine as well as by the queers within Israel who are actively seeking a just resolution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. By avoiding any programming that offers a balanced view of the human rights record of its “featured nation” the Equality Forum lost an important opportunity to be a leader in the international gay human rights movement, and instead allowed itself to be used as a part of Israel’s larger efforts to deflect criticisms of its human rights record.
Katherine Franke is a professor at Columbia Law School, where she also directs the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law. In addition to her scholarly writing on sexual harassment, gender equality, sexual rights, and racial history, she writes regularly for a more popular audience in the Gender and Sexuality Law Blog. Rabbi Rebecca Alpert is an associate professor of religion and women’s studies at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was ordained as a rabbi at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 1976 and served as dean of students there for ten years.
Katherine Franke’s Equality Forum talk, presented by video, is available here. |
CDC
If someone in your home state contracts hepatitis A, a dangerous disease that attacks the liver, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention needs to know about it. Health departments in neighboring states probably need to know about it, too, since the person may have contracted the virus from contaminated food or water in one of those states. The CDC, state and local health departments, and other organizations must routinely share public health data like this so they can control the spread of a range of infectious diseases. As straightforward as this may sound, though, it’s a massively complicated data-management challenge.
It’s also one that seems made for a blockchain, according to Jim Nasr, chief software architect at the CDC’s Center for Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Laboratory Services. For the past several months, Nasr has led a team working on several proofs of concept based on blockchain technology, with an eye toward building real applications next year. Most are geared toward better public health surveillance, which could include using a blockchain to more efficiently manage data during a crisis or to better track opioid abuse.
“Public health and blockchain really do belong together,” Nasr says. Success depends on the ability of peer organizations—the CDC, state and local health agencies, hospitals and clinics—to collaborate effectively and efficiently, and the “currency” for that collaboration is data, he says. “Moving that data from one peer to another in a secure manner, in a compliant manner, and in a transparent manner—as quickly as possible—is a key part of the business model.”
Blockchains, like those that underlie Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, are maintained by networks of computers—instead of a single trusted authority—that verify each transaction and record it in a virtually incorruptible, encrypted ledger shared by all the computers in the network (see “What Bitcoin Is, and Why It Matters”).
It’s a particularly nice fit for public health applications, says Nasr. While individual organizations in the public health network share the same overall mission, a complex mishmash of data usage agreements and government privacy rules dictate which members can access information and which ones can modify it. That slows things down. A number of additional, sometimes manual processes are needed to make sure the correct organization or person sent or received the right data, and that it was used correctly. A blockchain can automate these steps (see “Who Will Build the Health-Care Blockchain?”).
Indeed, public health’s complicated peer-to-peer model for data sharing is “very much what blockchain supports,” says Nasr.
One example of a scenario in which a blockchain system could make a big difference is during a public health crisis like a pandemic. The CDC has an existing mobile app that local health workers can use to log information about patients and help determine which medications should be dispensed to whom. But personally identifiable information can’t be stored in the cloud, and storing it in the approved way takes a lot more time, says Nasr. He says blockchain could give the CDC a way to store and share that data much faster while complying with security and privacy laws.
Before any of these concepts can become real applications, though, the CDC’s technologists will have to work through some complicated questions. For instance, whose computers should maintain the ledger and who should have permission to read or modify data? How should identities, not only patient IDs but also the IDs of public health organizations, be managed on the blockchain? “It’s still early in the game,” says Nasr. |
Flickr
Just as twentysomethings aren’t the ones writing about millennials (that would be Ross Douthat), Lena Dunham’s contemporaries aren’t the demographic that considers Girls its television muse. No, that would be over-twentysomething men, who make up over 20 percent of the show’s viewership and a perhaps even healthier percentage of the bylines featuring name drops of Dunham in the New York media (this would also be Ross Douthat). Everyone who’s been having heart palpitations over Hannah Horvath’s desire to be a voice of a generation seems to have missed the New York old guard’s intention of making her the voice of the whole damn city.
Since 2001, The New York Times has published over 300 articles mentioning Dunham, about 99 percent of which have been written in the past four years. And, except for the early days, right when Tiny Furniture became a thing and Girls screeners became zeitgeist incarnate, she’s hardly ever the subject matter. Any story with a wisp of beard, a hint of first-person, a fragrance of futon, will surely mention Girls or the mind the show sprung from before it reaches its kicker. On a Sunday bare of Brooklyn, a Styles section stringer will rush to Bushwick to profile one of Lena’s friends—even if they’ve already received the Grey Lady treatment before. It’s not just the Times, though; other Manhattan-locked publications are guilty of lazily using a single atypical person as the synecdoche for a whole generation. But the reigning New York Times columnists and writers do seem especially susceptible to crushing on their subjects—see Gail Collins and her series on well-aerated pets.
If you’re looking for ammunition for your essays on nepotism, bad sex, being a millennial, having feelings, being friends with Claire Danes, or the implications of hosting Satan in a private school-educated artsy femonster who hates pants, you might try this instead.11. Also, if you are still party to the school of thought that congregates at bars and issues ragey screeds en masse about how Kathryn Bigelow condones torture, how Martin Scorsese thinks Americans can recession-proof themselves if they also proof their minds in Quaaludes, and how Lena Dunham’s chief aim in life is to break Brooklyn away from New York City via a tectonic shift-causing twerk flash mob, you should perhaps give up watching TV and movies. The only thing you'll find here is definitive proof of how excessive (and insipid) New York's flavor of Lena Dunham worship has been. There are plenty of interesting things to say about Girls. You just haven't found them. The links below chronicle the abridged timeline of the media's thinking "Lena Dunham!" after every single round of word association.
* March 1998: A Vogue story on precocious tweens in New York features Lena Dunham:
"There's no Prada allowed in one downtown household. Laurie Simmons and Carroll Dunham's eleven-year-old daughter, Lena, has a street edge that could leave even Miss Schnabel feeling momentarily inadequate. 'I tried to model this after Helmut Lang,' says Lena, showing off a shift she sewed herself. Her fashion pronouncements are something you'd expect from a woman (at least) three times her age: 'I tend not to go for trends. You can only wear them for two weeks . . . . I really like Jil Sander, but it's so expensive.... I find Calvin Klein really hard to respect because he's everywhere. I view him as a clothesmonger . . . . Manolo is really classy.' Then she returns to preteen reality—'But five dollars a week [i.e., her allowance] isn't really enough. I'm just looking.'"
November 11, 2001: Lena Dunham, teenager at St. Ann's, is asked to reveal her favorite spot in New York:
"Under the Bridge—has been passed down through generations of girls in my school. I have a friend who's 36 who went to St. Ann's, and she used to go to U.T.B. We go there after a school dance or a party or whatever. You walk past all these big, cavernous industrial buildings, and then there's this natural spot you would have never expected. There are slats in the bottom of the bridge, and at night the lights from the cars going over the bridge flash through the openings like a strobe light. And the water is striped with the lights of the buildings, and the trash floating by makes it feel like parts of the city are alive and moving on the water. You can't see any stars, but the water is like a reverse sky."
April 27, 2003: The New York Times sends a reporter to 16-year-old Lena Dunham's vegan dinner party. The menu included four dips and second helpings of Justin Timberlake shaming. One attendee said, ''I would like to go on record that no one else in this room actually owns the Justin Timberlake CD. At St. Ann's we're too cool for popular culture.''
August 10, 2007: The New York Times covers a web series that marked Lena's first foray into holistic EGOT training. It is described as "the least flattering erotica ever to appear on the Web ... The guy she has sex with [describes] the experience as 'the worst sex I ever had in my life, worse than the first time I had sex, worse than not having sex.' It doesn’t stop there: 'She makes the strangest sounds,' Rel says. 'Like an early modem, from 1992, the first time you ever logged onto the Internet.' But don’t feel too bad for Lena. Ms. Dunham, a college filmmaker, conceived and blocked this self-savaging scene herself and wrote the dialogue about how bad her character is in bed.”
* August 24, 2009: Vogue takes a look at Dunham’s web series, Delusional Downtown Divas. The show looks very much like Girls-in-training, as does the coverage of the show:
"'It's just a thing we put on the Internet that we thought a very small segment of the population would see,'" Dunham says. Though the segment of the population that has seen it is still very small, it happens to contain some very influential people-including Yvonne Force Villareal, who displayed the first episode as installation art in her APF Lab gallery; Isaac Mizrahi, who plays life coach to the girls when their gay friend Jazzy disappears; hunky conceptual artist (and Mary-Kate Olsen's boyfriend) Nate Lowman, who plays the object of Oona's misguided affection; and painter Deborah Kass, who is simply a fan. ... The three twentysomething stars grew up in Tribeca, and were all dragged to gallery openings by their artist parents. The art world they've experienced as adults, though, is very different from their parents'-fashion and celebrity often superseding the actual work. 'Now you have people who are like, Yeah, I'm going to be in a band, but if that doesn't work out, I'm probably going to make my living as a painter,' Dunham says. 'There's this illusion all of a sudden that it's this financially viable industry to enter into, whereas it used to be that if you decided to be an artist, you were basically deciding to live in an attic and get TB and die.'"
December 6, 2009: The New York Times also wrote about Delusional Downtown Divas.
March 19, 2010: The start of David Carr's beautiful (and well-documented) friendship with Lena Dunham. David Carr is patient zero of New York's Lena Dunham love sickness.
* November 5, 2010: Rebecca Mead profiles Lena Dunham in The New Yorker. Perhaps the only true profile of all the articles listed here.
"Dunham and Landress left the soundstage and entered a corridor. A diminutive figure was heading toward them, with her head bent over a BlackBerry: Tina Fey, whose show 30 Rock is shot on a neighboring stage. As Dunham rounded the corner, she and Landress started whispering excitedly. 'I’ve been wondering when I would have my first Tina Fey moment!' Dunham said. She was half star-struck, and half enacting the role of being star-struck; and if Fey, absorbed in her e-mail, had experienced her first Lena Dunham moment without even realizing it, she would not likely remain oblivious for long."
*November 5, 2010: The Wall Street Journal looks at Tiny Furniture. "Ms. Dunham's self-deprecating Aura can easily be viewed as a female incarnation of Mr. Allen's witty schlemiel. She's a classic comic sort: the odd duckling."
November 11, 2010: Manohla Dargis reviews Tiny Furniture. She sums it up thusly: "Pitched unsteadily if shrewdly between honest self-reflection and squirmy narcissistic indulgence, the low-budget indie Tiny Furniture is one of the bigger itsy-bitsy movies to hit this year."
November 12, 2010: V.A. Musetto writes a column in the New York Post titled, “WOULD-BE-ALLEN." “I'm not saying that Dunham is a new Allen, just that such a thing is possible. After all, she is working on an HBO pilot with Judd Apatow.”
November 19, 2010: The New York Times style magazine interviews Lena Dunham's also-famous mother, photographer Laurie Simmons—the first of many, many excavations of Dunham's social circle...
December 29, 2010: ...like this one, featuring Stella Schnabel. Dunham is mentioned as a fellow St. Ann-er.
*January 2011: Natalie Portman is profiled in Vogue during Black Swan mania. She brings up Lena Dunham. “Did you see Tiny Furniture? Lena Dunham wrote, directed, and starred in it; she's 23, and it is just amazing. She walks around in her underwear for the whole movie; it's harsh. She's the subject, she's not the object, and it's beautiful—that's the kind of thing we need more of.”
*February 12, 2011: The Wall Street Journal also talks to Laurie Simmons.
"I went to see some films at MoMA and I sat down next to a young man the other night, and he said, 'Excuse me, are you Lena Dunham's mother?' said Ms. Simmons, who is best known for her photographs of dolls and dollhouse interiors. 'So that's been happening more and more.'"
February 21, 2011: Adam Driver, Hannah Horvath's sometimes boyfriend on Girls, gets an article in The New York Times arts section for his appearance in Angels in America. Dunham is the only person quoted who's not involved in the revival.
*March 25, 2012: Emily Nussbaum’s New York profile of Dunham and Girls. To its credit, it gets the show better than most.
March 28, 2011: This is where the articles pick up speed. Another piece by Dargis. She mentions that the hip kids at the film festival she's attending are using the same camera Dunham used for her movie.
March 31, 2012: Frank Bruni writes his first column about Lena Dunham. Like a good columnist, he makes sure to mention all the necessary lady references: The End of Men, Maureen Dowd, Fifty Shades of Grey, Sex and the City, and Gloria Steinem.
March 31, 2012: Frank Bruni has additional thoughts on Lena Dunham later in the day. His conclusion after their phone interview? "It’s no wonder The New Yorker profiled her last year."
April 16: 2012: The New Yorker tackles Lena Dunham and sex and Republicans. It includes the line, "To paraphrase Marx."
April 19, 2012: Lena Dunham is featured in The New York Times Book Review's "By the Book" section.
April 21, 2012: Lena Dunham and Girls are bandied about in an article titled "The New Shades of Feminism?"
April 23, 2012: “How HBO’s Girls Mirrors the Spirit of Sisterhood in Nature”
April 30, 2012: Millennials are begging their parents for money—just like Hannah Horvath!
June 8, 2012: Lena Dunham is interviewed by Andrew Goldman for the New York Times Magazine. They discuss what it's like living with your parents in your twenties.
June 10, 2012: A group of women on the train to the Rockaways are said to look like Girls characters.
June 13, 2012: A pair of filmakers are compared to Dunham: “propensity for self-exploitation (not to mention their preternatural instincts for self-promotion)."
June 22, 2012: The New York Times tours Brooklyn, stopping by Girls locations.
June 23, 2012: Another article about millennials clinging "to the nest." The Goldman interview from earlier in the month is mentioned.
June 24, 2012: An article about people who schedule tours of the Girls locations.
June 25, 2012: In an article in The Wall Street Journal about Jezebel’s party for 25 notable women, the website’s founding editor said, "I suspect that some women aren't on the list because they wouldn't be in town. I would have included Lena Dunham."
June 28, 2012: Woman profiled in The New York Times arts section confesses she has never seen Girls (also a de facto confession that she does not read The New York Times style section). She says, “People have said, ‘You and Lena Dunham would have such a bromance. All I do is watch the Sundance Channel. I really need to check out Girls.”
June 28, 2012: Lena Dunham's first piece for the New Yorker website, remembering Nora Ephron.
June 30, 2012: In a Wall Street Journal book review of Sheila Heti's new book, lede is about Lena Dunham.
July 5, 2012: In review of the same book in The New York Times Book Review, author says she loves Lena. Lena is said to love her too.
July 23, 2012: The kicker of a piece about Frank Ocean in The New Yorker mentions Lena Dunham and the above author. Critical mass!
August 7, 2012: The New Yorker enlists Lena Dunham for their app launch.
August 13, 2012: Lena Dunham publishes her first essay in The New Yorker.
August 17, 2012: The New York Times reveals that Mike Birbiglia and Lena Dunham are friends.
August 26, 2012: "the Lena Dunham of retailing."
September 11, 2012: Andrew Rannells is profiled in The Wall Street Journal. Lena Dunham is obviously mentioned.
October 9, 2012: The Daily Beast Facebook page links to a post with the question, “The Lena Dunham of China?”
October 11: 2012: “What I’m Wearing Now” with Audrey Gelman, best friend of Lena Dunham and press secretary for Scott Stringer. She mentions that Dunham picked out her wallpaper.
October 27, 2012: Ross Douthat and Maureen Dowd both write columns that mention Lena Dunham's ad for Obama's 2012 presidential campaign.
December 10, 2012: Laurie Simmons gets a profile in The New Yorker. Obviously Dunham is mentioned.
January 2, 2013: Zosia Mamet gets profiled by The New York Times. Obviously Dunham is mentioned.
January 7, 2013: Frank Bruni writes the words, “The new episodes immediately reintroduce Lena Dunham’s naked body, which was introduced aplenty in the old episodes. At this fleshy point I could draw it, I could paint it, I could probably reproduce it in clay."
January 10, 2013: “The Boys of Girls”
January 11, 2013: “The End of Courtship,” Girls episode is cited.
January 14, 2013: At Golden Globes, it is night of female wunderkinds. Like Lena Dunham.
January 14, 2013: Lena Dunham is cited in an essay about twentysomethings in The New Yorker.
January 24, 2013: A movie is said to have the sensibilities of Girls.
January 30, 2013: In article about 30 Rock ending, Lena Dunham is mentioned.
February 13, 2013: Article about actor-singer couples. “Each generation seems to have at least one music-acting power couple of note and Mr. Antonoff and his current girlfriend, Lena Dunham of Girls, appear to have taken that spot for the millennials.”
February 15, 2013: A profile of Girls co-star Alex Karpovsky in The Wall Street Journal. He mentions Lena Dunham.
February 21, 2013: In movie review of Alex Karpovsky‘s new movie, lede and kicker mention how grateful he should be to Lena Dunham.
March 1, 2013: Sad Teddy Wayne essay about millennials working all the time at shitty jobs. Guess who else had a shitty job? Lena Dunham's character on Girls.
March 1, 2013: In 11-paragraph book review, three paragraphs are about Dunham. The book is not written by Lena Dunham.
March 13, 2013: Lena Dunham is picked as one of The New York Observer’s 25 rising stars.
March 15, 2013: In article about Colin Quinn being funny on Twitter, this sentence: "Jenni Konner, who created Girls with Lena Dunham, chimed in, 'This is getting weird.'"
April 5, 2013: In article about why we hate Anne Hathaway, kicker is that Lena Dunham likes Anne Hathaway.
April 10, 2013: In article about breaking the glass ceiling for female filmmakers in The Wall Street Journal, Lena Dunham is a cited trailblazer.
April 17, 2013: An article about non-bikers getting tattoos. Non-bikers like Lena Dunham!
May 3, 2013: In article about the 50th anniversary of Sylvia Plath’s suicide, Lena Dunham is mentioned.
May 15, 2013: In article about topknots, and women growing long hair in lean times, Lena Dunham, who has a pixie cut, is mentioned.
May 16, 2013: In A.O. Scott’s review of Frances Ha, he states near the top, “His name is Lev, he is played by Adam Driver, and this is the only time I will mention Lena Dunham or Girls in this review.”
March 18, 2013: In article about Girls finale, Alessandra Stanley is very uncomfortable with Lena Dunham's body and tells us all about it.
March 25, 2013: Lena Dunham's second piece in The New Yorker.
May 1, 2013: Lena Dunham is mentioned is a piece titled “How I Became a Hipster."
May 31, 2013: In a profile of Zac Posen, Lena Dunham—who the designer walked to St. Ann’s as a child—is mentioned four times.
May 31, 2013: In remembrance of 1970s comedy television, Lena Dunham comes up.
July 17, 2013: A designer’s memoir is described as “Lena Dunham without the anomie.”
August 1, 2013: Ross Douthat writes another column about Lena Dunham.
August 8, 2013: An article about Scott Stringer—boss of Audrey Gelman, Lena Dunham's best friend—in The Wall Street Journal. Dunham is quoted heavily.
August 9, 2013: An Australian comic is compared to Lena Dunham.
August 9, 2013: In an essay titled, “Is New York only for the successful?” the famous families of Dunham and her cast members are mentioned.
August 29, 2013: A movie review of a Chinese film starts out as “Lena Dunham and Girls can have Brooklyn.”
September 3, 2013: In an article on Christine Quinn’s supporters, Lena Dunham is cited.
September 23, 2013: Alessandra Stanley has more thoughts on Lena Dunham's body, “And that made Lena Dunham’s choice of a bold, full-skirted, green ball gown covered with red roses seem more shocking than her near-nudity on Girls.”
September 23, 2013: A profile of Girls co-star Christopher Abbott in The New York Times. Lena Dunham is obviously mentioned.
October 1, 2013: Lena Dunham is cited as someone who cares little about her figure in TV review.
October 2, 2013: Lena Dunham’s first trip to Paris (for fashion week) is breathlessly documented.
October 4, 2013: Audrey Gelman, Lena Dunham’s best friend, is profiled in The New York Times style section. Dunham is mentioned eight times.
October 6, 2013: In graphic on social media alternatives, Lena Dunham is used as an example of an "impulsive creature."
October 15, 2013: In article about the new picture of female authenticity—being flawed—Dunham is cited as a perfect example.
November 1, 2013: This sentence happened: “George Stephanopoulos, 50 Cent and Lena Dunham have all been talking up their meditation regimens.”
November 1, 2013: Alec Baldwin declares that he wants to introduce the world to new people, like Lena Dunham, on his new TV show.
November 1, 2013: Ballet performance is not to be confused with Lena Dunham’s show, thanks to reviewer’s mentioning of it.
November 4, 2013: Lena Dunham's third piece in The New Yorker.
November 5, 2013: In an article about the Plaza’s party for Eloise in The Wall Street Journal, Lena Dunham is referenced (she has a tattoo of Eloise on her back).
November 8, 2013: Actress June Squibb is profiled in The Wall Street Journal. And by the way, did you know she’s going to be on Girls?
November 8, 2013: Adam Driver (again?!) is described by Lena Dunham in a New York Times profile—this time in the Style section.
December 14, 2013: In a Ross Douthat column on daughters, Lena Dunham is mentioned in an aside.
November 13, 2013: The popularity of brownstones is explained by presence of Lena Dunham.
November 21, 2013: The popularity of Café Grumpy is explained by presence of Lena Dunham.
November 22, 2013: A story in the Sunday Real Estate section on Lena Dunham’s parents’ apartment, is titled, “A Lena Dunham Locale.”
January 3, 2014: In an article on the Woody Allen genome, Lena Dunham is obviously mentioned and called “The New Woody Allen.”
January 9, 2014: Alessandra Stanley reviews the new HBO show Looking and has more to say about Lena Dunham's body.
January 9, 2014: An article about how it's hard out there for indie films. Features a long aside on Tiny Furniture and Lena Dunham.
January 9, 2014: In preview of SXSW, the keynote speech of “one of the festival’s biggest success stories is the kicker.
January 12, 2013: In an article about Golden Globes fashion, Lena Dunham’s dress gets a bit of shade.
January 13, 2014: Lena Dunham’s “canary yellow” dress is mentioned.
January 13, 2014: In a piece about Golden Globes after party, the absence of Lena Dunham is noted.
January 15, 2014: Lena Dunham is profiled in Vogue by Nathan Heller, is called the Bob Dylan of comic television. |
It took some 10 million years for Earth to recover from the greatest mass extinction of all time, latest research has revealed. Life was nearly wiped out 250 million years ago, with only 10 per cent of plants and animals surviving. It is currently much debated how life recovered from this cataclysm, whether quickly or slowly.
Life was nearly wiped out 250 million years ago, with only 10 per cent of plants and animals surviving. It is currently much debated how life recovered from this cataclysm, whether quickly or slowly.
Recent evidence for a rapid bounce-back is evaluated in a new review article by Dr Zhong-Qiang Chen, from the China University of Geosciences in Wuhan, and Professor Michael Benton from the University of Bristol. They find that recovery from the crisis lasted some 10 million years, as explained today [27 May] in Nature Geoscience.
There were apparently two reasons for the delay, the sheer intensity of the crisis, and continuing grim conditions on Earth after the first wave of extinction.
The end-Permian crisis, by far the most dramatic biological crisis to affect life on Earth, was triggered by a number of physical environmental shocks - global warming, acid rain, ocean acidification and ocean anoxia. These were enough to kill off 90 per cent of living things on land and in the sea.
Dr Chen said: “It is hard to imagine how so much of life could have been killed, but there is no doubt from some of the fantastic rock sections in China and elsewhere round the world that this was the biggest crisis ever faced by life.”
Current research shows that the grim conditions continued in bursts for some five to six million years after the initial crisis, with repeated carbon and oxygen crises, warming and other ill effects.
Some groups of animals on the sea and land did recover quickly and began to rebuild their ecosystems, but they suffered further setbacks. Life had not really recovered in these early phases because permanent ecosystems were not established.
Professor Benton, Professor of Vertebrate Palaeontology at the University of Bristol, said: “Life seemed to be getting back to normal when another crisis hit and set it back again. The carbon crises were repeated many times, and then finally conditions became normal again after five million years or so.”
Finally, after the environmental crises ceased to be so severe, more complex ecosystems emerged. In the sea, new groups, such as ancestral crabs and lobsters, as well as the first marine reptiles, came on the scene, and they formed the basis of future modern-style ecosystems.
Professor Benton added: “We often see mass extinctions as entirely negative but in this most devastating case, life did recover, after many millions of years, and new groups emerged. The event had re-set evolution. However, the causes of the killing - global warming, acid rain, ocean acidification - sound eerily familiar to us today. Perhaps we can learn something from these ancient events.” |
Lot # 1
Howdy Aggies! For the first, and possibly last, time, the most coveted Texas A&M message, 12THMAN, will be auctioned to the highest bidder. The winner will own this rare 7-letter message for ten years, with first dibs at renewing the plate thereafter. And, unlike other Texas license plate messages, 12THMAN will be fully transferable — meaning the owner can legally sell it at any time to someone else, hand it down to heirs, or transfer it among other family members.
The 12THMAN message is proudly displayed on an official Texas A&M branded license plate, exclusively available at MyPlates.com.
Proceeds
Proceeds from the MyPlates.com 12THMAN Auction benefit Texas A&M University and the General Revenue Fund of Texas. My Plates will donate its share to the University.
Special Honor
As a special honor, Texas A&M University is planning to present the 12THMAN license plate to the My Plates auction winner in front of nearly 90,000 fans during the Texas A&M vs. Alabama game September 14th, 2013. Please note: The winner's participation in the special honor presentation is subject to approval solely by Texas A&M University administration, and successful payment of plate purchase.
Key Highlights:
Coveted 12THMAN Texas License Plate Message never before offered
Full Transferability
10 Year Term
First Right to Renew
Special Honor Presentation during 2nd Quarter
less... |
by the Gus , February-July 1996. Enhancements to this web version are ongoing...
Das Dafino's Diary and Intro to Tussin DM-a former resident of the house now known as Big Fun kept a diary, and it is discovered in a pile of debris in a reforesting field. Later, Big Funsters drink Tussin DM for the first time since the establishment of Big Fun.
Difficulties With a Much Younger Girlfriend-the hippie father of Charlottesville's only nazi skinheads contends with the roving eyes of his twenty-something girlfriend set loose in Big Fun.
Spontaneous Actual Tussin Occurrence-Dextromethorphan ingestion in rural Virginia.
An Emo Girl in Love-An emo girl romances a suave Charlottesville underground publisher with some limited success.
Tussin and a Weird Social Mix-a nazi skinhead, some teenage girls, a cheesy speed metal guitarist, a skater punk, and a Charlottesville underground author/publisher all rendezvous with Big Funsters for Dextromethorphan-enhanced social chaos.
The New Astrology-a brief adventure into Sara Poiron's psyche.
The Jehu End of the World Party-Big Funsters both cater and pillage a party during an influential cult's end-of-the-world celebration.
Pirate Electricity at Big Fun-Big Fun gets a month of free electricity with a little help from initiative, ingenuity and Taurus Rising.
A Threatened Nazi Attack!-a local nazi skinhead threatens to come whup some ass.
Grand Theft Auto (GTA)-an old jeep is stolen from a used car lot in Scottsville.
Rampage in Fratville-Big Funsters get drunk and tear up UVA's Fratville.
Musings of the Gus-adventures of Big Fun alumni in the post-Big Fun age. |
The World's Thinnest External DVD Drive!
With mere 220g weight and 13.5mm height, the ultra-slender and ultra-chic eBAU108 easily slips into your bag whenever you need to use an optical drive. The USB-powered design makes eBAU108 more portable and convenient to take with you. It is today’s best business travel companion for mobile professionals.
The most advanced features are also integrated into the slender portable DVD burner. Driver-free USB interface, Smart-Burn, read speed adjustment, and TV compatibility all are enclosed in a slim minimalist design.
Ultra Slender & Light
Weighing less than 220g, only 13.5mm high, and a compact 140mm by 136mm, it’s the lightest DVD burner in the world and the perfect companion for small or ultra-light notebook. The easy-to-carry eBAU108 is ideal whether you want to watch DVDs, backup data, install applications, or burn a disc for a friend.
Plug & Play Simplicity
No need to install a driver, just connect to a USB port and use. The drive is compatible with all major operating systems including Windows 8, Windows 7, Vista, XP, Linux, and MAC OS.
USB Powered, No Adapter Needed
The drive takes the electricity it requires directly from your laptop’s USB port, just plug and play. No extra power cords, no bulky adapters, no extra weight need to be carried.
Link2TV - Extensive TV Compatibility
Attach Link2TV-enabled optical drive to any television that supports flash drives and other USB devices to view video, music and picture files. It offers simple and intuitive operation, just press the eject button for five seconds to switch your optical disc drive into Link2TV mode.
SMART Burn Technology & SMART-X Technology
The SMART Burn technology always ensures the best possible burn. Smart enough to automatically adjust a whole range of settings including recording power and correction system, it can even protect against buffer under-run. Get total confidence in your disc burns. The SMART-X technology knows that when you're watching DVDs you want it quiet, and when you're copying data you want it fast. It adjusts the maximum data read speed according to the task and the disc's quality. You'll always get the best read quality, the best read speed, and the quietest operation for whatever you're doing!
Support M-DISC – Permanent Digital Storage Solution
As the first permanent digital storage solution, the M-DISC is made of materials certified and proven to last over 1,000 years. The combination of eBAU108 and the M-DISC offers the best archival data storage solution anywhere. No more worrying! |
"60 Minutes" has been investigating the widespread use of performance-enhancing drugs by Russian athletes, including some who won gold medals at the Sochi Winter Olympics.
The International Olympic Committee said Thursday it's considering retesting blood and urine samples from the now-tainted Russian lab at the 2014 Winter Games. But based upon what CBS News has learned from the lab's former director, any positive drug tests disappeared a long time ago.
Russia's Dark Secret
Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov shared details of a systematic cover-up in Sochi during Skype conversations with Vitaly Stepanov, a former Russian anti-doping official turned key whistleblower.
Stepanov allowed "60 Minutes" to listen to 15 hours of conversations he secretly recorded with Rodchenkov.
"He had the ability to help to get the necessary results," Stepanov told CBS News -- referring to gold medals.
In the recordings, Rodchenkov named Russian gold medalists in three sports -- bobsled, skeleton and cross country skiing -- whose dirty drugs tests he helped cover up.
It was all part, he said, of an elaborate scheme to protect Russia's Olympic medal winners, with the help of his country's intelligence service, known as the FSB.
"FSB tried to control every single step of the anti-doping process in Sochi," Stepanov said Rodchenkov told him.
The FSB figured out a way to open bottles considered to be tamper-proof containing urine from drug-tainted athletes. Then they filled the bottles with clean urine collected from athletes before they started doping.
Rodchenkov said he then had two weeks after the Sochi games -- to make sure, in his words, people turned out to be clean before test samples were sent to the International Olympic Committee in Switzerland for storage.
CBS News also learned Thursday a recent review of blood tests in at least one Olympic event at Sochi has revealed evidence of test tampering involving Russian athletes. |
WASHINGTON, Nov. 28 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), along with six cosponsors in the Senate, introduced a comprehensive plan Tuesday to address the immediate humanitarian needs in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands and ensure that the islands not only recover, but are able to rebuild in a way that empowers them to thrive.
The Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands Equitable Rebuild Act is cosponsored in the Senate by Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Reps. Stacey Plaskett (D-V.I.), Nydia M. Velázquez (D-N.Y.) and Darren Soto (D-Fla.) will introduce a companion bill in the House. The bill is endorsed by 75 organizations.
More than two months after Hurricane Maria, much of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands remain devastated. More than half of Puerto Rico is still without power. In both territories, clean drinking water is difficult if not impossible to find in many areas and thousands of people are still living in temporary shelters.
The legislation introduced today would instruct the federal government to immediately address these humanitarian crises by mobilizing all necessary resources and assets to restore power, provide clean drinking water and food, safe shelter and access to health care. And, it would do so without forcing the territories to take on more debt.
The Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands Equitable Rebuild Act emphasizes local control and sustainable rebuilding of the territories and instructs Congress to address Puerto Rico’s debt – a major impediment to a just and full recovery. And, it ensures that any federal disaster funding provided to the islands is protected from Wall Street vulture funds and acted upon with local input and local workers.
San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz offered her support for the bill: “The bill that Senator Sanders has introduced in the United States Congress is a comprehensive plan that provides the blueprint for the transformation of Puerto Rico. While dealing with all major areas of immediate concern: energy, health and education it also sets the foundation to make Puerto Rico a more equitable, just and fair society for all. Senator Sanders also shows a great deal of respect and faith in us when claiming that the recovery or Puerto Rico must be in Puerto Rican hands. The bill comes from Sanders’ commitment of listening first hand to the hopes and aspirations of our people and must be given serious consideration by Congress.”
“It is unconscionable that in the wealthiest nation in the world we have allowed our fellow citizens to suffer for so long. The full resources of the United States must be brought to bear on this crisis, for as long as is necessary,” said Sanders, who visited Puerto Rico in October. “But we cannot simply rebuild Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands the way they were. We must go forward to create a strong, sustainable economy and energy system in both territories and address inequities in federal law that have allowed the territories to fall behind in almost every measurable social and economic criteria.” |
Recent Examples on the Web
As night falls, reservation holders will file in for a tasting-menu dinner (there’s a 6:00 p.m. and a 9:00 p.m. seating), and kaffeeklatsch turns into a cocktail hour. Lilah Ramzi, Vogue, "At Gem, Chef Flynn McGarry Serves a Can’t-Believe-It’s-Not-Meat Beet," 2 Apr. 2018
This wave of restaurants isn’t marked merely by longer hours; it is distinguished by genre-bending flexibility, catering to those seeking a variety of options that include kaffeeklatsches, salads on the go and sit-down dinners. Gerard Baker, WSJ, "The 10-Point.," 22 Dec. 2017
But under fire for the all-male panel, Mr. McConnell reduced it to little more than a kaffeeklatsch, open to anyone who wanted to come by and chat health care. Jennifer Steinhauer, Glenn Thrush And Robert Pear, New York Times, "How the Senate Health Care Bill Failed: G.O.P. Divisions and a Fed-Up President," 18 July 2017
New mothers who don’t enjoy socializing in kaffeeklatsch-style groups can be left without a support system. Sarah Deweerdt, The Atlantic, "The Joys and Challenges of Being a Parent With Autism," 18 May 2017
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'kaffeeklatsch.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback. |
In this article, we'll dissect two approaches to creating responsive web design menus; the slide down and the slide in. We'll look at the HTML, CSS, and jQuery to make these mobile friendly menus function.
Responsive web design has become standard practice on the Internet. If your website isn’t responsive, you’re alienating an estimated 60% of web users. One of the biggest hurdles with responsive web design is crafting navigation systems that function just as well on small screens as they do on larger screens.
In this article we’ll look at two approaches to creating a mobile version of a menu featuring the slide down and the slide in. I’ll break down the actual HTML, CSS, and jQuery that make these menus work. The two examples both use the hamburger icon menu style which has emerged as a common accepted practice on the web to represent a collapsed or hidden menu.
I encourage you to use these techniques as the final resort when the screen size becomes too small to accommodate a traditional menu. I usually resize and reposition the menu from desktop sizes to tablet sizes and only generally resort to a collapsed menu below 767 pixels wide, which is the general max size of a landscape mobile device.
Disclaimer: Just like my last responsive web design example article, it’s going to get pretty nerdy from here on out.
1. Slide Down
The slide down menu is my preferred method when a website has eight or fewer menu options (any more than that and this technique becomes cumbersome). Here’s the basic HTML structure to set everything up.
See the Pen xbxvVP by Alex Caldwell (@ACaldy) on CodePen.
Here’s the CSS to set it up as a traditional horizontal menu as well as a collapsed menu with a hamburger icon. You’ll notice that the CSS is written in Sass. The heavy lifting happens in the media query at 767px.
See the Pen xbxvVP by Alex Caldwell (@ACaldy) on CodePen.
So at a screen width of 767px we show the .menuIcon class where the menu used to be. We also hide the menu with the combination of max-height:0; and overflow:hidden; Then we go through and style everything inside of the menu. The menu options stack with display:block; and span the full width of the page. We also prep the menu with a CSS transition when the max-height is changed with a Sass mixin.
Finally here’s the jQuery function that toggles the class .menuOpen:
See the Pen xbxvVP by Alex Caldwell (@ACaldy) on CodePen.
2. Slide In
The slide in is a good technique when the site has a large list of menu options (generally eight or more). Just like the slide down menu, this menu collapses into a hamburger menu icon and then takes the screen over by sliding from the side and pushing the body of the website over. It is a good technique for directing the users attention as it becomes the only thing that they can interact with on the screen.
The actual technique is largely the same. There’s a media query to alter the CSS and a jQuery toggle function to add and remove a couple of classes. It’s the initial HTML structure that differs for this technique as the mobile menu must be positioned outside of the main website container in order to push it to the side. The HTML structure would look something like this:
See the Pen ZYYQwX by Alex Caldwell (@ACaldy) on CodePen.
Note that I’d normally use a php include for the menu options so that if we update it we only have to change it in one spot, but I can’t do that with codepen. There’s also a .mobileDimmer class that we’ll use to fade the body of the website to shift all of the focus to the menu.
The initial CSS to set up .menu and hide .mobileMenu looks like this:
See the Pen ZYYQwX by Alex Caldwell (@ACaldy) on CodePen.
So there are a couple things happening here. We’re laying out .menu in a horizontal layout. We’re setting up the .mobileMenu to stack the menu options vertically and then hiding it with position:absolute, margin-left:-100%, and display:none. We’re also setting up .mobileDimmer to fill the body of the site with a 50% black background and a left positioning value of 50% (the width of the .mobileMenu).
Under 767px width, we hide .menu and show .menuIcon. We also get .mobileBodyWrapper and .mobileMenu prepped with the class of .menuOpen for the jQuery toggle function. When we add the .menuOpen class to .mobileBodyWrapper, it will slide the entire body over 50%, make it position:fixed and hide everything outside of the viewport with overflow:hidden. When we add the .menuOpen class to .mobileMenu, it will change to display:block, margin-left:0, a width of 50%, and overflow-y:scroll. The .mobileDimmer we set up earlier will cover the body and we’ll have a nice focus on the menu on the left as we dim the body on the right.
See the Pen ZYYQwX by Alex Caldwell (@ACaldy) on CodePen.
Note that it’s set up in a jQuery function so that if the user clicks on the .mobileDimmer it will also close the .mobileMenu, which is good usability. It’s a nice little effect where the focus is put on the menu as the user interacts with it.
Hopefully this article sheds some light on how to handle two different menu sizes in a user friendly manner. Creating a menu system that works on both desktop and mobile is challenging.
With responsive web design, you must use the screen real estate that you’re allotted.
As the number of mobile users continues to grow, these practices will become more commonplace and may even get replaced by new solutions that benefit users even more. |
Tuesday, the Rays released preliminary rosters for their four full-season affiliates, which start play on Thursday.
The big surprise here is probably Jose De Leon on the disabled list. It is not significant though. Other than that, I don’t think there’s anything there that wasn’t expected. Chase Whitley will probably step into the rotation until De Leon is ready to go.
As expected, Brent Honeywell will return to Montgomery to start 2017, and Grayson Garvin is on the disabled list. Michael Russell skips over Charlotte which is probably best for everyone. Joe McCarthy is listed as an infielder (first baseman), but I would guess he’s still going to play a lot of outfield. Note the return of Justin O’Conner — I can’t imagine any other team in minor league baseball can equal the Biscuits’ defense behind the plate.
Charlotte starts the season with a pretty robust disabled list, including Brandon Koch and Benton Moss, who would probably be in Double A if healthy. Ryan Boldt and Jake Fraley both skip Bowling Green. That’s something high draft picks from college programs are usually capable of doing, but it doesn’t seem like the Rays usually do that with their players.
Bowling Green boasts a pretty prospect-laden roster. Josh Lowe, Jesus Sanchez and Garrett Whitley will probably all split time in center field, and the DH spot will probably be occupied by the fourth outfielder on most nights. The Hot Rods’ catcher situation is interesting. Jonah Heim was bumped down a level, while Rene Pinto jumped up to full-season ball despite only having 40 games played in the U.S. to this point in his career. |
The Ex-Im Bank is One Step Closer to Being Revived Thanks to a Rare Parliamentary Procedure in the House
GovTrack.us Blocked Unblock Follow Following Nov 3, 2015
House Democrats and a portion of the Republican House majority teamed up last week to win an important battle in the fight to bring back the Export-Import bank, a quasi-governmental agency that provides subsidies to foreign companies buying American goods.
On Monday, October, 26, 2015, the bipartisan coalition successfully used a rare procedural maneuver to call up legislation reauthorizing the agency to the House floor for consideration. The maneuver, known as a “motion to discharge,” technically discharged a “rule” from the Rules Committee that establishes terms the bill will be debated under. The final vote count on the discharge was 246–177, with all House Democrats voting in favor along with 62 Republicans.
The rule and then the bill itself were then passed on Tuesday, 313–118, sending it to the Senate, which had passed a similar measure in July.
The maneuver essentially bypassed Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), who opposes the bank and has prevented his committee from advancing reauthorization legislation to the House floor.
The move to discharge the legislation out of committee was spearheaded by Rep. Steve Fincher (R-TN), and it is the first successful use of a discharge petition since 2002, when it was used by a bipartisan coalition for advancing the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill in the House. Fincher’s petition was signed by a majority of House Democrats and 42 House Republicans, and it reached its target number of 218 signatures (representing a majority of House members) on October 9, just hours after it was officially filed.
The Export-Import bank is a government corporation that, from 1934 until July 2015, subsidized foreign purchases of U.S. goods through special financing, loan guarantees, and insurance that would otherwise be unavailable from private lenders. In recent years the bulk of its subsidies have gone to foreign companies and governments purchasing equipment from just a few large U.S. companies, including Boeing, Caterpillar, and General Electric.
For years the bank had been a target of the left, but recently conservatives have been the lead critics of the bank, calling it a prime example of collusion between the government and private industry that they believe unfairly distorts the market. Hensarling has called the bank “crony capitalism,” and others have derided it as “The Bank of Boeing.” On July 1, 2015, after months of debate among Hill Republicans, authorization for the Export-Import bank to engage in new business was allowed to officially sunset.
How the Ex-Im Bank Would be Reformed
Fincher’s bill would reauthorize the bank until September 30, 2019, and it includes a number of reforms to how the bank operates, including the following:
Reducing the maximum authorized amount of outstanding loans from $140 billion to $130 billion
Requiring the bank to hold a larger amount in their reserves for covering potential losses.
Increasing the loan support amount that would trigger a requirement for the bank to publicly release an environmental impact statement on the purchase being financed from $10 million to $25 million.
Establishing term limits for the President of the Bank.
Banning the bank from discriminating applications for support based on the sector, industry, or business that the application concerns.
Establishing an Office of Ethics within the bank to oversee ethics issues.
Establishing a Chief Risk Officer and a Risk Management Committee to help assess, manage, and mitigate risks that the bank may be exposed to.
What’s Next
The reauthorization legislation still has to pass through the Senate in order to become law and actually reopen the bank for business. Unfortunately for Export-Import Bank supporters, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who controls which bills get considered on the floor, is not in favor of renewing the bank’s charter.
On Thursday, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) attempted to bring the House’s reauthorization bill up for immediate passage by unanimous consent, but she was blocked by McConnell.
However, if somehow there is a vote on reauthorization — possibly in the form of an amendment to other legislation — it’s likely that it could pass. When the Senate voted on an Export-Import reauthorization bill back in July, as an amendment to the highway bill that never ended up becoming law, it passed with a filibuster-proof 64 votes. |
These days, it’s good to be a community cat in Gainesville, Texas. Not that long ago, it was a different story—then Alley Cat Allies got involved. After an incredible few months of collaboration with Gainesville residents, policymakers, and cat advocates, we visited Gainesville in May to celebrate success and kick off new, lifesaving programs for cats in the community. Hannah Shaw, Associate Director of Campaigns, and Kayla Christiano, Campaigns Manager, made the most of their three days in town—packing in meetings, community outreach, and a spay/neuter and vaccine clinic sponsored by Alley Cat Allies.
Day One—Celebrating Feline Friendly Gainesville
Hannah and Kayla headed straight to the Gainesville Civic Center for an Alley Cat Allies workshop open to the public. People from all corners of the community came out to learn more about Trap-Neuter-Return and Gainesville’s new initiatives to save more cats. We had notable audience members like Gainesville’s Mayor and City Manager, the Feral Cat Rescue Group of the University of North Texas, and Texas Coalition for Animal Protection (TCAP). We were also joined by experienced local trappers, as well as cat-loving citizens who were completely new to TNR, but wanted to learn how to help.
Mayor Jim Goldsworthy opened the workshop with a message about the growth and change of Gainesville’s animal policies thanks to Alley Cat Allies’ help. He shared that because of the city’s new understanding of TNR and community cat concerns they have begun to consider other animal protection issues. Mayor Goldsworthy has been a critical player in our campaign in Gainesville, and he’s now a solid ally for cats.
Hannah and Kayla engaged everyone in the crowd with a crash course on cat history and behavior, as well as a thorough introduction to the How-To of TNR. Even experienced trappers said they learned something new, and TNR-newcomers were prepared to put their new knowledge to use immediately. To brief everyone on Gainesville’s new TNR program, TCAP addressed the crowd with information on how to register their colonies and sign up for free spay days.
The workshop was also a crucial networking opportunity. While there are many active trappers in Gainesville, they hadn’t all met before. By the end of the workshop, they were exchanging contact information and planning trapping projects together. What happened in the Civic Center that night will change Gainesville forever.
Day Two—Trap, Trap, Trap!
As a major storm loomed over Gainesville, Hannah and Kayla spent the day driving back and forth across town trapping cats. In total, they trapped 5 colonies, including the colony fed by David, the man whose story brought us to Gainesville. Hannah and Kayla had some help from one of the previous day’s workshop attendees. Within 24 hours she went from TNR novice to a successful trapper who was already training her friends on trapping. Teach a person to trap and you help cats for a lifetime!
At one of the colony sites, we found a litter of newborn kittens. This discovery underscores the importance of TNR, and we hope that the colony won’t have any new litters now that spay/neuter services are readily available in Gainesville.
It was a long day for our trappers, and after dropping off cats at various volunteers’ homes for the night, preparations began for the spay day.
Day Three—A Little Rain Can’t Stop Us
The storm hit Gainesville hard, wiping out bridges and making travel across the city difficult. But it didn’t stop Alley Cat Allies, the people of Gainesville, or our wonderful partners—TCAP and Noah’s Ark Animal Shelter. The spay day started bright and early as residents poured in with community and socialized cats. All in all, over 60 cats were served, and the day’s vaccine clinic served 113 dogs and cats—all sponsored by Alley Cat Allies. Noah’s Ark provided the space and TCAP covered scheduling and surgeries. The demand for spay/neuter was so high that appointments for the day filled up and TCAP started scheduling appointments for two more spay days in June.
A New Day in Gainesville
All cats trapped by Alley Cat Allies were returned to their colony sites to live their healthy lives outdoors. We also left 20 traps with Noah’s Ark so they can start a trap depot to make sure that TNR continues in Gainesville.
The turnout says it all—Gainesville needs this program. The citizens need this service, and the trappers (old pros and new pros alike) are motivated to help the community. Alley Cat Allies will be there to make sure it happens. |
Sergio Perez said his main focus is on performing for Sauber in 2012 © Getty Images Enlarge Related Links Drivers:
Jules Bianchi
|
Sergio Perez Teams:
Ferrari
|
Sauber
Sergio Perez impressed Ferrari with his performance during a half day of testing at the Fiorano circuit.
Perez is part of the Ferrari Driver Academy and completed 46 laps in the 2009 car at the test circuit on Thursday morning before handing over to fellow academy product Jules Bianchi. Head of the Ferrari Driver Academy Luca Baldisserri said that the team had been impressed with Perez, who displayed the attributes of a much more experienced driver than his age.
"Sergio proved to be aggressive and quick right from the start and was able to adapt to the car in a very short space of time," Baldisserri said. "He is very mature for his age, displaying an understanding that goes beyond the time he has spent driving single seaters."
After the session Perez said his target was to win the world championship with Ferrari, but that he was currently focussed on improving with Sauber.
"I think there is room for me to do well where I am and that's my current target," Perez said. "It's impossible to say how things will go and my dream is to become World Champion and it would be nice if it could happen with a team like this one. I have got a lot out of this time with the Ferrari Driver Academy. The work on the simulator, the meetings with the engineers are all things that will help me over the rest of the season and in general in the future."
Away from the test session, Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali said that Perez has a lot of potential to improve.
"I think he's having a great season," Domenicali is quoted by AS. "He will be a great race driver in formula one as he has started with a good approach and humility and he can grow a lot."
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd. |
The smile-iest mixed martial artist in years sits down with GQ to talk about his last fight, his fitness regimen, and why he doesn't spar before big matches.
There's really no way around it: Sage Northcutt looks like the byproduct of Captain America's Super-Soldier Serum and an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog model. In that regard, he's the perfect prince for the UFC: young, marketable, humble almost to the point of exasperation, and brimming with potential. But a few months ago, Sage Northcutt went and did the one thing he wasn't supposed to do quite yet. He lost. Now, with a fight with Enrique Marin at UFC 200 in Las Vegas looming, Sage is looking to get back on track. We caught up with the happy-go-lucky Ivan Drago lookalike to reflect on his first professional setback, and how he learned to bend frying pans—with his bare hands.
There's really no way around this—you're sort of a genetic freak. How does one get a body like yours?
Oh, thank you very much! I started working out and doing martial arts when I was about 4 years old, and I was competing by the time I was five or six. So my mom and dad had me doing push-ups and sit-ups from a very young age.
How much training are we talking here?
By the time I was 4 or 5, I was doing 250 push-ups and sit-ups a day. When I was 6, we bumped it up to about 500 push-ups and sit-ups a day. Some days it could even be 750 or 1,000.
Seriously?
Oh, absolutely. Then, by the time I was 8, I started working out with weights, doing chin-ups, all kinds of stuff with weights at the gym.
**So in the 15 years since, how have your workouts evolved? **
Every single day throughout the week, I'm working out with heavy weights with a lot of reps. My workouts don't just consist of push-ups and sit-ups and weights anymore. It has to be a little bit of everything. So you have the weights, you have the cardio, the conditioning, the wrestling, the jujitsu, the standup training. You need every aspect to be a well-rounded fighter. Depending on what specifically I'm doing with my wrestling or grappling, that determines what body part I'll be working with the weights. You definitely don't want to be working the same body part four hours a day and overtraining.
**If your penchant for bending frying pans is any indication, all those workouts seem to be paying off. Is there some secret technique that allows you to do that, or is it just sheer strength? **
No, there's no trick to it. At least, not that I know of. Maybe there is some secret out there, but for me, I think it's just all the crazy grip work and the weird forearm strength I've built up since I was little.
**How does one go about developing that kind of grip strength? **
I used to take a baseball bat and whip at the trees outside my house. I would hit the tree over and over to strengthen my grip. Another little part of it is from karate. Having to spin weapons and twirl them and passing them between your legs while you're doing flips and stuff, I think that built up a different type of strength. Just building up every little fiber and tissue in the forearms.
**One thing that's a little surprising about your training is that you don't spar at all before a fight. **
Look at all the injuries that happen in the sport of MMA and in the UFC with people sparring. For me, with how much technique I can improve on, fine-tuning all the little things makes me better. There's always technique to learn and improve on. I don't believe I need to be sparring at this exact moment and possibly risk getting hurt. The sport of MMA is changing. There are multiple MMA fighters with the UFC that are changing up the way they train, going away from the sparring aspect. I know the UFC wants all the fighters to be healthy, so having sparring eliminated and the possibility of being injured eliminated, that definitely helps your whole career.
I wanted to talk a little bit about your last fight, against Bryan Barberena. It was your first loss as a professional fighter, but from other interviews you've given, it sounds like you weren't 100 percent going into that fight.
Originally, I was supposed to fight Andrew Holbrook, at 155 pounds, so lightweight. About a week before the fight itself, he broke his foot. With about a week's notice, I was moved up to fight at 170 pounds. The reason me and my coaches even accepted that was because I had real bad strep throat at the time. We figured that it would help my body recover and heal up from being so sick if I didn't have to cut back all that weight. But about two days before the fight, the UFC had to actually take me to the emergency room. That's how bad my throat was inflamed.
The day of the fight itself, I could almost barely get out of bed. On top of all that, I had a wisdom tooth that was growing in my mouth that was causing massive headaches and a ton of sinus pressure in my nose. I really couldn't breathe out of my nose because of all that sinus pressure, and then having the strep throat so bad and with my throat so swollen, it was like breathing through a little tiny straw. My whole body was worn out. It was drained, and I just wasn't my normal self.
**Had you not been dealing with all those problems, do you think the fight ends differently? **
I'm not making excuses for the fight, but it was difficult just walking into the octagon. I had to take my mouthpiece out about two or three times in a matter of 15 seconds, just because I couldn't breathe at all. It was like I was suffocating. Typically, when someone gets a choke on me, I have a pretty strong neck. It's usually hard to choke me. So when Barberena had me down there in the arm-triangle choke, I didn't have my normal strength or cardio. Any technique I possibly knew, it was like my body wasn't reacting to what my brain was telling it. I wasn't able to go for any underhooks or overhooks. I believe it would have been different if I wasn't sick. For sure.
**It was also your third fight in four months. Do you think, with all those mitigating factors going on before the fight, that the best thing for you would have been to step back and not take the fight after Holbrook dropped out? **
You know, sure, that may have been the best choice once we found out that my original opponent broke his foot. That probably would have been the best choice, because I was so sick. To tell you the truth, I've never really been sick like that before. Now we're making changes to help ensure that I stay healthy. Slowing things down to prevent myself from getting sick again.
**You entered the UFC with both a lot of hype and hate. Now that you've lost a fight and been forced to take a step back to heal up, have you given much thought to that dichotomy? **
I don't create the hype. When there is hype, it's not me creating it. I'm just out there having fun in every single thing that I do. Sure, there are people who say negative things or maybe aren't in your corner or who are now second-guessing if I can do this. But there are also people who believe in you and that are pushing you up and helping you get better and better. I'm only looking at the positive aspect of it. |
The redevelopment of Lincoln Center from a classic but aloof 1960s Modernistic collection of austere buildings and plazas into an inviting, comprehensible campus of arts events and organizations is revolutionizing the Upper West Side. Its staid past behind it, Lincoln Center now pulses morning and night with people walking, talking, dancing, singing, stretching, practicing their crafts and watching one another.
Surrounding restaurants, shops, sidewalks, and parklets seem perpetually busy as the neighborhood becomes the destination it was long meant to be. The saga of how this came about is laid out by former president Reynold Levy in his Game-of-Thrones-like chronicle, They Told Me not to Take that Job: Tumult, Betrayal, Heroics, and the Transformation of Lincoln Center.
New Yorkers have so thoroughly made the new Lincoln Center their own that it can be hard to remember what was once there (including a lost neighborhood of San Juan Hill),—and therefore the subtle genius of what’s been done.
Here are a few things you might not know about the new Lincoln Center:
1. The aim of the new Lincoln Center, once the country’s largest construction site, is “to remove Lincoln Center from its pedestal and have it embrace the cityscape all around it,” says Reynold Levy.
The Josie Robertson Plaza has a new staircase with welcoming LED lights.
In the $1.2 billion renovation overseen by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the new Lincoln Center is determined to welcome you in every conceivable way. While not everyone loves the LED lights on the 171-foot-wide grand stairs spelling out “bienvenue” in multiple languages, the new wayfinding signage, or the perky pink pingpong-paddle-like signs, they represent a distinctive approach that seems to work. Glass canopies leading to Avery Fisher Hall and the David Koch Theatre flank the stairs. More important for our age of pedestrian-access, the staircase covers an underground drop-off road for cars, introducing to Lincoln CEnter Frederick Law Olmsted’s crucial principle of separating different modes of traffic.
View all on one page |
Before you read Tom’s posting in GolfWRX, if you didn’t know “who Tom is”… Tom Wishon is a golf club designer and researcher. Tom Wishon is a former member of the PGA of America who chose to pursue a career in golf equipment design and clubfitting research. While he has been offered the chance to head up golf club design for some of the largest golf club companies in the world, he has chosen to remain within the lesser known segment of the golf equipment industry that focuses on fitting golfers one at a time and building their golf clubs from high quality clubhead, shaft and grip component designs. He is also author of two best-selling consumer-oriented books, The Search for the Perfect Golf Club and The Search for the Perfect Driver.
If you want to see the original thread and industry discussion click here to go to the forums… http://www.golfwrx.com/forums/topic/552963-10-myths-about-shafts/
Golf WRX Golfers: After seeing how many of your questions are about shafts, and after reading several of these posts and answers, I really felt it would be of benefit to share some of the information I have been fortunate to figure out over the 20 plus years I have been doing serious shaft research and shaft design. I simply wish to offer this information because it is evident that many golfers do not have access to the facts about shafts. I felt it easier to convey this information through a series of Myths related to shafts that are compiled from having read tons of questions and comments from golfers about shafts. Because this is somewhat long, I did ask GolfWRX for permission to post this and Richard did say OK. My goal as always is simply to offer golfers the most truthful and accurate information possible about golf equipment so golfers can make better buying decisions for their clubs. Thank you, TOM WISHON
10 Myths About Shafts
1. The shaft is the engine of the golf club
2. The shaft is the most important component of the golf club
3. The letter flex code on the shaft tells me how stiff the shaft is
4. The shaft is a key element for the amount of backspin imparted on a shot
5. How a shaft plays and performs for one golfer or group of golfers is important for other golfers to know to be able to make a proper shaft selection decision
6. The more expensive a shaft, the better it is
7. The flex of the shaft has a very important effect on shot performance for all golfers
8. The higher the clubhead speed of the golfer, the stiffer the shaft should be
9. The right shaft adds distance by “kicking faster” through the ball
10. How a shaft performs for a golfer(s) is an indication of its quality
Shaft Myth #1 – The shaft is the engine of the golf club
If I had a dollar for every time I have heard this statement, I might not be rich, but I definitely would be able to go to a nice restaurant and enjoy a good dinner with a good bottle of wine! It is far more truthful to say that “the golfer is the engine,” while “the shaft is the transmission of the golf club.”
A shaft does not create energy during the swing. It is simply the component that takes the energy generated by the golfer and transmits it to the clubhead to hit the ball. It is true that if certain elements of the shaft are not properly fit to the golfer’s specific swing characteristics, the golfer can lose distance by experiencing a lower clubhead speed or more off-center hits than he could generate from using a correctly fit shaft. At the same token, if the shaft is accurately fit, the golfer has a much better chance of fully optimizing his/her potential to hit the ball to the best of their ability.
Performance wise, the shaft, 1) can affect the dynamic loft of the clubhead at impact within a narrow range of 2 to 3 degrees, but only for those golfers with a later to very late release; 2) will chiefly control the total weight of the club, which in turn can have an effect on the golfer’s clubhead speed, 3) can affect some golfers’ (not all) confidence and swing consistency by displaying a “bending feel” during the swing that is either more preferred or less preferred by the golfer. That’s it, that’s the full list of what the shaft can do.
Shaft Myth #2 – The shaft is the most important component of the golf club
Sorry, but when you’re talking about ALL golfers, the shaft is not as important to the actual performance of the shot as is the clubhead. I’ll give you an example of when this was actually “tested and proven” in the golf industry by a huge number of golfers. Back in the early 1970s when PING golf company moved to the front of the golf industry through the introduction of their deep cavity back original Ping Eye model irons, the standard shaft installed in every set of Eye irons was a 125 gram X flex steel shaft.
Ping’s founder Karsten Solheim used these shafts in his irons because he believed a heavier and stiffer shaft would help all golfers hit the ball straighter. Literally millions of sets of PING irons with X flex heavier weight steel shafts were sold throughout the 1970s and you know what? Literally millions of golfers liked their new PING irons more than their previous irons. Why? Because the original PING Eye irons were the very first irons with a deep cavity back design AND lower lofts than what had been the norm for irons – this meant the moment of inertia (MOI) of the Eye irons was FAR higher than any previous iron model yet designed. This in turn gave golfers such a huge improvement in off center hit performance as well as on center hit distance over the irons they previously used that this big leap forward in head performance completely overshadowed the potentially bad effects to golfers using a shaft that was too heavy and too stiff for their swing.
Of course, we know today that playing with too heavy and too stiff of a shaft can rob the golfer of clubhead speed and shot consistency and make the feeling of impact become “dead and boardy.” But the point shown by the PING example of the 1970s is that if the clubhead’s improvement is great enough for the golfer over what they used to play, the shaft does not have to be accurately fit for the golfer to still realize significant game improvement.
Shaft Myth #3 – The letter flex code on the shaft tells me how stiff the shaft is
No it doesn’t because there are absolutely no standards in the golf industry for how stiff any of the shaft flex codes are. Every golf company and shaft company is free to determine how stiff their various shaft flex letter codes are to be. As a result it is very common for the R Flex from one company to be similar in stiffness to the S Flex from another company or the A Flex from a third company. Not only that, but it is very common for a flex in one model of shaft to be stiffer or more flexible than the same letter flex in a different shaft model from the same company!
There is no better proof than to offer a clear illustration. Following is a graph comparison of 7 different R-Flex shafts, from 6 different companies. These shafts were all measured using the same methodology to graph the comparative stiffness at 7 identical points along the length of each different shaft. The numerical measurements represent cycles per minute (CPM) of frequency measured with a 454 gram weight on the tip end of the shaft.
For comparison of the relative stiffness for all these R Flex shafts, focus on the CPM measurements for the 41 in and 36 in columns in the data chart. At these points on the grip end of the shaft, a difference of 7 CPM in the 41/36 measurements is equivalent to one full flex, based on averages from more than 2000 different shafts. (when the tip weight is reduced to 205g, a 10cpm difference is equivalent to one full flex level) As you can see, among these 7 shafts there is a relative stiffness difference of 28 CPM, which is nearly four full flexes – and yet all of these shafts are labeled by their respective companies as being an R Flex shaft.
Next let’s look at a graph comparison of a number of the R Flex shafts from different shaft models, all from the same company. Within these 6 different R Flex shafts all from the same company, can be seen a range in basic stiffness of 19.5 CPM, which equates to a difference of nearly 3 full flex levels. Yet all are labeled as R flex shafts.
It is VERY IMPORTANT to understand that such variations are by intent and DO NOT represent a mistake or lack of quality in any manner by these companies. Remember, each company is free to determine their own standards for the actual stiffness for what each flex of each shaft is to be. It is not wrong – it just is the way it is.
What’s wrong is when golfers do not know this and make buying decisions based only on a meaningless letter code imprinted on the shaft. So the next time you head out to buy a new club(s) or a new shaft, please remember that R does not equal R, S does not equal S, and none of the letter codes equal each other. If you want another good reason for why it is worth it to be professionally custom fit by an experienced custom Clubmaker, here is yet another one of many reasons to do so. Many of the experienced clubmakers are well aware of the variations among the flexes of all the shafts and can guide you into the very best shaft selection for YOUR swing characteristics.
Shaft Myth #4 – The shaft is a key element for the amount of backspin imparted on a shot
That can be true. . . but only if you are a golfer who unhinges your wrist-**** angle late in the downswing and you have a clubhead speed north of 100 mph with the driver. If you are a golfer with a late release and a clubhead speed in the area of 85mph, the shaft is only going to have a small effect on backspin. And if you are a golfer with an early release, no matter what your clubhead speed, the amount of backspin you put on the shot is purely going to be determined by your clubhead speed, your angle of attack into the ball, the loft of your driver and where on the face you made contact with the ball.
It is very common for companies to market shafts as having spin characteristics – “low, medium or high spin” in their design. The problem is that it takes a very specific type of swing characteristic to even allow the shaft to have any effect whatsoever on the amount of spin imparted on the shot. That swing move is when you unhinge your wrist-**** angle to release the club during the downswing. In short, the later you hold onto the wrist-**** angle on the downswing, and the higher your clubhead speed, the more the shaft could have an effect on the backspin of the shot.
Here’s why, and here’s how shafts may or may not have a bearing on the amount of spin on a shot. First of all, keep in mind that only three things determine the amount of backspin on a shot – clubhead speed, the dynamic loft on the clubface at the point of impact, and the point of impact in relation to the center of gravity of the clubhead. (Angle of attack is a part of the dynamic loft) The higher the clubhead speed, the higher will be the spin for any given loft angle, the higher the loft on the clubhead at the moment of impact, and the lower the point of impact in relation to the CG, the greater will be the amount of backspin. Vice versa applies to these things for less spin.
But let’s talk about how the swing gets involved in all of this to be able to potentially interact with the club to have an effect on spin. Let’s say we’ve all made our backswing and we have the club positioned at the top, ready to swing down to the ball. From the moment the club starts down, for as long as we retain and hold our wrist-**** angle between our arms and the shaft, the arms and the club are accelerating at the same rate and the arms and club are both moving at the same velocity.
The split-second we start to unhinge the wrist-**** angle, the arms begin to slow down while the club begins to accelerate to a higher velocity. Because the arms are slowing down while holding on to the club, the faster moving clubhead starts to push against the shaft that is being held back by the hands and the shaft begins to flex forward. The more flexible the design of the shaft and/or the more tip flexible the design of the shaft, the more the shaft could flex forward at impact and from it, have more of an effect on launch angle, trajectory and spin.
If the golfer happens to hold the wrist-**** angle until very late in the downswing, the forward flexing of the shaft happens right when the clubhead meets the ball. If the shaft comes to impact flexed forward, this forward curve of the shaft increases the loft on the clubhead at impact – which in turn increases the launch angle AND increases the amount of backspin put on the shot. When shaft companies say this or that shaft is a “low spin design”, what they mean is that the shaft is designed to either be stiffer overall, or, stiffer in the tip section of the shaft. Stiffer shaft means less forward bending before impact, which means less of a loft increase at impact on the clubhead. . . but ONLY for a player with a later to very late unhinging of the wrist-**** angle on the downswing.
On the other hand, if the golfer unhinges the wrist-**** angle early on the downswing, all this forward flexing of the shaft happens well before impact. Thus for the early release golfer, by the time the clubhead gets to the ball, the shaft will have had time to flex back to a virtual straight position. That’s why for early release golfers, the shaft cannot have any additional effect on the dynamic loft on the clubhead and the amount of spin on the shot.
Myth #5 – How a shaft plays and performs for one golfer or group of golfers is important for other golfers to know to be able to make a proper shaft selection
Only if the golfers involved all happen to have EXACTLY, and I mean exactly, the same swing characteristics is someone else’s experience with a particular shaft of any importance. And how often do two or more golfers swing exactly the same way?
I can’t tell you how many times I have scanned posts on golf equipment internet forums from golfers who ask a question such as, “has anyone tried the XYZ shaft and what do you think of it?” Invariably, almost every golfer’s response comes back citing this or that personal opinion or playing result without ever saying one thing about any of their specific swing characteristics.
In addition, numerous times I have heard a golfer comment about a shaft to say something like, “that XYZ shaft is really a bad shaft. If golfers knew that shaft performance is so tied to specific golf swing characteristics they would say instead, “that shaft is probably a good shaft for some other golfer, but it is a bad shaft FOR ME AND MY SPECIFIC SWING CHARACTERISTICS.”
There is no such thing as a good shaft or a bad shaft in this game. There are only shafts that fit their owners and shafts that do not fit their owners. More than any other component, the performance of the shaft is completely related to a series of finite, specific swing and playing characteristics – your clubhead speed, your transition move to start the downswing, your downswing aggressiveness/tempo, the point during the downswing when you unhinge your wrist-**** angle to release the club to impact and whether you as a golfer do or do not have a specific, preferred sense for the bending feel of the shaft during the swing.
Shaft Myth #6 – The more expensive a shaft, the better its quality and the better it performs
There are few things in the golf industry that have become as much of a sore spot with me as this matter of shafts that cost $100, $200, $300 and even more. Shoot, I remember when we all thought a $40 shaft was expensive! What’s even worse are the uninformed golfers who see these $100 – $300 shafts and automatically form the opinion that if it costs that much, it has to be a really good shaft.
You want to know what the definition of a “good shaft” is? A good shaft is any shaft that has been very accurately matched for its weight, overall stiffness, bend profile, weight distribution and torque to a golfer’s clubhead speed, transition force, downswing tempo, wrist-**** release, strength and sense of feel. That’s the definition of a “good shaft” and it has absolutely nothing to do with brand, model or price.
There are 5 different specifications that determine the performance differences between shafts. 1) mass (weight); 2) overall stiffness (flex); 3) bend profile (distribution of the stiffness over the length of the shaft); 4) weight distribution (balance point); 5) torsional stiffness (torque). Two of these, the weight and the torque, are definitely related to the cost of the shaft. The lighter the weight and the lower the torque of a shaft, the more expensive the shaft will be to make. In other words, if you want to make a very stiff 45 gram shaft with less than 3? of torque, that shaft is going to cost a lot more money to make than a 65 gram softer flex shaft with 5? of torque. . . but not $100 to $300 by any means.
The other three shaft design elements, a shaft’s overall stiffness, bend profile and balance point, are not even close to being as price sensitive as the weight and torque. Standard modulus (low cost) graphite raw materials can be used to make any flex, bend profile or balance point from soft L to very stiff X.
Yes, many of the high dollar shafts are actually made with more expensive raw composite materials. But they don’t need to be made with such expensive materials to achieve their weight, flex, bend profile, balance point and torque. In my career I have measured the specifications of literally thousands of different shafts, and from my experience, I have yet to see a $100 to $300 shaft that could not be duplicated for weight, flex, bend profile, balance point and torque and sold at a normal profit in the industry for an aftermarket price of $25 to $50.
Shaft Myth #7 – The flex of the shaft has an important effect on shot performance for all golfers
For some golfers, very definitely this is true. But for many golfers, approaching even the majority of golfers, the flex of the shaft is one of the very least important of all the fitting specifications of a golf club.
To sum it up, the higher the clubhead speed, the more forceful the transition move, the more aggressive the downswing, the later the unhinging of the wrist-**** angle, and the more the golfer has an specific preference for the bending feel of the shaft, the more important the shaft flex will be to shot performance. For a slower swinging, smooth tempo, early release golfer who does not have a refined sense of feel for the bending action of the shaft, the flex is virtually unimportant and the WEIGHT of the shaft becomes the only important fitting element related to the shaft.
The one swing characteristic that has the most influence on making the flex become an important part of the performance of the shaft is the point of the wrist-**** release during the downswing. The later the wrist-**** release, the more the shaft can arrive at impact in a flexed forward position – which is how the shaft flex can have a visible effect on the launch angle, height and spin rate of the shaft.
Second after the release in terms of the swing moves that dictate the importance of shaft flex is the force the golfer applies during the transition move to start the downswing. The more forcefully, the more sudden, and the more aggressive the golfer starts the downswing, the more bending force is applied to the shaft. The more the golfer bends the shaft at the start of the downswing, the more the golfer could feel differences in shaft stiffness and from that, develop a preference for a specific type of bending feel in a shaft that if satisfied, can make a big difference in shot consistency and clubhead speed.
Shaft Myth #8 – The higher the clubhead speed of the golfer, the stiffer the shaft should be
There are two reasons this is frequently not true. First, as we said previously, with no standards in the golf industry for shaft flex, there are very definitely a lot of R flex shafts that are stiffer than a lot of S flex and even X flex shafts. So it can be very possible for a golfer with a certain clubhead speed to be properly fit with an S flex in one company’s shaft model, but to find that another company’s R flex may in fact be stiffer.
The second and main reason this statement is frequently not true is because clubhead speed is not the main element in the swing that determines how much a golfer actually bends a shaft during the swing. The swing element that applies the chief amount of bending force to a shaft is the golfer’s transition move to start the downswing. Among two golfers with the same clubhead speed, it can be very common for one golfer to have a short backswing with a very forceful, abrupt and sudden acceleration to start the downswing, while the other golfer might start the downswing with a much smoother, more gradual acceleration of the club.
Among two golfers with the same clubhead speed, the one with the stronger, more forceful transition move will always put more bending force on the shaft, and from it, will typically need a stiffer shaft than the golfer with the same swing speed who has a smooth, gradual acceleration of the club during the downswing. It is also not uncommon to see a golfer with a slower swing speed and stronger transition as well as a golfer with a higher swing speed and smoother transition move. In such a case, the slower swinging golfer with stronger transition would need a stiffer shaft than the golfer with a higher clubhead speed but smoother, less forceful transition move.
The bottom line is that while clubhead speed definitely offers a starting point for flex selection, the most accurate shaft fitting involves a careful evaluation of the other swing movements that have a direct effect on how much the shaft is flexed during the swing.
Shaft Myth #9 – The right shaft adds distance by “kicking faster” through the ball
It’s easy to assume this is true when you see a golfer use a different shaft with the same clubhead and experience a higher clubhead speed and more distance. Also contributing to this thought is the fact that a few companies have actually used the term “tip velocity” in the marketing of a shaft. As a result, there are a lot of golfers who believe shafts can be designed to possess the ability to “kick faster” than other shafts.
When a golfer changes shafts in an existing club and achieves a higher clubhead speed or gains distance, the things that most typically explain the increase in distance are as follows:
1. When an existing clubhead is re-shafted, along with the specs of the new shaft itself there very definitely can be changes in the length, the total weight and the swingweight of the club that happen as a result of switching from one shaft to another. If the new length, new total weight, new swingweight or combination of any of these three happen to fit the golfer’s size, strength, athletic ability and swing characteristics better than these elements did before in the club with the former shaft, very definitely this can result in a higher clubhead speed and more distance.
Very experienced clubfitters have seen many times when a change of 10 to 20 grams in the total weight, a change of 2 to 3 swingweights and/or a change of ½” to 1″ in the length of a club can all of a sudden allow the club to fit the golfer so well that a marked increase of 3 to 5mph in clubhead speed can occur. Such changes in total weight and/or swingweight are not at all unusual when shafts are changed because of the wide range in weight and balance point among different models of shafts.
2. When a golfer switches to a shaft that fits his sense of feel or feel preference better than a previous shaft, the golfer can very definitely have the tendency to swing in a more free, more unrestricted, and more confident manner than before – which in turn can very definitely can result in a higher clubhead speed from which more distance occurs.
Think about it this way. If you’ve played a lot of golf and hit a lot of different golf clubs, at one time or another you have probably hit or played with clubs in which the shafts are either much too stiff or too flexible for your sense of feel when you swing the club and hit the ball. When you have hit clubs with shafts that are too stiff, what is your first inclination? Probably to try to swing harder so as to elevate your swing speed/force to better match the stiffer shaft. And what happened to your swing consistency when you did this? That’s right, not the best results.
Perhaps at some point in your playing life you have tripped across a club with a shaft that when you swung the club, everything just felt perfect. The shaft didn’t feel too stiff or too flexible when you started the downswing and when you released the club to hit the ball, you felt the shaft kick at exactly the right time and with exactly the right amount of kick. In such a case, I bet your natural inclination was to forget about any type of swing manipulation and to just “let it fly” when you swung – a full, free, unrestricted swing with nothing getting in the way of “letting it go.”
For golfers who do have a preferred sense of feel for the way the shaft bends during the swing, even if they cannot clearly describe that feel in words, being able to find a shaft that bends, flexes and unloads in exactly the manner they prefer is a sure ticket to swinging with the highest natural clubhead speed their swing can generate. And definitely a higher speed than they can generate when the shaft either feels too stiff or too flexible.
Shafts cannot be designed to have a higher or lower flexing velocity. They simply are designed with differences in stiffness, weight, torque and weight distribution which either do or do not fit the swing characteristics and preference for feel of the golfer using the shaft. Again, there is no magic in this. There are thousands of combinations of shaft weight, flex, bend profile, weight distribution, and torque and thousands of combinations of golfer swing speed, transition force, downswing tempo, wrist **** release and feel preferences. The perfect shaft is when these two sides get matched up to each other in a perfect shaft fitting.
Shaft Myth #10 – How a shaft performs for a golfer is an indication of its quality
No, how a shaft performs for a golfer is an indication of how well the shaft’s weight, flex, bend profile, balance point and torque were FIT to the golfer’s size, strength, athletic ability and swing characteristics. Remember what I said about “good shafts” and “bad shafts”? There are no such things. There are only well fit and poorly fit shafts.
Shaft quality is more a case of how consistently can the shaft maker hit each one of the production specifications for each shaft they make within a very narrow range of error tolerance, shaft after shaft after shaft. And believe me, by no means does the cost of a shaft guarantee this definition of shaft quality.
In my shaft research work, my shaft data base now includes nearly 2000 different shaft models. In doing this, I get a chance to measure all sorts of specifications on a lot of different shafts from most of the shaft manufacturers in the world. When you measure multiples of the same model and flex of shafts, you get the chance to see who maintains tight error tolerances and who doesn’t. And I can tell you, the price of a shaft is not always related to how consistent or how tight the tolerances are for a company’s shafts.
Some of the high dollar shafts do display very tight, consistent error tolerances. Some don’t. And some of the lower priced shafts show a very high level of shaft to shaft consistency while again, some do not.
If you want to see the original thread and industry discussion click here to go to the forums… http://www.golfwrx.com/forums/topic/552963-10-myths-about-shafts/ |
The Turkish daily Zaman, the country’s biggest newspaper, has published its first printed edition under new management, two days after the government seized the paper and removed its editor-in-chief.
Formerly an opposition newspaper critical of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and his Justice and Development party (AKP), Sunday’s edition firmly toed the government line.
“In less than 48 hours, the new admin turned seized Zaman into a propaganda piece of the regime in Turkey,” Sevgi Akarcesme, the editor-in chief of Today’s Zaman, an English-language sister publication, tweeted.
On Friday a Turkish court ruled that the newspaper should be run by appointed trustees. A reason for the decision was not given.
“We are going through the darkest and gloomiest days in terms of freedom of the press, which is a major benchmark for democracy and the rule of law,” a statement published by Today’s Zaman read. “Intellectuals, businesspeople, celebrities, civil society organisations, media organisations and journalists are being silenced via threats and blackmail. We have entered the last phase in terms of pressure on those who persistently remain independent in their publications.”
On Sunday, former Zaman staff set up a newspaper, Yarina Bakis, meaning “look towards tomorrow”, with Zaman’s former Twitter feed automatically redirecting readers to the new account.
The paper’s website featured a message promising readers “high quality and unbiased” content “as soon as possible” on Sunday.
Only hours after the court ruling on Friday, police used teargas and rubber bullets against protesters who had gathered in front of the newspaper and later forced their way into the building to raid the offices. Officers forcefully removed protesters on Saturday, and newspaper staff arriving for work had to enter the building under tight police control.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Police at the headquarters of Zaman in Istanbul on Sunday. Photograph: Emrah Gurel/AP
On Monday leaders of EU member states will meet with Turkish counterparts in Brussels for a crucial summit to discuss the implementation of a contentious migration deal. Under the proposals, the EU will pledge financial aid and political concessions in return for Turkey’s promise to help decrease the flow of refugees to Europe.
The Turkish government has insisted that it was not involved in the court ruling, and the prime minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, has called the paper’s confiscation a “legal procedure”, adding that it was “not political”.
The newspaper is closely associated with the movement of Fethullah Gülen, a US-based Islamic cleric and a former ally of Erdoğan who has since become a fierce critic, especially over diverging views on the government’s handling of the 2013 Gezi protests and the AKP’s Syria policy.
The two men fell out over a corruption scandal that broke in December 2013 and implicated senior government officials, Erdoğan’s closest associates and his family.
Erdoğan has repeatedly accused Gülen of having established a “parallel structure” within the state by placing his followers in institutions such as the judiciary and the police, and of exerting strong influence through his media empire. Turkish authorities have labelled the movement, known as “Hizmet” among its millions of followers worldwide, a “terrorist organisation”, known in Turkey under the acronym FETÖ. Gülen has denied any plans to overthrow Erdoğan or the Turkish government.
In October last year, government trustees were appointed to manage the Koza İpek Media Group, a business with close ties to the Gülen movement. Last month, the group’s media operations, including TV channels and newspapers, were closed down. Two other opposition TV channels were taken off air two weeks ago.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have both harshly condemned the takeover of the daily Zaman.
“The Istanbul court’s decision to appoint trustees to run Zaman newspaper and other media is nothing but a veiled move by the president to eradicate opposition media and scrutiny of government policies,” said Emma Sinclair-Webb, senior Turkey researcher for Human Rights Watch, in a statement at the weekend. “This deplorable ruling, which follows the blocking of two critical TV stations, is the latest blow to free speech in Turkey.”
Earlier this week Erdoğan said he would neither “recognise nor respect” the ruling by the constitutional court to release Can Dündar, the editor-in-chief of the opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet and the paper’s Ankara bureau chief Erdem Gül from jail. Both have been in prison pending trial since last November on charges of espionage over articles claiming that the AKP government had shipped arms to Islamist groups in Syria. Both journalists still face terrorism charges and are banned from leaving the country.
While Erdoğan maintains that the press in Turkey is among the most free in the world, human rights organisations and media monitoring groups have warned that freedom of expression is under ever growing pressure, and has lately been in freefall. Turkey ranks 149th among 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders. |
Liverpool striker Daniel Sturridge is set to return to England this weekend to step up his recovery from a hip injury.
The England international needed surgery in early May to sort out a torn muscle sustained during a Premier League match against Manchester United on Mar. 22.
But he has been progressing well while carrying out an individual fitness programme in the United States, sources have told ESPN FC.
Glen Driscoll, the club's head of performance, and lead physio Chris Morgan have flown to Boston to meet Sturridge ahead of his return to Merseyside.
The 25-year-old is not yet ready to resume playing for Liverpool yet, but is likely to be fit after England's next round of Euro 2016 qualifiers versus San Marino and Switzerland in early September.
It means he could be available to face Manchester United in the Premier League at Old Trafford on Sept. 12.
Sturridge was restricted to seven league starts last season after suffering four separate injury setbacks -- with two thigh injuries and a calf problem affecting him before the torn hip muscle ended his season.
Meanwhile, captain Jordan Henderson has been given a fitness boost ahead of Monday's league trip to Arsenal after scans showed he has not broken a bone in his foot. Initial reports suggested he might be held out of the match.
Henderson has been struggling with a foot injury, and needed a painkilling injection to be able to play in last Monday's 1-0 home victory over Bournemouth.
He had to be substituted after 52 minutes of that game, with Emre Can coming on in his place. It is still not certain that Henderson will be fit enough to play at the Emirates Stadium, but the absence of a break increases his chances of featuring.
The midfielder, 25, will continue to be assessed over the coming days to see how the problem reacts. |
A Halifax jury has found Kale Leonard Gabriel guilty of second-degree murder in the death of Ryan White.
Members of White's family, who have been in Nova Scotia Supreme Court throughout the two-week trial, gasped and hugged one another when the verdict was delivered Thursday. Gabriel showed no emotion.
Ryan White died in 2010. (novascotia.ca)
White, 21, was shot dead in Halifax's Mulgrave Park in 2010. Gabriel faces an automatic life sentence for the murder, and a judge will determine when he is eligible to apply for parole.
Gabriel, 27, was the last witness to testify at his trial. He told court he and White were struggling for control of a gun when it went off.
The Crown had argued Gabriel had had enough of White and went out that night with a gun to confront him. The Crown said Gabriel had control of the gun when it went off.
"[The jury] certainly didn't buy that it was an accident and they didn't buy that it was fully self-defence," Crown prosecutor Rick Woodburn said moments after the verdict.
"He may have been scared of Ryan White, but not enough to invoke self-defence."
The bullet struck White in the chest; he died later in hospital. Gabriel denied pulling the trigger and the gun was never recovered.
'Code of silence'
It took years before police got a break in the case, in large part because people who witnessed the shooting refused to talk.
"There's an element of code of silence with regards to crimes like this," Woodburn said.
"The community feels that by staying silent, they're creating their own sort of justice. But that doesn't work in our community."
Two people eventually testified about what they saw. One of them, Randall Samson, has applied for a reward under the province's major unsolved crimes program. The program offers rewards of up to $150,000 for information and testimony leading to a conviction.
The province will only consider a reward for Samson once the appeal period for Gabriel's conviction has elapsed. If successful, Samson would be the second person to receive a reward under the provincial program.
"The reward program certainly gets people thinking and it also starts the conversation: Should we come forward? For what reasons should we come forward? Is it the right thing to do?," Woodburn said. |
Credit: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel illustration
SHARE Backfire
A Journal Sentinel investigation uncovered mistakes and failures in an undercover sting in Milwaukee's Riverwest neighborhood by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives – stolen guns, sensitive documents lost, wrong people charged and a burglary of the sting storefront. Go to section.
By of the
ATF agents have lost track of dozens of government-issued guns, after stashing them under the front seats in their cars, in glove compartments or simply leaving them on top of their vehicles and driving away, according to internal reports from the past five years obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Agents left their guns behind in bathroom stalls, at a hospital, outside a movie theater and on a plane, according to the records, obtained Tuesday by the news organization under the federal Freedom of Information Act.
In December 2009, two 6-year-old boys spotted an agent's loaded ATF Smith & Wesson .357 on a storm sewer grate in Bettendorf, Iowa. The agent lived nearby and later said he couldn't find his gun for days but didn't bother reporting it — until it hit the local newspaper.
In Los Angeles in 2011, an agent went out to a bar drinking with other agents and friends, reportedly consuming four alcoholic beverages. The next morning he woke up and realized his ATF-issued Glock was gone. It was not found.
All of the agents' names are blacked out on the reports, which do not say if the agents were disciplined. It is clear that agency rules were not followed in many of the incidents, which show at least 49 guns were lost or stolen nationwide between 2009 and 2013.
One report on an agent who lost her gun when she moved concluded by quoting an ATF order that, in part, says bureau-issued guns when not carried or in the immediate control of the agents "shall be stored in secured, locked locations."
The order also says agents "must exercise good judgment and common sense when assessing the security of Bureau-issued firearms."
In Milwaukee, an undercover agent had three of his guns, including an ATF-owned machine gun, stolen from his government truck parked at a coffee shop in September 2012.
The theft was among acascade of mistakes made in the ATF's Operation Fearless, an undercover storefront about a mile away in the Riverwest neighborhood. The Journal Sentinel uncovered a series of problems in the sting and others like it run by the ATF across the country.
The internal reports released Tuesday reveal the ATF quickly closed its investigation into the guns stolen in Milwaukee. But the matter was reopened after the Journal Sentinel investigation revealed the theft and other problems in Operation Fearless. The follow-up report indicates the agent had not followed ATF rules on how to secure his guns.
A congressional hearing on the storefront stings will be held Thursday in Washington, D.C.
The hearing and another expected to be held next month were scheduled in the wake of the Journal Sentinel investigation, which found that the ATF used mentally disabled people to promote operations and then arrested them on drug and gun charges; opened storefronts close to schools and churches, increasing arrest numbers and penalties; and attracted juveniles with free video games and alcohol.
Agents paid inflated prices for guns, which led to people buying weapons at stores and selling them to undercover agents hours later, in some cases for nearly three times what they paid. In addition, agents allowed armed felons to leave their fake stores and openly bought stolen goods, spurring burglaries in surrounding neighborhoods.
Incidents from 2009-'13
The newly released ATF reports show that between 2009 and 2013, agents lost their guns or had them stolen in at least 45 incidents — with a couple of the cases involving the loss of three firearms.
It is unclear if the records include "missing" guns, a separate category used by the agency.
Most of the lost weapons were handguns, but there also were at least two assault rifles stolen. Typically the reports do not indicate what happened to the unrecovered guns. However, in a November 2008 incident, the gun may have wound up in Mexico, according to the report.
The ATF has weapons stolen or loses them more frequently than other federal law enforcement agencies, according to a 2008 report from the Office of the Inspector General with the U.S. Department of Justice.
In a five-year span from 2002-'07, for example, 76 ATF weapons were reported stolen, lost or missing, according to the report. That's nearly double the rate of the FBI and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, when considering rates per 1,000 agents.
The inspector general's office found the majority of losses and thefts were a result of carelessness or failure to follow ATF policy.
The report cited examples similar to those in the documents obtained by the Journal Sentinel, with agents leaving weapons in public bathrooms, atop their vehicles, on an airplane and one in a shopping cart.
"There's no doubt that people leave things around, but when you have an agency whose task it is is to focus on firearms, it would seem to me like an extra measure of care would be called for," said David Harris, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and an expert on law enforcement tactics and regulation. "If they are doing this at a rate that is higher than others (in law enforcement), it is something to worry about."
The sloppy attention to securing weapons could stem in part from poor communication about the importance of the issue by leadership or lack of adequate consequences for those who violate the rules, Harris said.
"You have to make it real. ...People have to see there are real consequences," he said. "If you don't do that, you might as well not have the rules. It's just window dressing."
In 2007, the ATF cut its minimum suspension for a first-time loss of a weapon from three unpaid days to one.
The reduction in penalty was aimed at motivating agents to report the loss quickly, ATF officials told the inspector general in 2008.
ATF spokeswoman Ginger Colbrun said late Tuesday it is the sole responsibility of the roughly 2,400 agents to secure their guns, as outlined in agency policy.
She said the Internal Affairs Division investigates the loss or theft of a firearm and sends a report to the Professional Review Board, which reviews the incident to determine any culpability.
Rules on guns in vehicles
ATF officials have refused to release information about rules pertaining to agents keeping guns in their government vehicles, saying disclosing such rules would make every agent a potential target for robbery or car burglary.
However, the reports indicate that agents can keep guns in a lock box inside their vehicles but not between shifts or overnight.
The reports of lost and stolen guns reveal those rules often were not followed. Other times agents took off their guns in the bathroom and left them behind.
That occurred June 15, 2012, when an agent at Swedish Hospital in Bellevue, Wash., left his loaded ATF-issued Sig Sauer .40 caliber pistol in a bathroom stall, reports show. The gun was later found by someone in the bathroom.
In June 11, 2012, an agent was dropping off his children at a soccer game in Plainfield, Ill., when he put his government-issued Smith & Wesson revolver on his car's roof, forgot about it and drove away, according to the report. The gun was found on an off-ramp of I-55 and turned in to police.
On July 20, 2009, in Fargo, N.D., an agent put his ATF gun on top of his car and went to water his lawn, according to the report. He forgot it was there, and his daughter took the car to a friend's house. The agent scoured the area and could not find the gun, according to the report.
In November 2008, an agent left his ATF gun in a fanny pack on a Southwest Airlines plane in Houston. He came back to get it later. That same year, another agent in Houston didn't realize he had lost his gun for a week. It was not found.
In the incident in Iowa, two boys were playing with a remote control motorcycle on a weekday morning when they spotted what turned out to be an ATF agent's gun on a storm drain. The Bettendorf police chief said the children could not reach the gun and did not touch it.
The Quad-City Times reported the owner was ATF agent Mark Bartholomew, who lived nearby.
"Bartholomew told police that he recently had misplaced the gun and thought it would eventually turn up," the article said.
He later told ATF investigators he stopped carrying his ATF gun because of health reasons and thought it was locked in a file cabinet in his house. He saw it was missing Nov. 30, but didn't tell anyone at ATF.
"He claims to have no knowledge regarding how or when his revolver was lost or how it got into the storm drain. (Name redacted) did not report the loss or recovery of his firearm to his supervisor until after the newspaper article mentioned ATF because he 'didn't believe it to be a reportable offense because it was not recovered,'" the report said.
"(Name redacted) said that if the newspaper had not mentioned ATF, he would not have reported the incident to his supervisor."
Facebook fb.com/john.diedrich.79
Twitter twitter.com/john_diedrich |
During a House Education and Workforce Committee hearing, Democratic Congressman Jared Polis said that even if a whopping 80% of accused campus rapists are innocent, it was still better to kick them all out of school.
“I mean, we’re talking about a private institution,” he said. “If I was running one, I might say, ‘Well you know even if there’s a 20-30% chance that this happened, I would want to remove this individual.”
Freedom for Individual Rights in Education policy director Joseph Cohn responded by telling Polis that the sort of standard he was discussing would be highly unlikely to pass the due process requirements that public universities must legally abide by.
“It seems like we ought to provide more of a legal framework then that allows a reasonable likelihood standard or preponderance of evidence standard,” the Colorado Democrat responded. “If there’s ten people who have been accused, and under a reasonable likelihood standard maybe one or two did it, it seems better to get rid of all ten people.”
“We’re not talking about depriving them of life and liberty,” he laughed. “We’re talking about them transferred to another university.” That line earned him a smatter of applause.
“Let’s be clear about this,” Cohn said angrily. “That is not what we’re talking about.” But Polis cut him off and began questioning another witness.
Watch, via C-SPAN:
[Image via screengrab]
——
>>Follow Alex Griswold (@HashtagGriswold) on Twitter
Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com |
In retaliation for the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme, China Halts 10 More Airbus Orders
China has suspended the purchase of 10 more Airbus jets, two people familiar with the matter said on Thursday, raising the stakes in a potentially damaging trade row over European Union airline emissions charges.
The move to delay the purchase of extra A330 planes brings to $14 billion the value of European aircraft caught up in tensions over the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme, which has angered countries including China, India and the United States.
It comes amid urgent efforts to find a solution to the row, which airlines fear could provoke an aviation trade war capable of causing travel disruption and hitting air traffic rights.
The row is over a cap-and-trade scheme which could levy charges for carbon emissions for flights in and out of Europe.
Foreign governments say the EU is exceeding its legal jurisdiction by charging for an entire flight, as opposed to just the part covering European airspace.
"Aircraft sales are different from selling wine or cars, you can't switch the sales button from off to on from one day to another. A red traffic light in aircraft sales can destroy years of sales efforts and damage-repair will take years," said Rainer Ohler, head of Airbus public affairs and communications. |
Delegates at the Liberal Party state conference have voted in favour of a phone app which the Taxi Council says could mean the end of the industry.
The WA conference, held in the Regency Hyatt hotel in Perth, passed a motion "to remove any legislative or regulatory barriers preventing customers from accessing ride sharing services using on demand smart phone apps in WA".
One of the best known such services is offered by a company called Uber. It is based on a ride-sharing app and was recently launched in Perth.
The conference's decision comes despite a letter to the liberals from the Taxi Council of WA, whose CEO, Steven Gill, said removing the barrier to ride sharing would pave the way for an unregulated taxi industry operating from private passenger vehicles.
However Transport Minister Dean Nalder told the conference that the deregulation of the taxi industry was inevitable.
A Liberal Party staffer said that while passing a motion at conference did not automatically mean that the government had to act on it it's expected that the government will act in accordance with the motion in due course.
Follow WAtoday on Twitter @WAtoday |
Few music artists have been more candid about their lives than Art Alexakis, frontman and songwriter of Everclear.
That honesty will be seen in the songs performed by Alexakis’ band when it visits Stage AE on the North Shore on June 19.
The ’90s rock-oriented package tour Summerland was founded in 2012 by Alexakis and Sugar Ray’s Mark McGrath. Alexakis took over solely the following year. Each band on this year’s bill — Everclear, Fuel, Toadies and American Hi-Fi — will play short sets, none longer than about 45 minutes.
While only a handful of Everclear songs have been specifically autobiographical (“Father of Mine” about Alexakis’ estranged father being a prime example), his songs have commonly drawn from elements of his eventful life.
The nutshell story goes like this: At age 6, his parents divorced. His mother the family moved into projects near the Culver City area of Los Angeles. Money was tight and Alexakis struggled through childhood.
At age 12, his older brother, George, died of a heroin overdose. That same year, Alexakis’ 15-year-old girlfriend committed suicide. He also got into drugs, starting with marijuana and moving on to heroin, cocaine and alcohol before he got clean in 1989.
Still, there was one traumatic life-shaping incident Alexakis never shared.
But the songwriter is talking about it in detail now, having written about it in stark terms in the song “You” from the new Everclear album, “Black is the New Black.”
When he was 8, Alexakis was attacked and raped by a group of boys. Alexakis says he wasn’t planning to write about the attack, but the words just started to come out.
“I started writing about it before I had the music for it,” he says. “When I wrote the music for that song, it was like ‘Yeah, that’s going to fit that.’ ”
Alexakis went into “Black is the New Black,” wanting to make a raucous, guitar-based album, and that naturally took Alexakis to a darker place, lyrically.
“I think just, overall, I wanted to make a rock record that was intense, and you’re not going to sing about puppies and rainbows in a big guitar record,” he says. “My wheelhouse is to go dark and deep and get intense. And, even though my life right now is doing really well, I think I feel safe enough to go into the dark places.”
Alexakis says “Black” reminds him of another loud and rocking album from Everclear’s catalog — 1995’s “Sparkle and Fade.”
That was a key album for Alexakis and the early trio version of Everclear. Featuring the hit single “Santa Monica,” “Sparkle and Fade” was the band’s commercial breakthrough and first platinum album.
Two more platinum albums followed in 1996 and 2000. The band’s fortunes waned after that, but Everclear (with Alexakis leading a couple of different lineups) has continued to release a steady stream of albums since.
Everclear will give fans a small taste of the new album on the tour. “It’s going to be, like, two new songs,” Alexakis says. “There’s really not much time. That’s the formula for Summerland.”
Alan Sculley is a contributing writer for Trib Total Media.
Michelle Malkin is a conservative blogger, syndicated columnist, author and Fox News Channel contributor. |
A Week in the Life of an NCAA DI Lacrosse Goalie
By Coach Damon on February 22, 2016 Lacrosse Goalie Posted In: General
For many aspiring young goalies the dream is to play lacrosse for an NCAA Division I (DI) university.
I recently had the opportunity to chat with a goalie who is currently living that dream as DI goalie in the Patriot League.
Among other things we discussed his weekly routine, their team’s practice plans, his personal workout schedule, and how he and his team prepare for games.
If you’ve ever wondered what kind of work ethic you need to be a DI lacrosse goalie, the conversation and this post was a real eye-opener.
My bet is most goalies with the dream of playing DI ball don’t put in enough work. Read the post and determine for yourself.
Here is a week in the life of an NCAA DI goalie from his perspective. To avoid the hurdle of having to get clearance with his athletic department we’ve purposely left out his name and any reference to the university.
A Week in the Life of an NCAA DI Lacrosse Goalie
NCAA rules stipulate that you need to have one day off per week while your team is in season. Being on a Division I college lacrosse team we tend to use every hour that allowable trying to improve our team and ourselves.
I am a goalie so my week maps out a little differently then a lot of the other guys on my team, but the sentiment remains the same: Work Hard, Get Better, Win The Day.
To give you a basic breakdown before I get into specifics, a typical week consists of roughly 15 hours of practice time, 2-3 hours of film, 2-3 hours of required maintenance lifts, and 1 (potentially 2) games.
This is of course not including all extra wall-ball, getting extra shots, physical therapy, recovery, schoolwork, and required study hall. In total, I would say that individually I spend well over 40 hours a week doing lacrosse related activities.
Even though it may seem like a consistent schedule, every day is different. We could have practice at 6am one day and then at 7pm the next; this fortunately keeps it exciting (Not that it wouldn’t be otherwise).
Some people say that this is either monotonous, or too much for a bunch of 18-22 year olds. To those people I say this: You have no idea the feeling you get as you step onto your home field to take on an opponent!
NCAA Division I Lacrosse Goalie Practice Plan
The first thing I mentioned is the roughly 15 hours of practice we have per week. During the spring we practice on a more consistent time slot schedule generally alternating between a 1-4pm practice or a 4-7pm practice time.
What these practices consist of depends on a variety of things.
When our coaches make the practice plan they consult with the strength and conditioning coaches, our captains, and of course each other.
Are the guy’s legs still sore from our last game? Fewer full field drills. Did we have a day of shooting yesterday? Extra minutes of positioned based work during practice to get some more in.
What if it’s the Sunday after a game, but we have a midweek game? Shortened, but heavy stick work practice, and we will lay off the starters a bit for any game like drills we do.
All of these things both affect our practice, and what the goalies typically do during it.
NCAA DI Lacrosse Goalie Warmup
While the rest of the team does a dynamic stretch to warm up, the goalies are warming up in a different way with our goalie coach.
Now a lot of goalies, and goalie coaches have different customs in terms of what they trust and incorporate into their warm up, but I really enjoy ours.
First thing we do after we stretch is start passing the ball around to each other around the cage at a fast pace, a hard game of catch.
We then take a few steps in after enough rotations around and pick the pace up. This continues until we can almost smell each others breath, it’s a great way to get the hands warmed up.
I think for me it is very important to always do all of my throwing drills with my goalie stick. While there are certainly beneficial aspects to using a shorty when throwing around it can also make you develop habits that don’t translate over to your game time stick. In terms of getting warmed up with one, it’s not a bad idea, but I also have two different methods for this.
The first being using a goalie stick with no mesh (no stick drill described here). This helps you get your body in front of the ball as well as your stick (use tennis balls). The second being using a weighted goalie shaft, this will help you increase your hand speed as well as give you elevated shoulder and arm endurance.
After the game of catch we will go into foot latter drills to work the other very important group of muscles for us keepers.
Then we will bring it all together by doing some shadow stepping drills by stepping to stationary balls that we place in front of us (3 stations goalie drill described here).
We do all this BEFORE WE EVEN STEP IN THE GOAL!
The next thing we try to do is really engage our hand eye coordination by hopping in cage without our sticks. I’m sure a lot of goalies swear by playing without a stick to warm up, and that’s because it works.
You don’t need to throw it hard to really work yourself, and it gets your hands moving to the ball quicker. If you don’t do this lacrosse goalie drill I really recommend that you incorporate it into your warm up or your extra work, all you need is a friend and a ball.
Then comes the fun part, taking shots.
Every goalie is different in terms of strengths and weaknesses, so we adjust the shots we are taking to fit what need to work on, on any particular day.
It is obviously very important to get shots even to places where you see yourself as strong, but teams scout weaknesses just as much and probably more then strengths.
Goalies must take that into consideration, and during our practice time we try to do this consistently.
Throughout the rest of the practice, we can be doing anything from doing ground ball drills, passing drills, live game scenarios, or just listening to what our goalie coach thinks we need to focus on over the course of the week.
All of this comes together to make a complete practice for a goalie, if you’re not sweating by the end of it your doing something wrong!
NCAA DI Lacrosse Goalie Outside of Practice
Outside of practice our time is certainly more relaxed.
During the season the focus of our lifts is strictly to maintain. This is mostly due to the workload that the season brings with it, and the potential for injury because of overworking.
This means we will do shorter, and lighter lifts fewer times a week.
Like our practice, the goalies can a lot of times be focusing on different exercises then a lot of the guys. I know for me I like to primarily focus on long conditioning, explosive full body lifts, core, and jumping rope.
I personally believe that exercise consisting of those things makes me a better goalie simply based off of what is expected at the goalie position today.
In season I like to work out 3-4 times a week, I also compound my lifts with a lot of stretching, and rolling out with a PVC pipe to stay loose and prevent injury.
All of this is equally important to maintain balance as a goalie (for me at least).
The other parts of my week primarily consist of film and extra work like wall ball and getting shot on.
Film is very important for a few reasons. Perhaps most importantly is that getting the chance to watch yourself play you see what you cannot feel. Whether it is a hitch in how you move your stick when making a save, or an improper step.
If you are watching film on another team it also helps you dissect tendencies in the other teams shooters, which can help any goalie quite a lot.
I like to play wall ball at least 4 times a week in season, that number only goes up in the off season. I also like to get shot on about 2-3 times per week in season dependent on how much rubber I am seeing in practice.
Sometimes it is equally important to decompress and take a little bit of time to simply not think about lacrosse no matter how hard it may seem.
All of this work within the week culminates in everyone’s favorite day: Game Day.
Nothing like it, putting in all the work day to day and getting to walk onto your home field with your team colors on. This is why we play; this is why we put in all that work, from the first save of the game to the last, and every one in between.
Lacrosse DI Goalie: Fall Ball
Fall Ball is quite a bit different from being in season; you are lifting and running a lot more, and practicing a lot less.
Whereas in the season we will be practicing 5-6 days a week, fall ball tends to be only 3-4 times.
We are also lifting 4 days out of the week, with a lot of added conditioning to make sure everyone is in shape when it comes time to start scrimmaging teams later on.
The practices are very high intensity so that all the new guys can get acclimated to the speed of the college game.
Where in the spring we will mostly focus on fine-tuning everything day to day, the fall we will focus on toughness, energy, and progression.
Most schools will also use the fall as a time to take a conditioning test, it is different for most teams, and for us has changed every year. If you don’t pass whatever test they put on the table, you don’t play till you do.
This is a make or break time of year, and while the starting lineup is generally far different from the spring to the fall you can pick out the guys that have IT and the guys that don’t.
Above all fall ball is a time to work on yourself, and your connection with your team, it is not to be taken for granted as it can significantly impact your next few seasons.
An explanation of IT: This does not necessarily mean skill; in fact I would say that is the smallest part of IT.
The majority of the guys on your team will have been All-Americans, Captains, Star Players, etc. What IT means is your ability to work hard, listen, learn, and progress.
Being coachable is something that is looked for at this level, if you have some flaws, but are a coachable player then you will be looked at in a positive light, it is not good to be on the other side of this.
NCAA DI Lacrosse Goalie Typical Day
A typical day for me looks like this:
7:00AM – Wake up, eat breakfast
7:45AM – Drive to class
8-9:30AM – Class
10-11:15AM – Lift
11:25-11:50AM – Lunch
12-1PM – Class
1-4PM – Practice
4-4:45PM – Wall ball, extra shots
5:30-6:30PM – Eat Dinner
7-10PM – Study hall
Not all my days are this packed, some days I may not be lifting, or a class will get cancelled, I might also simply be resting up.
Game Days and the day leading up to it tend to be quite a bit different, for the sake of showing the difference I will show an Away game schedule because of how different it is.
6AM – Wake up, eat breakfast, and check my travel bag.
7AM – Head down to locker room, double check everything
7:45AM – Get on bus and head to wherever we may be playing
12-2PM – Arrive, Eat Lunch, Check into hotel, get ready to practice
2:30-4PM – Get to practice field, suit up, pre-game walkthroughs
4-6PM – Back to hotel, Shower up, rest, get dressed for dinner
7:15-8PM – Team Dinner
8:15-8:45PM – Film
Rest of evening is off and time to relax.
Game day schedule varies by time of game but before the game we will always:
Eat 1-2 meals
Shoot around
Go over game plan
Cover any last minute questions
Go beat our opponent
Lacrosse DI Goalie Gear Setup
Finally, for those interested here’s the gear I use while in the cage.
Note from Damon: Those are affiliate links so I’ll make a few pennies if you decide to purchase those items through those links. If you’ve gotten good value out of my site, please feel free to support me by using those links if you’re thinking of buying some lax goalie gear.
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed that window into a week in the life an NCAA DI goalie.
My biggest takeaway from the conversation was the amount of work that is put in. Over 40 hours a week just on lacrosse activities? Wow, that’s impressive but it really goes to show what it takes to not only belong at this level but to succeed.
As you read through this goalie’s experience, ask yourself if you’re putting in the same level of work as today’s top goalies in the game are?
Until next time! Coach Damon
Do you like this style of post? Let me know about it in the comments. |
San Francisco 49ers: "Market leaders in many respects"
Representatives of the five-time Super Bowl winners will travel to England to discuss ways of maximising commercial revenues in what the Leeds website describes as "an exciting arrangement".
The Championship club's managing director David Haigh said: "This is a strategic partnership and we're looking forward to working closely with the 49ers.
"They are a worldwide brand, and we'll be discussing all aspects of our business; marketing, ticketing, merchandising, and commercial opportunities, and hopefully tapping into and sharing knowledge with them."
Chairman Salah Nooruddin told the club website: "The 49ers are market leaders in many respects, and they are excited to be working with us as we are with them."
Paraag Marathe, chief operating officer of the 49ers, said: "The 49ers are very excited about the prospect of partnering with Leeds United, a club with an international following as well as great history and tradition.
"We look forward to sharing best practices with Leeds United and providing them with our perspective on the sports industry."
Watch Leeds take on Sheffield Wednesday this Saturday, live on Sky Sports 1. Coverage begins at midday. |
Is it time to reform our 'struggling' tax system?
Updated
Should we all be paying more tax? And is it time for tax reform?
Economists say our standard of living is at risk if Tony Abbott and Kevin Rudd continue to ignore 'root-and-branch' tax reform.
"The tax system is struggling to deliver what we expect," said Chris Richardson from Deloitte Access Economics.
"Spending has increased, there have been lots of tax cuts."
The deficit has blown out to $30 billion, due in part to enormous revenue write-downs, and both major parties want to spend tens of billions on school funding, a disability insurance scheme and (eventually) defence.
The bottom line is something needs to change and we really need political leadership. Chris Richardson
According to the Parliamentary Budget Office, the budget is in structural deficit.
"The bottom line is something needs to change and we really need political leadership," said Mr Richardson.
So how should the hole be plugged?
"This is an issue the next Government is going to have to deal with," said John Freebairn, an economics professor from the University of Melbourne.
"If we want to continue our current programs we're going to have to collect more tax from the public.
"We need to think seriously about what we are going to do, do we want to continue cutting [spending] for instance?"
Much of the Henry review put in too-hard basket
The most recent review of the tax system was headed by former Treasury secretary Ken Henry.
It recommended focusing on four tax bases: personal income, business income, private consumption and economic rents from resources and land.
The trade-off? Taxes on insurance, payroll, stamp duty, pensions and benefits would go.
But much of it was placed in the too-hard basket.
"The Henry Tax Review is a good starting point," said Robert Jeremenko from the Tax Institute.
"But it didn't look at the GST [Goods and Services Tax] and that's a tax that needs to be considered.
"Tax reform is one way Australia can become much more productive."
Economists see merit in GST changes
Many economists believe increasing the GST rate from 10 per cent and broadening the base to include health and education should be the first step.
But the process would have to involve the states and could expose the Government of the day to an enormous scare campaign.
"The problem isn't what needs to be done. The problem is getting Mr and Mrs Suburbs on board," says Mr Richardson.
"Economists would broadly agree on many of the recommendations.
"The trouble is a lot of this is electoral dynamite or tabloid terror."
So, does any politician have the courage?
"They have to," said Professor Freebairn.
"We have to seriously think about productivity if we want to maintain our standard of life.
"Maybe we have to go into a recession before we wake up?"
Topics: federal-elections, tax, economic-trends, business-economics-and-finance
First posted |
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard, accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.”
Before I get into details, I must say that reading Meditations was one of the hardest, but most rewarding experiences in my own personal growth. The book has done so much to ferment my prior beliefs and has helped a lot to broaden my mind and encourage me to be all that I can be.
It is very difficult in today’s world to believe in anything, whether it be divine beings, other people, or even ourselves. It is an epidemic that buries potential and love deep down and leaves anger and frustration to dictate life.
There is no reason to feel unhappy, unfulfilled, or unappreciated , and Meditations by Marcus Aurelius offers advice to anyone who is looking for self help, self love, and a rational way of directing life.
Before reading this book it is interesting to know the man that wrote it. Marcus Aurelius was the last of The Five Good Emperors of Ancient Rome. He took the title of Augustus after the death of his adopted father, Antoninus Pius, the adopted son of the late Emperor Hadrian.
However Marcus Aurelius had tried to pass on the emperorship, for he prefered a much more simple philosophic lifestyle. He accepted the honor with the sole demand that Lucius Verus, his adopted brother, would share the seat with him.
Sharing his seat of power is the one move that summarizes Marcus Aurelius’s entire life; the fear of power and the duty embedded in him through his interest in Stoicism, a philosophy that grounds itself on self-restraint, reason, and fate.
His work is a reflection of his life, and the words inscribed in Meditations are the product of his own thoughts and his own experiences. While reading this book good feelings will begin to surface through introspection, and in turn bad feelings will be expelled.
In my everyday life quotes from his book swim in my mind when I am met with difficult situations, and they enable me to make smarter more thought out and rational decisions. It is fascinating and rewarding each time I don’t simply act on impulse.
This book is not for entertainment, not for adventure, and it is definitely not a “light read.” It is a book that will help those who seek help, irritate those who don’t, and fascinate those who wish to learn and grow. |
The new Skype Android app, version 8, is an absolutely horrendous update.
I had to recently make the switch to using Skype for some time because of a friend of mine. First of all, I live in India, so I search for the Skype app on the Play Store, but the first surprise strikes here: the app has been unlisted for quite a few countries. I had to sideload the app from APKMirror to actually get it to install.
Skype has become overly complicated and tries to do too many things at once, thus sacrificing performance and usability in the process. In fact, Skype makes Telegram look like alien technology from the future.
The UI is slow with a lot of wasted space. It is not conducive to multitasking at all (when app switching it reloads the interface, losing any messages that haven’t been sent yet). You can’t go “invisible,” meaning people you do not want to be able to see you are online can see you unless you go to “Do Not Disturb,” in which case no one can contact you. It’s infantile in its appearance, so I could see kids and teens liking it, but as an adult, I could not dislike it more. I tried sending a picture to a friend and it never showed up on his Skype. In fact, I had to actually call a person up to ask if they were online! This, in my opinion, is atrocious. I asked Skype to not look up my phone book, or upload it to Microsoft, but it did it anyway!
The UI is bland and lacks any clear indication of who is online without clicking on their name. Even just the generic coloring would help. The wavy graphics everywhere don’t make sense to me, but then again you could call me old. This is down to personal preference I believe.
The settings screen took me literally like 10 minutes to find. Seriously, they could have just removed settings altogether if they wanted to bury it this deep in the app.
Notifications do not work properly. I miss calls, texts, images, all the time with the latest version. The app seems to have some sort of capping at 30 fps, or it is just horribly coded. It crashed a bunch of times for me already, and this is just bad UX altogether.
There seems to be a steep learning curve and I personally don’t think I will ever be using it. You can check it out for yourself in the source link below. I suggest reading some of the reviews on the Play Store.
Source: Play Store, APKMirror |
In a shocking news, a 38-year-old paedophile was arrested in Delhi for allegedly sexually assaulting minors. Sunil Rastogi, a tailor by profession, has even married with children, police said. (IE image)
A 38-year-old pervert tailor from Rampur in Uttar Pradesh raped or tried to rape 600 unsuspecting minor girls in three states until he was arrested by Delhi police on Sunday. The accused identified as Sunil Rastogi, a resident of Sharda Colony under Bilas Pur police station from district Rampur district in Uttar Pradesh, had recently sexually abused three minor girls in Delhi, according to police.
Here’s all we need to know about the accused, how he operated and why parents should be extra cautious about their minor children.
Recent cases against the accused
On December 13, 2016, Delhi police had registered a case under section 376/506 IPC and 6 POCSO Act on the basis of a statement of a girl child. On January 10, 2017, two more cases under section 363/365 of IPC were registered in New Ashok Nagar police station. The complainants alleged that a person misled their girl child aged 10 years and 9 years respectively and took them on the stair of a building and fled away when they cried, Delhi police said in a press release.
Modus operandi
Police found the accused used to first mislead unsuspecting minor girls to an isolated place on the pretext that their fathers had given some clothes or other articles for them. After taking the girls to isolated places, the accused used to rape or try to rape them. The accused told police that he used to target minor girls going to home from school alone.
How he was nabbed
Police examined the CCTV footage of the area in which the accused had committed his recent crimes and identified him. On January 14, police arrested the accused on the basis on a tip-off.
Previous crimes
Sunil Rastogi told police he had sexually abused several minor girls in past in New Ashok Nagar area of Delhi, Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh and Rudrapur in Uttarakhand. Shockingly, several cases under Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, molestation and theft were registered against the accused at various police stations in Rudrapur, Delhi and Ghaziabad. Yet he was operating free.
Indian Express reported Omvir Bishnoi, DCP East, as saying that the accused told police that he “tried to sexually assault 600 girls”.
According to an NDTV report, the accused sexually abused minor girls aged 7-10. He was also jailed for six months at Rudrapur in 2006
In 2004, the accused was attacked and forced to leave his home in east Delhi after he allegedly tried to abuse the daughter of a neighbour, NDTV reported.
Family and education of the accused
Sunil Rastogi is a permanent resident of district Rampur in Uttar Pradesh. He came to Delhi in 1990 with his family and left Delhi in 2004. Before the arrest, he was living in Rudrapur, Uttarakhand. He had studied up to Class 5 in a government school in his village. A father of five, including two sons and three daughters, he is tailor by profession, police said.
Police are counselling daughters of the accused and trying to find out if they are also his victims. |
WASHINGTON — An Alabama woman says Roy Moore, the Republican nominee for next month’s U.S. Senate election, made inappropriate advances and had sexual contact with her when she was 14, according to a Washington Post story Thursday. The Senate’s GOP leader said if the report is shown to be true, Moore must step aside.
The woman, Leigh Corfman, says Moore met her several times when he was a local prosecutor in his 30s and at one point drove her to his home where he touched her over her underwear and guided her hand to touch him over his, the Post reported. They did not have sexual intercourse, the Post said.
Aside from Corfman, three other women interviewed by the Post in recent weeks said Moore pursued them when they were between the ages of 16 and 18 and he was in his early 30s. None of the other women said that Moore forced them into any sort of relationship or sexual contact. |
Delta flight races Hurricane Irma to Puerto Rico and back -- and wins
CLOSE Heavy rain and historic, 185 miles per hour winds lashed Puerto Rico's northeast coast Wednesday as Hurricane Irma roared through the Caribbean islands on its way to a possible devastating hit on Florida. (Sept. 6) AP
Delta Air Lines prides itself on its completion factor, but a Wednesday flight literally dodged a hurricane.
Flight 431 pushed away from the gate New York’s JFK airport at 8:12 a.m. in a race to San Juan ahead of Hurricane Irma, according to FlightAware.com, the online tracking service.
The Boeing 737-900ER was headed toward a Category 5 storm has 185 mph winds – the second-strongest ever recorded – as it crawled across the Caribbean toward Florida. But the plane taxied for 27 minutes before taking off at 8:39 a.m., according to FlightAware.
A few flights attempted to squeak into @AeropuertoSJU ahead of Hurricane #Irma
Too late. 2x @JetBlue & 1 @AmericanAir flight turning around pic.twitter.com/ssGLh5EFCp — Jason Rabinowitz (@AirlineFlyer) September 6, 2017
The three-hour and 49-minute flight become more thrilling than a movie on the seat-back screen, as aviation fans -- such as Jason Rabinowitz (@AirlineFlyer) -- monitored the flight’s progress through online tracking services.
As the pilots aimed for the island, the red-yellow-and-green mess of Irma sprawled in front of the plane on weather radar. Delta’s proprietary flight weather viewer app, which pilots use to help predict turbulence, was another tool that helped make the final San Juan flights as smooth as possible, Thomas said.
The timing proved auspicious. The flight landed at 12:01 p.m. in light rain with nine miles of visibility, with wind gusts to 31 knots, which is well within operating limits for the aircraft to fly safely, according to Michael Thomas, a Delta spokesman.
“Our meteorology team is the best in the business,” said Erik Snell, Delta's vice president for operations and customer center. “They took a hard look at the weather data and the track of the storm and worked with the flight crew and dispatcher to agree it was safe to operate the flight. And our flight and ground crews were incredible in their effort to turn the aircraft quickly and safely so the flight could depart well before the hurricane threat.”
Landing was only half the challenge. After a speedy, 40-minute turn, return flight 302 pushed away from the gate 24 minutes early in San Juan, on its way back to JFK, according to FlightAware.
Well, that's the end of that story. DL302 is reaching the edge of #Irma's outer bands.
Guess the flight crew serves lunch now...? pic.twitter.com/IDTV3WuLd5 — Jason Rabinowitz (@AirlineFlyer) September 6, 2017
The plane with 173 customers arrived back at JFK early, in time for dinner at 4:22 p.m. Just another day at the office.
We have fantastic pilots, flight crew, ground crews, meteorologists and dispatchers to help get people out of San Juan. *CAE — Delta (@Delta) September 6, 2017
Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2xPGY5v |
Hello Fellow Keyboard Enthusiasts!My Name is Rocket Grunt Jake and I have been making keycaps and posting them over at Reddit for some time now, I figured it was time to start a thread here to share my progress and to give more regular updates. I'm excited to share my progress and get to know the community more as I delve deeper into the art of making artisans.I started my journey in early April of this year with lots of ideas and even more to learn. I was inspired to start making my own keycaps when I began becoming a more active participant of the community over on Reddit which also coincided with my collection of keyboards growing.My first sculpt was done with Super Sculpey and was my attempt at a pokeball.While I was pleased with the quality of the caps I was able to cast using allumilites amazing casting resin I was rather dissatisfied with the sculpt itself and endeavored to try new techniques. My next brilliant idea for keycap making was to try doing my own legends. I had not seen anyone before try this and had grand aspirations.First AttemptThey were rough but I could see that it was possible so I kept refining my process all the while getting more experience casting the caps themselves. Ultimately I was able to fairly constantly get a legend on a text with this being a prime example.This process took maybe a month but I didn't garner much interest in custom SA row 3 keycap sets and the amount of effort needed to produce even one would have been astronomical. So I moved onto new designs!Once I got my hands on the first edition of the Synth my prototyping capabilities and speed increased immensely. This was the first guy I made and I liked him a lot but again an interest check did not garner that much attention.I then went on to make the first cap I ever sold, GrampsI have a special place in my heart for this guy even though he wasn't the most popular cap made. I made nine of them for my original sale about a month ago, here they are all together.After gramps came my current project which has gained a lot of attention since I firt posted and is what I consider my best sculp and idea yet. A simple Rose.I had been making face keycaps for so long I told myself try something different, clearly you just can't sculpt a face. This was my creation after that revelation and I think it was a good choice to make. I have been practicing with several colors and have made multiple molds in an effort to produce enough of these to have an initial sale sometime in the hopefully near future. Here is a little glimpse at some of the colors I have made so far.I hope you have enjoyed getting to know my history of making keycaps and I look forward to getting to know the community and sharing my future sculpting!-RocketGruntJake |
At a noon conference call today on how the Trump administration plans to certify the nuclear deal with Iran (the JCPOA) for a second time, National Security Council director H. R. McMaster spoke at length about why the JCPOA is a bad deal and how it has not changed Iran’s behavior. McMaster and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also announced new sanctions against Iran. However, McMaster still indicated that the administration plans to again certify to Congress that Iran is complying with the agreement. This decision includes certifying that the agreement is in the national-security interests of the United States.
Advertisement
Advertisement
McMaster said Iran is in default of the spirit of the agreement and “we need to take a closer look at whether it is violating the letter of the deal.” According to McMaster, Iran has been “walking up to violating the letter” of the JCPOA.
This is false. I asked McMaster how the Trump administration could do this in light of clear evidence that Iran is violating the JCPOA. I mentioned recent op-eds that Ambassador John Bolton and I wrote on these violations in The Hill and NRO. I said that this is a very troubling decision that amounts to looking the other way on Iran’s violations, legitimizing the dangerous concessions the Obama administration made to get this deal and goes against the president’s statements during the presidential campaign. I added that this policy to stick with the JCPOA is little different than what Hillary Clinton would have done if she had won the 2016 election.
McMaster refused to answer my question. He refused to address the issue of Iranian violations at all until another questioner pushed him on this which led McMaster to give the misleading answer above on Iran being in default of the spirit of this agreement.
Advertisement
McMaster mentioned an ongoing review of Iran policy that reportedly will be completed by late summer. But with a decision like this, there seems little doubt the administration is not going to fulfill President Trump’s campaign promise to kill or substantially renegotiate the nuclear deal.
My hope is that President Trump will look at the facts concerning the dangers of the JCPOA and Iranian violations and not certify Iranian compliance. Other steps are urgently needed to bring the Trump administration’s Iran policy in line with what President Trump promised during the campaign. |
The last time Axl Rose of Guns N’ Roses and Slash performed together on stage, it was during their 1993 gig in Buenos Aires. That is, until Friday night. The pair reunited with bassist Duff McKagan on Friday for a reunion concert in Los Angeles that marks the first of a streak of April gigs.
According to Loudwire, the setlist opened with “It’s So Easy” and continued with songs like “Mr. Brownstone,” “Welcome to the Jungle,” and covers of “Live and Let Die” and “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.”
Fans shot footage of the concert at the Troubador and posted it online, even though Rolling Stone reported that phones and cameras were banned from the show.
WANT MORE EW? Subscribe now to keep up with the latest in movies, television and music.
The concert was announced Friday afternoon on Twitter, and they’ll go on to perform at Coachella, in addition to sets in Las Vegas and Mexico City. Guns N’ Roses also announced dates Friday for their 21-stop summer tour throughout North America. |
Edmonton police released disturbing video footage Sunday morning showing the first in a chain of events they are now investigating as an “act of terrorism.”
The video shows a white Chevrolet Malibu driving directly through a road barricade at an intersection near Commonwealth Stadium, hitting a police officer who goes flying through the air before he is then attacked.
The stabbing of a police officer and a subsequent high-speed chase where several pedestrians were run down is being investigated as an act of terrorism, Edmonton Police Chief Rod Knecht said at a 3 a.m. news conference.
Knecht, standing side by side with representatives of the RCMP, said based on evidence at the scene, and the actions of the suspect “it was determined that these incidents are being investigated as acts of terrorism under section 83.2 of the Criminal Code.”
Knecht also confirmed that an ISIS flag was discovered in the vehicle the suspect was driving when he rammed the police car, then stabbed the police officer — and that the flag is part of the investigation.
The attack began on the officer who was manning a routine Edmonton Eskimos game-day blockade by himself southwest of Commonwealth Stadium at 107A Avenue and 92 Street. The officer was outside his vehicle, which had its lights flashing to improve visibility.
At around 8:15 p.m., a man driving a white Chevrolet Malibu crashed into the barricades set up to keep pedestrians separated from vehicles.
The vehicle struck the officer “sending him flying through the air 15 feet before colliding with the officer’s cruiser” at high speed.
The suspect, believed to be 30 years old, then got out of his vehicle and attacked the officer with a knife. The officer was stabbed multiple times before the suspect fled on foot northbound on 92 Street.
The officer was transported to hospital and the chief said he is not in critical condition.
Immediately after the incident, Knecht said information about the registered owner of the vehicle was broadcast to patrol officers across the city.
A manhunt was underway when before midnight a suspect was pulled over at a police checkstop on Wayne Gretzky Drive and 112 Avenue driving a U-Haul truck. When the officer asked to see a driver’s licence, he recognized the name as being similar to that of the registered owner of the Malibu used in the earlier attack. The suspect fled the scene with at least a dozen police vehicles in pursuit.
Pedestrians targeted in downtown chase
A high-speed chase ensued with the suspect racing west down Jasper Avenue into the downtown, where Knecht said the suspect “deliberately tried to hit pedestrians in crosswalks and alleys” at two areas along the route. Four pedestrians were struck and were subsequently transported to hospital. There is no information on their condition.
Shortly after the pedestrians were run down, the suspect’s vehicle overturned on 100 Avenue just south of Jasper Avenue “due to police interaction,” said Knecht.
The driver was arrested and is now in police custody.
Witnesses who saw the chase and pedestrians being struck described the scene as chaotic.
‘There were people flying’
Just before midnight Kim Anderson was waiting for her bus when she saw the U-Haul hit pedestrians near Jasper Avenue and 107 Street.
“There were people flying and everything,” she said. “I’m shocked — I just see people flying.”
At the Matrix Hotel on 100 Avenue and 106 Street, right across from where the truck overturned, Natalie Pon was at a wedding.
She said guests heard loud bangs like gunshots. Staff kept them away from the windows as the situation unfolded.
When she snapped a photo of the U-Haul there was a “huge hole” in the windshield of the truck. But she didn’t see a suspect.
“We caught wind this was happening outside, so we saw it after the fact.”
Pat Hannigan said he was across the street when he saw the truck flip over.
“They (police) were pulling him out of the windshield, then handcuffed him,” he said.
Brian McNeill was sitting on the back of a pickup truck when he saw the U-Haul going about 80 km/h, chased by 14 to 20 police vehicles.
“Holy shit, this is too fast,” he thought as he watched vehicles driving west on Jasper Avenue.
He says the truck hit two pedestrians and disappeared. Then he said he heard what he believed was a gunshot.
McNeill questioned why a high-speed chase was allowed to happen in the downtown. “That should have never happened,” he said.
Chief justifies high-speed chase
Knecht addressed those concerns at the news conference, saying the seriousness of the crime dictated why the chase continued.
The chief also said police had no forewarning of the attack and they believe the suspect acted alone. However Knecht also cautioned that “the investigation is in the early stages, and we are urging Edmontonians to be vigilant and aware of their surroundings.”
“Contact police if you see anything suspicious or hear anything suspicious,” he said.
Several hours after the officer was attacked, the white sedan with a damaged front end sat between two police vehicles near a darkened grocery store adjacent to a Crown Liquor store. The trunk on the sedan was open and the scene was bordered by yellow police tape.
A police hat and what appeared to be a yellow police vest lay on the ground near the car.
Police diverting traffic
A heavy police presence had blanketed Edmonton’s inner city after the initial incident as the manhunt ramped up.
Police were stopping vehicles and peering inside with flashlights throughout the area.
Officers were also seen stopping traffic on the High Level Bridge as well as maintaining a presence on the
Walterdale Bridge.
One complication, although it appeared to transpire without incident, was the thousands of fans exiting Commonwealth Stadium after the Eskimos game very near the first crime scene. But traffic was diverted and remained orderly.
Knecht will provide a further update at 3 p.m. |
But there was no shortage of hands to shake when McIlroy finally crossed the threshold at Royal St George's, on the range and in the media centre, where everyone wanted a piece of the game's latest thing.
It was exactly the unfolding pageant that Padraig Harrington and Graeme McDowell warned about and which drained them of energy following their maiden major victories.
They forget that McIlroy is only in the foothills of fame and, at a coltish 22, young enough to get a kick out of the process. Banish any thoughts that he might be discomfited by the attention or might have his head turned.
McIlroy loves it on the dance floor. Fire up those lights. "I'm the sort of person that likes to have people watching," he said. "I like to have a little bit of a buzz in the atmosphere. I'll definitely enjoy it [going out on Thursday]. It's not going to be the first time I've played in front of big crowds. Last time I played a competitive round of golf, I had a pretty big crowd following me."
Thus the US Open trophy is not the onerous lump of polished silver some would want it to be. It is as light as a feather in McIlroy's hands, no kind of burden. And it erases for all time the one question that haunts some of his highly acclaimed rivals. "It means that every time I come into a press conference or do an interview I don't have to answer that question, whereas a lot of guys still do. So it has lifted a huge weight off my shoulders. Now I can talk about winning my second [major]. It's nice to get that first one out of the way and focus on getting more."
The McIlroy team are becoming adept at setting false trails to protect their man. He slipped into Sandwich unnoticed on Tuesday of last week, two days ahead of his scheduled practice time. This permitted precious hours free of intrusion to get the work done, mentally landscaping Royal St George's, plotting lines in, locating pin positions and the bunkers to avoid.
On the eve of his departure for England, McIlroy reprised the old habit of twilight golf with his father, Gerry, walking out at Royal County Down at 7pm to hit a few balls and play any tension out of his system. "It was basically just me and him on the golf course. I played nine holes and he walked around and it was a really nice moment. It brought back a lot of memories, playing with my dad, long summer nights, getting in at nine."
This is the practised behaviour of a young man in control, who is following a path that suits him. McIlroy has been preparing for stardom since he first smashed a tee shot in short trousers. He was a world champion at 10 for goodness' sake, a golfing Shirley Temple whose career was destined for ribbons and bows. Having been feted for so long, McIlroy is happy to accept the responsibility that comes with being a champion.
The events at Augusta took him into territory beyond his experience, but did not crush him. Similarly, he is not troubled by the scale of his US Open achievement at Congressional, although he does admit to being surprised by the reaction.
"I didn't realise how much of a fuss it would create," he said. "The support that I've had from people back home, from everyone all over the world, has been pretty overwhelming. It's a very nice feeling to have that support walking onto the golf course."
"I've already noticed over the past three weeks it has been a bit of a life-changing experience and it's just something I'm going to have to deal with. But this is what I've always wanted to do – I've always wanted to be a successful golfer and be one of the best players in the world and to win major championships. If I have to put up with a few things along the way, then I'm fine with that."
Of course now he is under such an intense spotlight, every decision McIlroy makes is heavily scrutinised – like opting not to play any competitions since his US Open win. McIlroy had no problems answering that one. "I'm glad about it after looking at what happened in Scotland last week," he said, referring to the storm-shortened Scottish Open in Inverness.
"I was scheduled to play in the French Open, but if I had gone into the French Open, I knew I wouldn't be giving the best of myself or been able to practise or prepare properly. Every event I go into I want to have a chance to win. I knew my preparation wouldn't have been good enough going into France to have a chance.
"So I thought, you know what, let's just get everything out of the way and make sure that your preparation going into The Open is as good as it could be. That's really what I've done. I went into the Masters after three weeks off and shot three pretty good scores there, so it's not a problem to me not playing competitive golf after having a break."
He warns the crowds not to expect the sort of dramatic scoring he produced at Congressional though. "If the wind keeps up I'll take two seventies in the first two rounds here. But you can't really put a number on it. If the wind keeps up like this, St George's is one of the toughest Open tests that we have. Solid golf is good enough for me, as long as it's better than everyone else's solid golf." All said with a grin on his face and a great twinkle in his eyes.
In the absence of Tiger Woods the game needed an antidote. How about a fun-loving, big-smiling genius, the younger the better? Bang on cue, McIlroy walks out of the shadows and into the spotlight, brandishing a bow of burning gold, delivering triumph and disaster in the manner of a romantic poet.
With every breath and step, McIlroy exudes a willingness to engage in life. He is a golfing firework. Let us enjoy him, however long it lasts. |
A BIG THANK YOU!
Gifto Official Blocked Unblock Follow Following Dec 14, 2017
Thank you, all Giftoers, from over 100 countries, who have taken part of GIFTO token sale!
We received the last submission into our contract address at 8:01pm to mark the end of our token sale, making us the fastest public sale in Asia. We are humbled and touched by all of your support.
While the public sale lasted only 1 minute, the amount of time spent and the effort taken to coordinate and execute the token sale was immense. From the security of the smart contract to communications, down to handling the intense volatility of ETH during the last few days leading up to the TGE, it has been one heck of a ride. This was a strong testament to the dedication and adaptability of the team.
Seven hours before our crowdsale, Giftoers from across the world participated in a vote on a GTO/ETH public sale conversion rate that they consider the most fair. It was a truly “de-centralized” process and we are proud to break new ground. According to ICO Drops, the GIFTO Telegram is the fastest growing Telegram group for all ICO projects and we thank every single one of our 8300 active members for your support!
Of course, we could not have done this without our many team members and support from following partners:
International: Binance Launchpad, for featuring us as their first project
Korea: the Ethereum meet up team, ChainBridge and Token Post
Taiwan: Mr. Block, Block One, Blockcamp, and WeToken
Thailand: Block Accelerate
Hong Kong: Orichal Partners
Singapore: Blockfolks and Black Dot PR
Japan: Koharu Japan
APAC: BWF Club Community Partner, and KK Coin
Europe and North America: Elevator PR
Not forgetting the community moderators and volunteers who have been extremely diligent in keeping the community safe and secure for all members, and in keeping the communication from GIFTO to fellow members clear and succinct. This token sale would not have been possible if not for the enthusiastic support from all of you.
The GIFTO Token Sale marks the very beginning of our journey on bringing blockchain technology to the mass market. We will channel our energy and resources to developing, deploying, and promoting virtual gifts, to enable our mission of empowering millions of content creators world wide.
Let the journey begin!
Andy and the GIFTO Team |
OKLAHOMA CITY -- While his Northern Iowa teammates looked stunned after Texas tied the score with 2.7 seconds remaining Friday night, Paul Jesperson drifted toward half court and put his hands out once he realized nobody was covering him.
Matt Bohannon noticed the same and popped the ball out to his fellow senior. Sensing an opportunity, Jesperson then cut back across a pair of Longhorns with a single dribble before launching the shot from half court.
Six years ago in the same Oklahoma City arena, Northern Iowa notched the biggest win in school history by toppling top-seeded Kansas.
This, however, may have topped it.
Paul Jesperson's buzzer-beating shot from half court sank Texas and gave Northern Iowa arguably the most memorable win in its history. Tom Pennington/Getty Images
Jesperson's desperation heave bounced off the glass, then through the net as the buzzer sounded, giving the 11th-seeded Panthers a stunning 75-72 victory -- and the NCAA tournament its second game-winning buzzer-beater this tournament.
Jesperson was instantly mobbed by his teammates, who had already jumped to their feet along the bench, holding the inkling that his shot was on line.
Paul Jesperson banked in a shot from half court as time expired, giving Northern Iowa a stunning victory over Texas. The Longhorns' Isaiah Taylor had tied the game with 2.7 seconds remaining on a driving floater, seemingly sending the thriller into overtime. Instead, Jesperson ended it with the biggest basket in Northern Iowa history. More of our favorite One Shining Moment montage candidates here!
Before Jesperson's miracle basket, Texas had to believe it had produced its own miracle.
After Northern Iowa's Wes Washpun missed the second of two free throws, Texas' Isaiah Taylor calmly dribbled down the court before driving in for a game-tying floater. The basket capped a magnificent night for Taylor, who scored 22 points, dished out six assists and spearheaded Texas' furious rally out of halftime from an eight-point deficit.
Taylor, however, would not finish the hero.
That would go to Jesperson, who two years ago transferred in from Virginia with hopes of a night like this.
His game winner robbed Texas of a potential match with rival No. 3 seed Texas A&M on Sunday. But it gave Northern Iowa yet another magical moment in Oklahoma City. |
Airman First Class Spencer Stone’s summer vacation in Europe did not begin well.
There he was in Lisbon, the first stop of what was to be a three-week trip with two childhood friends, and he felt like a vagrant. A medic at Lajes Air Base in the Azores, he had missed the last train to Rome and so spent the night with his head propped against a concrete pillar next to a closed-up shop outside the Lisbon airport terminal, hugging his backpack to himself.
The next day he managed to catch a flight to Italy to begin the trip of a lifetime, but not in the way he ever imagined. By the time it was over, Airman Stone and his two friends — Alek Skarlatos, a specialist in the Oregon National Guard, and Anthony Sadler, a senior at California State University, Sacramento — had foiled a terrorist attack, saved a trainload of people and received the French Legion of Honor.
Airman Stone, who is to arrive back in the United States on Thursday, survived a stabbing in the neck. President Obama personally praised the friends’ bravery; President François Hollande of France said they had given the world “a lesson in courage, in will, and thus in hope.”
But before the hero’s welcome, the international acclaim, and the Jason Bourne-like maneuvers, Airman Stone spent the first week of the trip straight out of the pages of Let’s Go Europe. As he recounted in a telephone interview on Wednesday from Ramstein Air Base in Germany, he wandered the cobblestone streets of ancient Rome — his first visit to the city — enjoyed Piazza San Marco and a gondola ride in Venice, bicycled through Berlin and sampled the nighttime watering holes of Amsterdam. |
Karachi, Pakistan - A slender, athletic teenage girl enters the premises of St Lawrence’s church, Karachi, and is promptly mobbed by dozens of kids gathered there for football practice.
Non-muslim who wore the Pakistan flag Hockey: Peter P Fernandes, Milton D’Mello, Jack Britto, Rony Gardner, Gordon Vaz, Gerry Barboza
Cricket: Wallis Mathias, Duncan Sharpe, Khalid “Billy” Ibadulla, Antao D’Souza, Sohail Fazal, Anil Dalpat, Rusi Dinshaw, Danish Kaneria, Mohammad Yousuf
Football: Michael Masih, Nomi M Gill
Badminton: Mennen Soares
Table tennis: Michael Rodrigues
Snooker: Naveen Perwani
Sailing: Byram D Avari, Goshpi Avari
Proudly donning the green and white Pakistan training kit, this was Joyann Geraldine Thomas who became the first female Christian to play football for Pakistan.
She made her international debut in November 2014, shortly after turning 17. The game, or her debut, barely received the attention associated with an international fixture.
But nearly a thousand miles across from Islamabad’s Jinnah International Stadium, her presence in the middle of the field was the culmination of dreams for a single working mother, a passionate young Catholic coach and a veteran footballer-turned-guru.
Lack of minorities on the field
According to official statistics, Pakistani Christians form the second largest minority community at 1.6% of the country’s total population.
There have been instances of minority representation in Pakistan’s sports history but they have been few and far between. And the numbers have dropped in the last two decades. Thomas is also wary of the growing intolerance towards minorities in Pakistan.
In the past three years, there have been at least 38 targeted attacks on the Christian community and over 200 lives have been lost.
Two suicide attacks at Lahore churches killed at least 14 in March.
Ten days before she made her debut, a Christian couple was lynched over allegations of desecrating pages of the Quran.
Even Thomas’ mother, a former track and field athlete, faced a bitter end to her budding career. She was denied the opportunity to run in the provincial finals due to religious discrimination.
“My mother has never let her own disappointment get in the way of my career,” Thomas told Al Jazeera.
She hugged and high-fived the boys and girls of Laurentian Football Club (LFC), which is part of the century-old parish located in one of Karachi’s old neighbourhoods, Garden East.
“This is where it all started for me when I was five. At the beginning, this was a boys-only club. But girls were also encouraged to play by our coach Khayyam Juma.”
The differences
Juma is a former school-level footballer who was also at the receiving end of religious discrimination during his playing days. He formed the club in 1989 with the vision of keeping Catholic boys involved in sport and away from the vices plaguing the city at the time.
Girls and parents were also encouraged to join in for a kick-about.
“It’s not that we didn’t want to include non-Christians. We tried mixed teams but it never worked,” Juma explained, blaming illiteracy for Pakistan’s lack of tolerance towards minorities.
“Even if the kids never cared about these differences, the parents did. There would be arguments and fights, and it just turned into a big mess.”
Thomas credits Ahmed Jan with bringing her up on the football field. Jan is a popular but controversial man in Pakistan’s footballing circles. Known for his outspoken behaviour and disregard for authority, Jan has had several altercations with the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF).
Regardless of his notoriety, he enjoys god-like status among the young boys and girls playing football in Karachi – especially those from the minorities.
Major incidents involving Christians since 2005 November 2005: Over 3,000 men attacked Christian community in Sangla Hills (Punjab) over allegations of blasphemy. Three churches, dozens of houses and several other buildings were burnt down. February 2006: Churches and Christian schools were attacked in protest over publication of Jllyands-Posten cartoons in Denmark. July 2008: Mob stormed a church in Karachi during prayer and injured several worshippers. August 2009: Reports of desecration of Quran led to a series of attacks, leaving eight people dead, a church and dozens of houses gutted. March 2011: Federal Minister for Minority Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti was assassinated in Islamabad by the TTP after criticism of the blasphemy law. April 2011: Demonstrators attacked a Christian community in Gujranwala. September 2012: Protestors set afire a church in Peshawar in anger over the film ‘Innocence of Muslims’. March 2013: Allegations of blasphemy led to an attack on Joseph Colony, a Christian community in Lahore. Over 100 houses were burnt down. September 2013: A suicide attack by TTP on the All Saints Church in Peshawar left 75 dead. November 2014: A Christian couple was lynched by a mob in Kot Radha Kishan over allegations of blasphemy. March 2015: Successive suicide blasts targeting two churches in Lahore left at least 14 people dead and over 70 injured.
“I’ve always wanted to help minorities get the representation they deserve in Pakistani football,” Jan said.
“So when the LFC kids started playing at the KMC ground, I saw it as an opportunity to train them and prepare them for the bigger stage.
“When I first met Thomas, I wasn’t too sure because of her built. But she had made up her mind to do this and her mother was also determined to make sure that Thomas wasn’t held back by gender and religious barriers.”
Thomas plays in midfield and defence for national champions Balochistan United Football Club (BUFC).
Passion and dedication
Recalling the day she picked Thomas for the club, BUFC President and national Senator Rubina Irfan said it was the teenager’s passion and dedication that struck a chord with her.
Irfan also heads the PFF Women’s Wing and believes sports authorities have been successful in keeping players and officials away from discrimination and nepotism.
“For us, there is no such thing as a Christian girl or a Muslim girl. Even the other girls (in the team) never think about things such as religion or caste.”
Thomas endorsed those claims.
“When I was giving trials for the national team, girls who were not from my club didn’t know I was a Christian until they saw the cross around my neck.”
Despite the talent, Thomas did, at times, wonder if her religion could be used as an excuse to deny her the opportunity to rise further.
Every team meeting held to announce the shortlisted names turned into a struggle. Sweaty palms, breath held back, fingers clenched and eyes shut, she said a silent prayer every time her name wasn’t called out.
“The first time I realised I was in contention for the squad was when I was asked to give measurements for the team blazer. I thought, hang on, they wouldn’t be doing this if they didn’t think I would make it.
“So I called up my mom to tell her and the news spread like wildfire in our community. I was inundated with calls from people congratulating me on becoming first Christian girl to make it this far.”
According to Juma, Thomas has pushed the door open for other Christian girls make a career in sport.
And despite her age, Thomas is not only aware of her feat, but also her responsibility.
“How long will I keep serving as an example for kids to take up sports in a country where minorities don’t even get basic security, let alone equal opportunity in all fields?
"How long are the people of the Christian or Hindu or Sikh communities going to motivate and encourage their younger generations to represent Pakistan if this is how they will see the minorities being treated here?
“Pakistan must progress and it will only progress if it shows love and sincerity to all religions, races and ethnicities.” |
An Ipsos-Nanos poll released today shows most Canadians believe driving under the influence of cannabis should be treated the same under the law as driving under the influence of alcohol. Sixty percent of respondents agreed 'strongly' to the statement that driving while impaired by alcohol or by marijuana should be treated equally under the law, while another 20% said they 'somewhat' agree.
The poll also shows no consensus on the subject, though. Nearly 20% of respondents said they don't believe driving 'high' on cannabis to be impaired driving. Only 12% of respondents said the same about alcohol. The report also shows one in three Millennials don't consider driving while high on marijuana to be impaired driving.
"While eight in ten (83%) ‘agree’ (54% strongly/29% somewhat) that they’re personally concerned about the issue of drunk driving, only seven in ten (71%) ‘agree’ (42% strongly/29% somewhat) that they’re personally concerned about the issue of driving while high on marijuana."
Another 25% of respondents strongly or somewhat agree that driving stoned is 'more acceptable' than driving drunk. 47% of those who say they have driven high say it's not as bad as driving drunk. Only 10% of respondents admitted to driving while high, with men (15%) being more likely than women (5%) to report this. Millennials are also less likely to see it as a problem than older Canadians.
Those in Ontario and Quebec were more likely than their western neighbours to say they felt that driving while impaired by alcohol or by marijuana should be treated equally under the law in Canada. Sixty two percent of those in Ontario and 65% in Quebec 'strongly agreed', with percentages declining in MB/SK (57%), AB (55%) and BC (53%). Atlantic Canada, polled as one, strongly agreed 60% of the time.
Interestingly, households with children were more likely to say they didn’t consider driving stoned to be ‘impaired driving’ and twice as likely to say they had driven a vehicle while they were high enough to have been considered impaired. 17% of those with kids responded yes to this question, with 8% of those without kids answering no. While 85% of respondents with kids said they considered driving while high impaired driving, only 67% of households with kids agreed.
The poll was conducted online with a sample of 1,000 people.
Cannabis impaired driving is one of the major issues the government and law enforcement have expressed concern over as the country moves to legalize cannabis for adult use. However, a benchmark for how to measure and determine impairment remains debated. The recent Task Force report noted, among other things, that cannabis-impaired driving is more complex to study than alcohol-impaired driving and that measuring THC levels in the bloodstream, as is done to determine alcohol impairment, is not as accurate a measure of impairment for cannabis.
The RCMP have recently announced a pilot program to test roadside drug impaired driving detection devices. Public Safety Canada has also said they are preparing for an expected increase in enforcement against marijuana-impaired drivers after legalization.
Read more on the Ipsos-Nanos poll here.
Featured image via wikimedia.org |
Paramedic shot, officers 'pinned down,' officials say
The Dallas Police Association says a firefighter has been shot and officers are pinned down by gunfire from an active shooter. NBC affiliate NBCDFW.com's helicopter is flying over the scene. The station is reporting that the shooting took place near the 3200 block of Reynolds Avenue in East Dallas. The condition of the firefighter is not known. People are being asked to avoid the area. More on the story Facebook LIVE coverage
The Dallas Police Association says a firefighter has been shot and officers are pinned down by gunfire from an active shooter.
NBC affiliate NBCDFW.com's helicopter is flying over the scene.
Advertisement
The station is reporting that the shooting took place near the 3200 block of Reynolds Avenue in East Dallas.
The condition of the firefighter is not known.
People are being asked to avoid the area.
More on the story
Facebook LIVE coverage
AlertMe |
• All • All Apps • All Processes • Communication • Organisation & PM • Culture • Collaboration • Security • Focus • Office
All your life-saving remote tools at a glance 🌍 Connect with your team & clients to chitchat, discuss or crack jokes 💬 Stay updated on who’s doing what & when 👀 Celebrate what you value and build a happier team 🙌 Fire away ideas and create magic together ✨ Secure your digital presence 🔑 Get into the zone for some deep work and boost productivity ⚡ Be kind to your body & become a pro remotee 🌍👨 Sign up for all these apps and you’re sorted! 💻 Try out these processes and tweak them as you go 👌
Slack × A real-time messaging platform that lets you chat in pairs, small groups or as an entire team. Get Slack
Trello × Another great app for keeping track of projects and assigning tasks to team members. Get Trello
Loomio × Make team decisions together via a transparent voting system. Try Loomio
G Suite × Create and share documents, spreadsheets, slides and forms with your team. Make edits in real-time and leave comments for others. Try G Suite
1Password × A secure way to make sure everyone on the team has access to passwords for apps they use for work. Get 1Password
Toggl × Break your day into smaller, more digestible tasks and keep track of time spent on each task. Get Toggl
Roost Stand × Roost is an ultra-portable, lightweight laptop stand that transforms into an ergonomic workstation. Buy Roost
Zoom × The best video chat tool we’ve tried so far. Run smooth virtual meetings from one-on-one’s to entire team meetings and keep glitches to a minimum. Get Zoom
Harvest Forecast × Find out when team members are working, how much time they will be spending on specific projects and when they’re taking time off. Try Forecast
GitBook × Create an onboarding playbook with all the procedures and etiquette your team currently follows. Try GitBook
Mural × An online brainstorming tool that lets teams collaborate and share their brilliant ideas in real-time through virtual sticky notes, images, text, shapes and so much more. Try Mural
Oskar × A slackbot that tracks your team’s happiness by encouraging them to share how they feel. Meet Oskar
Cloak × A great VPN to keep your team’s connection secure and when they’re working from public networks like coworking spaces or cafes. Get Cloak
Cuckoo × A time tracker designed for remote teams, with similar functions described on Pomodoro Technique. Try Cuckoo
Logitech Brio × Pick a webcam that enhances the quality of your video calls. BRIO is our favourite for its top notch quality. Buy Brio
Basecamp × Keep everyone on the same page and never let anyone fall in an email thread abyss again. Try Basecamp
Asana × Plan projects, assign tasks and see what everyone on the team has on their plate. Try Asana
Donut × Get paired with a different team member each week for a casual catch up. Share a Donut
Figma × Collaboratively design in real time, in one place, and share designs with one link. Try Figma
PPP × Progress, Plans, Problems. A simple structure for regular updates that cut through the chaos. Learn More
PingPong × Our own solution to remote user testing. Effortlessly conduct moderated remote user interviews and user testing sessions. Try PingPong
Noisli × Dive into your favourite environment with these atmospheric sounds. Try Noisli
Shure MV5 × Get rid of background noise and improve the audio quality in your calls with this portable, USB-powered desktop mic. Buy MV5
Calendly × Let people book virtual meetings with you with meeting times automatically showing in the time zone they’re in. Try Calendly
Weekly Update × A single document that shows exactly your company’s state of play. Learn More
f.lux × An automated screen dimmer that adjusts your computer display according to the time of the day. Save your eyes
Weekly Team Hangout × Make time to socialise with your colleagues once a week. How we do it
Google Drive × Store, organise and share team files and documents. Try Google Drive
Remote Design Thinking × Adapt your design thinking process to an online environment with these RDT recommendations. Read More
Team Feedback × Improve team dynamics by sharing constructive feedback collectively. Learn More
Places to Work placestowork.net Find a coworking space or cafe nearby to work from based on your location. Check it out
The Clock × Not just any clock… The Best World Clock. A must-have to wrangle multiple time zones. Get The Clock
Team Retreats × Don’t underestimate the power of meeting IRL once in a while! Our experience |
.- On Monday, President Donald Trump reinstated the Mexico City Policy, an international pro-life regulation that is generally seen as an indicator of an incoming president’s views on abortion.
The executive order was signed January 23, one day after the anniversary of the far-reaching Roe v. Wade decision that mandated legal abortion throughout the U.S.
Originally instituted by President Ronald Reagan in 1984, the Mexico City Policy states that foreign non-governmental organizations may not receive federal funding if they perform or promote abortions as a method of family planning.
In the years that followed, the Mexico City Policy has become emblematic of a new president’s stance on abortion. Incoming presidents generally overturn or reinstate the policy within their first week of office, symbolizing the stance that they will take on abortion issues over the course of their presidency.
President Bill Clinton overturned the policy on January 22, 1993. President George W. Bush reinstated it January 22, 2001. President Barack Obama once again rescinded it on January 23, 2009, drawing swift criticism from the Vatican.
Restoring the policy was not among Trump’s campaign promises, leading to some concern over whether he would institute the policy if elected.
Trump did make other pro-life campaign promises, including pledges to nominate pro-life Supreme Court justices; sign into law a ban on late-term abortions; defund Planned Parenthood and reallocate funding to community health centers that do not perform abortions; and make permanent a ban taxpayer funding of abortion. |
Foodblockchain XYZ proposes to use the Ethereum blockchain to mitigate known deficiencies in supply chains.
The team at Foodblockchain XYZ has produced a mission statement for the application of Food Supply Chain 2.0, an Ethereum blockchain-based innovation.
The details of the paper outline current issues faced by both consumers and businesses which Foodblockchain XYZ hopes to nullify. According to the statement, deficiencies exist in current supply chains, leaving consumers in the dark about the processes through which their food is manufactured. Specifically, the research points to six key shortcomings.
Lack of Insight
The existing gamut of labels and certifications currently apply to a product on the whole but the quality of individual items may still fall below acceptable standards due to, for example, issues which arise during distribution or sourcing.
Central Party Reliance
Consumers are currently forced to trust the government and industrial bodies that are tasked to enforce standards. As of now, no independent verification tool exists to allow consumers to assess the internal parameters of foodstuffs.
Misleading Labels
Often, labels fail to provide complete information about food products. Organic or BIO labels do not necessarily guarantee the absence of pesticides or genetically modified organisms, a fact many consumers fail to realize.
Smaller Producers Can't Compete
Smaller scale, environmentally friendly farm operations have no capability to demonstrate the value of their product to consumers in the absence of a peer-to-peer marketplace with a reputation system.
Supply Chain Opacity
The complex and often opaque aspects of supply chains make it difficult to trace ingredients, perform origin authentication, or identify potential chemical contaminant sources. In addition, infestation and transportation issues become difficult to track in a fragmented supply chain.
Lack of Sustainability
The environmental impact of farming operations frequently fails to impact the cost of food production. Emissions of CO 2 , industrial farm sites, and wasteful practices can create more issues after solving the problem of feeding people. A lack of insight fails to draw immediate correlations between these issues and profits, so they are often not addressed.
Foodblockchain XYZ hopes to leverage the state of technology against the system's shortcomings. In the statement, Food Supply Chain 2.0 will utilize a series of interconnected sensors which perform rapid, noninvasive, nondestructive analysis and assessment, constituting "comprehensive food quality assurance." All necessary data points are immutably recorded on the public Ethereum blockchain, with larger data sets stored off-chain, on Swarm, or other distributed storage solutions. Executable distributed code contracts (EDCCs) actively monitor sensors and the supply chain, making it possible for automated instant settlement of payments juxtaposed with instant discovery of problems. Users who lack the technical expertise to navigate EDCCs can make use of the "Food Checker App" built with a graphical user interface designed for simple intuitive interaction by scanning QR codes, smart tags, RFIDs, or other unique codes.
A FoodCoin will be tokenized to serve two functions. According to the statement:
"Firstly, it creates an incentive model for early adoption and growth of the network by allowing early users and developers to earn FoodCoins while using or improving the network; secondly, it serves as the payment method to access the functionality of the platform."
Other functionalities of the Food Supply Chain 2.0 include a peer-to-peer marketplace where delivery, price, quantity, and quality conditions can be stipulated; a dashboard for supply chain management to track orders, contracts, and deliveries; and interactive reputation systems which incentivize quality products through a tokenized reward system. The establishment of a "Farmer's Fund" contract has the capability to stimulate commerce by setting aside FoodCoins as collateral for microloans for smalltime farmers.
The statement indicates Food Supply Chain 2.0 developers believe there are countless applications for the food market. |
NICOLA Sturgeon will today unveil a stimulus package aimed at boosting waning confidence in the economy following Britain's decision to quit the EU.
In an unprecedented step for a First Minister, the SNP leader will attempt throw down the gauntlet to the UK Government by pledging new infrastructure spending in a bid to create jobs and unveiling a support package for businesses.
It is understood that spending on NHS improvements will form a key plank of today's announcement while an investment plan already responsible for £6 billion worth of major projects is to be backed with new cash. Developments already in the pipeline will be brought forward.
Read more: New shadow Scottish Secretary refuses to rule out possible coalition with SNP
The bold move comes in response to growing alarm in the private sector over the impact of June's EU referendum result, which saw the UK vote to Leave despite 62 per cent of Scottish voters opting for Remain. Ms Sturgeon, who has pledged to do all she can to protect Scotland's relationship with Europe, yesterday met a German minister in Berlin for talks on her "next steps", would could include moving for a new independence referendum.
An influential think tank yesterday warned that Britain's economy slammed into reverse last month amid the fall-out from the Brexit vote, predicting a 50/50 chance of a new recession over the next 18 months.
The National Institute of Economic and Social Research estimated that GDP fell by 0.2 per cent month-on-month in July. For the three months to July, it said the economy eked out growth of 0.3 per cent in a "marked economic slowdown" on the second quarter, when GDP increased by 0.6 per cent. Meanwhile, the Institute for Fiscal Studies today paints a grim picture of the risks associated with the UK's post-Brexit future, saying maintaining membership of the single market could be worth an extra four per cent of GDP with tax receipts to be heavily hit under alternatives.
Some business leaders have called for measures such as new train lines to cut journey times from Scotland to London and upgrades to key roads such as the M8.
Construction of a rail link at Glasgow Airport, funded with City Deal cash should be fast-tracked to offset the economic uncertainty of the Brexit vote, according to council leaders who are calling on the transport minister to give the project his "full backing".
When announcing her package, Ms Sturgeon is expected to call for the UK Government to follow suit "urgently" in a move that would allow the Scottish Government to do more to accelerate capital spending. The Scottish Government had already said it plans to use new borrowing powers to fund infrastructure investment for the first time this financial year.
She will say: "The EU referendum outcome has created deep and widespread uncertainty. The UK Government has not yet taken a single meaningful step to alleviate that uncertainty, so the Scottish Government is taking early action to boost confidence, stimulate economic activity and reassure business.
Read more: Chemical giant Ineos blasts SNP's "absurd" fracking stance
"We will supplement our Infrastructure Investment Plan, which is already delivering major improvements with £6 billion of projects currently under construction, with new spending this year to accelerate planned projects and support jobs.
"And we'll put in place new arrangements to engage with businesses to shape policy and provide up-to-date information and advice. These measures will help support new and existing jobs and alleviate business concerns at this difficult time."
Calls to speed up a infrastructure projects came after Neil Amner, president of the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, said Brexit should be used as a "catalyst" for increased and more innovative infrastructure investment.
Read more: Poll - Brexit 'has not boosted the cause of Scottish independence'
The leaders of Glasgow and Renfrewshire councils will urge SNP ministers to accelerate City Deal-funded infrastructure schemes such as the proposed Glasgow Airport link at a meeting next month to counterbalance the fallout from the EU vote. It is estimated that projects associated with the City Deal will boast the region's economy by £2.2 billion and generate 15,000 construction jobs. |
Howdy, Pardner. This week we have another Doomtown Reloaded preview: Faster on the Draw. Since it references Deputies it’s pretty much a Law Dogs card. But even for the other factions it’s a good card if 6 is your value. A 3 bullet swing in a shootout can make all the difference to the draw hands. Even a 3/16 deck needs a couple of stud points going into the draw to nail it’s best draws with any consistency.
For Law Dogs, even without the Pine Box they can field a Deputy Dogs deck – which has some nice synergy with cards like Rafi. While many of the Deputies are already studs, the cheaper ones (i.e. the most likely starters) aren’t. And should Wendy find some Sun in her Eyes, well maybe her being Faster on the Draw will get that sun back out.
In all I expect this to be a nice new trick for Law Dogs, but not quite the oomph other factions will care about. After all, there’s already plenty of actions to gank the other dude’s bullets. The advantage of this one is the potential for making your own dude a stud. Or if 6s are your value it might make sense for a shootout action in your deck. Either way, in the right deck, this will be a powerful shootout action to take. |
The incredibly detailed worlds and superb character interactions in video games provides a wonderful distraction from the harsh reality of modern life. Furthermore, unfortunate individuals with long-term health conditions find video games cathartic and allows them to engage in an activity they thoroughly enjoy each day. This is absolute fantastic and it’s so inspiring to see disabled gamers play their favourite titles. Sadly, many physical conditions makes inputting commands a rather challenging exercise but there’s some great work being done by the charity Special Effect to help those affected.
Recently, Peter Byrne, a PlayStation 4 owner suffering from Cerebral Palsy contacted PlayStation Support to explain the problems he faced using the Dual Shock 4 controller. After sending the initial message, Mr Byrne was given the e-mail address of an employee named, Ajmal Alex Nawabi. After exchanging a number of e-mails, Nawabi told Byrne that he couldn’t help resolve his control issues but would send a PlayStation goodie bag as a gesture of their appreciation. To Byrne’s complete shock, the bag contained a custom-made controller:
“I figure I share this story with everyone because it is too good not to share! When I use the PlayStation 4 controller my game constantly pauses because my left hand hits the touchpad which is frustrating for me. Around two weeks ago, I decided to message PlayStation support and they gave this email address and said tell them my issue and wait for a response. A man by the name of Alex Nawabi from PlayStation messaged me and told me he was taking my matter personally and not on behalf of PlayStation. I explained to him my problem with a controller as well as my condition of cerebral palsy. I even had to give him a visual of what my left hand looked like gripping the controller. After a series of back and forth emails. Mr. Nawabi told me he was ordering some parts to come up with a solution for me. He emailed he last week saying that he tried to come up with a solution but it didn’t work. However, he would send me a PlayStation goodie box anyway. I received that box today and inside was the modified controller especially made for me and this letter. I honestly got choked up reading the letter as I did not expect anything like this to happen. Mr. Nawabi really cared about my situation and did this on his own time to make my experience better. I honestly can’t thank him enough for everything he did for me. Thank you Mr. Nawabi it really means a lot too me!”
Here we can see the letter addressed to Mr Byrne describing the process when designing a new controller for his disability:
This is such a heart warming story and restores my faith in humanity somewhat. I have to give credit to Sony for going the extra mile and helping the most vulnerable individuals in society. Disabled people through no fault of their own often live a lonely existence. As a result, video games are so important to keep them entertained and enjoying life. Well done Sony, and I hope Mr Byrne enjoys upcoming games including Uncharted 4. |
Update: This article was updated to include the response from The Clinton Foundation.
On October 4, after Wikileaks disappointed by not releasing documents after an early morning press conference commemorating its 10th anniversary, hacker Guccifer 2.0 released a trove of documents from the Clinton Foundation.
The Guccifer 2.0 release includes a list of big bank donations, from which a portion of TARP funds—the Troubled Asset Relief Program aimed at helping financial institutions recover from the 2008 economic recession—went to Democrats. Former Congressman Barney Frank, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, Congressman Chris Van Hollen, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Congressman James Clyburn, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, Congressman Luis Gutierrez, Congressman Mel Watt, Congressman John Larson, Congressman Paul Kanjorski, Congressman Xavier Beccera, and Congressman Steny Hoyer were all implicated in a document listing donations from financial firms including Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and others, to their Political Action Committees. The Dodd-Frank Act authorized $475 billion to fund the TARP program, and it appears several Democrats made sure they received a cut of the benefits.
Guccifer 2.0 also released a long list of Clinton Foundation donors, including the contact information of prolific billionaire donor Haim Saban, and actors Barbara Streisand, Rob Reiner, Steven Spielberg, Linda Cardellini and Mike O’Malley.
A Politico article focused on allegations that the hack is connected to the Russian government, though no conclusive evidence proving this has been released by the Democratic Party.
Officials from The Clinton Foundation issued the following statement to the Observer via email: “Once again, we still have no evidence Clinton Foundation systems were breached and have not been notified by law enforcement of an issue. None of the folders or files shown are from the Clinton Foundation.” |
Gameplay Edit
Plot Edit
Development Edit
The game was conceptualized when the Kojima Productions staff decided to make the first Metal Gear Solid chapter rather than another spin-off for the PlayStation Portable. Hideo Kojima had the idea of the player being able to recruit comrades with the Wi-Fi play. As a result, the game was specifically designed for a portable platform, rather than a home console. Most of the staff had previously worked in the spin-off Metal Gear Acid 2 making Portable Ops their first time doing a main installment. Their biggest challenge was adapting the play mechanics from Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence (the latest console installment at the time) to Portable Ops as the PlayStation Portable lacked a right analog. Since players cannot spin the camera with the PlayStation Portable the game was added a sound indicator system that helps them to see where there are enemies. Impressed with Ashley Wood's work in Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel the studio asked his collaboration to illustrate the events accompanied with voice-overs from the story replacing the typical use of real time graphics previously used for cutscenes.[31] Placement in the series' canon Edit MPO is notably the first Metal Gear game for a portable platform that was written to be part of the series' main continuity. However, the game was not directed nor written by Hideo Kojima (who at the time was leading the development of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots on PlayStation 3), but by a separate team led by Masahiro Yamamoto and written by Japanese language novelist Gakuto Mikumo. The marketing for MPO attempted to distance the game from prior Metal Gear entries on portable platforms, particularly the 2D action game Metal Gear: Ghost Babel for the Game Boy Color and the turn-based Metal Gear Acid series also on PSP (both which were set in their own alternate continuity), with one promotional video on the official English website (narrated by Ryan Payton, Kojima Productions' international coordinator at the time) referring to MPO as "a true action-based chapter in the Metal Gear Saga." This would carry over with the promotion of the series' 20th Anniversary campaign, in which MPO was packaged alongside the three mainline MGS games at the time as part of a box set released in Japan,[32] and later on with the release of MGS4, in which the Metal Gear Solid 4: Database (a downloadable encyclopedia for the PS3 covering the lore of the Metal Gear series up to that point) include entries for characters, items and events depicted in MPO. This would change when Kojima started the development of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (or MGSPW), a later action-based entry also released on the PSP. Unlike MPO, MGSPW was directed and written by Kojima, much like the numbered console entries of the series. While set four years after the events of MPO, MGSPW is written as a direct sequel to MGS3 and the location of MPO is only mentioned by a certain character once.[33] Kojima describes MGSPW as a true mainline installment in the series, contrasting it with MPO and the Acid series (which he regards as spinoffs).[34] The official timelines and retrospectives published by Kojima Productions since then tend to omit MPO as a canonical entry,[35][36] with the 25th Anniversary page going as far as to describe MGSPW as the "first game in the canonical Metal Gear Saga released for the PlayStation Portable platform",[37] while the summary of MGSPW on the main page describing Metal Gear ZEKE as the "world's first Metal Gear."[35] Kojima would later clarify his stance on MPO, saying that he views the series' canon from an authoritative status, setting apart the Metal Gear games that he personally worked on (which carry the "A Hideo Kojima Game" byline) from the games that he only worked on as a producer or didn't have a direct involvement in its development.[38][39]
Release Edit
Reception Edit
Portable Ops Plus Edit
Developer(s) Kojima Productions Publisher(s) Konami Designer(s) Gakuto Mikumo Composer(s) Norihiko Hibino Series Metal Gear Platform(s) PlayStation Portable, PlayStation Vita Release JP: NA: EU: Genre(s) Action-adventure, stealth Mode(s) Single-player, multiplayer Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus (officially abbreviated MPO+) is a stand-alone expansion of the original MPO, focused primarily on online play. It was first announced on July 17, 2007[53] and was released in Japan on September 20, 2007,[53] in North America on November 13, 2007[54] and in Europe on March 28, 2008.[55] A digital version was released on the PlayStation Store in 2009. MPO+ include new general and unique character types from other MGS titles, as well as new items and weapons, new multiplayer maps, and new game modes.[53][56] While MPO+ does not require the original MPO, players who have save data from the original game can transfer their squad to the expansion and any unique character that the players recruit in the original MPO since their initial save file was created will be added automatically in MPO+ if detected. The following changes have been made to the game. The player can now recruit up to 200 soldiers. Soldiers now have new careers and skill levels. Players can also obtain textbook items that can raise the stats of their recruits.
The story campaign has been eliminated and a new "Infinity Mission" mode has been added in its place, consisting of four difficulty levels. The initial Easy setting consists of a tutorial explaining the rules and mechanics of this new campaign, while the three subsequent settings (Normal, Hard and Extreme) consists of a series of randomly generated stages set in locations from the original MPO that the player's team must clear in succession. During certain stages, the player is given a special challenge such as reaching the goal without being seen or survive an alert phase for a certain period. After clearing a special challenge, the player is allowed to sort his team and replace any of its members and gear with soldiers or items procured in previous stages. The player is also given a choice to suspend their game and resume from where they left off at a later time. If the player successfully complete every stage in Infinity Mission or uses a Fulton balloon to escape, they will retain every soldier, item and experience points acquired since the mission started (conversely, any item or soldier lost during the mission will be permanently lost as well). However, if the player fails or aborts the mission, the player's squad will be set to the way it was before the mission began (undoing any deaths that occurred as well).
that the player's team must clear in succession. During certain stages, the player is given a special challenge such as reaching the goal without being seen or survive an alert phase for a certain period. After clearing a special challenge, the player is allowed to sort his team and replace any of its members and gear with soldiers or items procured in previous stages. The player is also given a choice to suspend their game and resume from where they left off at a later time. If the player successfully complete every stage in Infinity Mission or uses a Fulton balloon to escape, they will retain every soldier, item and experience points acquired since the mission started (conversely, any item or soldier lost during the mission will be permanently lost as well). However, if the player fails or aborts the mission, the player's squad will be set to the way it was before the mission began (undoing any deaths that occurred as well). If the game detects save data from the original MPO , a boss rush mode will be unlocked in which a team chosen by the player must face against all the bosses from the original MPO successively. Clearing the boss rush will add any boss character from the original MPO who hasn't already been added to the player's team, although any team member killed during the process will be removed from the roster as well.
, a boss rush mode will be unlocked in which a team chosen by the player must face against all the bosses from the original successively. Clearing the boss rush will add any boss character from the original who hasn't already been added to the player's team, although any team member killed during the process will be removed from the roster as well. Roy Campbell, the player's CO, can now be used as a playable character (in the original MPO , this was only possible by hacking the game). Other new unique characters added to MPO+ include Raiden from Metal Gear Solid 2 , Old Snake from Metal Gear Solid 4 , and Johnny the Guard from Metal Gear Solid 3 .
, this was only possible by hacking the game). Other new unique characters added to include Raiden from , Old Snake from , and Johnny the Guard from . The player can now have Elisa and Ursula in their army at the same time. In the original MPO , the player was only allowed to have Elisa or Ursula, but not both, since in the game's story the two characters were different personalities of the same person.
, the player was only allowed to have Elisa or Ursula, but not both, since in the game's story the two characters were different personalities of the same person. Any unique characters that is killed in action will be eliminated from the team. However, lost unique characters will have a probability of showing up in Infinity Mission as random prisoners, giving the opportunity for the player to recover any of them when the opportunity arrives.
New soldier types can be recruited such as female Soviet soldiers, the arctic Genome Soldiers from the original Metal Gear Solid and the various enemy soldier types from MGS2 . There are also female members of the Ocelot Unit from MGS3 , but these can only be recruited through the game's "AP Scout" feature, in which the player recruit soldiers through LAN access points.
and the various enemy soldier types from . There are also female members of the Ocelot Unit from , but these can only be recruited through the game's "AP Scout" feature, in which the player recruit soldiers through LAN access points. Five new maps have been added to the multiplayer mode, including a recreation of Rex Hangar from the original MGS. The Western Wilderness and Ravine stages, previously exclusive to the European version of the original MPO, are now available in every regional release as well.
Notes Edit
^ Known in Japan as Metaru Gia Soriddo: Pōtaburu Opusu ( メタルギアソリッド ポータブルオプス , "Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops") |
KOTA KINABALU: Malaysia’s last living female Sumatran rhinoceros in Sabah is seriously ill, an official has said.
In an advisory to the media today, Sabah Wildlife Department director Augustine Tuuga said it was another piece of sad news for the department.
“Only half a year after the demise of Puntung, Malaysia’s second to last living female Sumatran rhinoceros, now the very last female named Iman, has a serious health problem,” he said.
“Bleeding from her uterine leiomyoma tumours started three days ago. Usually, this can be treated with medication and supplements.
“This time, Iman is refusing to leave her mud wallow and she has hardly eaten, so the usual treatment has not been possible. She charges at anyone who comes near.”
Augustine said the department believed that one of her larger tumours might have ruptured and was causing pain and bleeding.
According to him, the Tabin Wildlife Reserve has received six metres of rainfall in 2017, so her paddock has become a quagmire, making things even more difficult.
“Both Borneo Rhino Alliance veterinarians are constantly monitoring Iman, along with the keepers. We are hoping for the best and will keep the public informed,” added Augustine.
Puntung, which attracted global attention for enduring dental surgery by a multinational team at Tabin Wildlife Reserve in Lahad Datu, was dying of squamous cell carcinoma, a type of skin cancer.
In May, Augustine had said the swelling on Puntung’s left cheek that led to the detection of an infected tooth root that had worsened and two biopsies carried out post-surgery revealed the rhino was suffering from skin cancer.
“The cancer has been spreading rapidly over the past few weeks. Specialists from several countries concur that it will be fatal with or without treatment,” he said.
Puntung was put to sleep at the reserve in June. |
There’s a cute little devil!
This little tree is a ficus salicaria (nerifolia, salicifolia,willowleafyanus) a willow leaf ficus (or narrow leaf).
I like to refer to it as the ficus formerly known as……..
The view from all angles.
Here is the trunk chop site
The tree probably looked like this before
Which is a typical 2-3 year old cutting, albeit this one has a decent base on it.
I got the little cutie pie from Emblem Bonsai out of Southeast Florida. He has very good material and I suggest you look him up.
Anyway, it was probably cut like so
And looked like this
And allowed to grow out for a season ( I bought this in January) The growth is about equal to 3-4 months in Florida, it hasn’t grown since I got it and its March now. Lets kickstart it’s heart.
A willow leaf ficus will almost always sprout all over from the the chop site like this
pushing copious amounts of shoots. One technique for branch selection is to allow nature to choose the strongest leader (it might not choose the best placement though)
Or, choose your own
Start pruning out the little guys
And the ones in bad places
Then let it grow.
How much?
Until the branches are thick enough to be wired without them breaking off.
Which brings us to this point
Some wire
More wire.
Defoliation (so we can see the branches)
And the finished job.
The thing to do now is let it grow.
I’ll repot it soon into a shallower pot. Believe it or not, a ficus is different than any other tree. The base will widen and improve in a bonsai pot.
It will.
S’truth, promise!
Not lyin’ |
Media playback is not supported on this device Man Utd did not do enough - Van Gaal
Louis van Gaal has extended the scale of his Manchester United reconstruction to suggest it could be a year before the rewards of his work are witnessed.
No-one was challenging the former Netherlands coach's assertion after an uninspiring afternoon in Lancashire brought a goalless draw against Premier League newcomers Burnley - who more than merited their point.
United only have two points from what many would regard as kind opening fixtures against Swansea, Sunderland and Burnley, a sharp contrast to the tough hand dealt out to Van Gaal's predecessor David Moyes when he succeeded Sir Alex Ferguson.
The poor start prodded executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward into action as this week saw the British record £59.7m purchase of Angel Di Maria from Real Madrid and a £13.8m deal for Ajax's Daley Blind.
The draw at Turf Moor, however, only highlighted that Van Gaal will surely want more reinforcements before the transfer window closes on Monday - although word from inside Old Trafford is that Blind may be the final arrival.
So what must Van Gaal do to pull United out of this desperately uninspired start to the season?
Are signings needed in the next 48 hours?
It would do Van Gaal and United a disservice to ignore the fact that injuries have robbed them of two players who were meant to be of great influence in this new Old Trafford era, England defender Luke Shaw and midfielder Ander Herrera. Even the introduction of new defender Marcos Rojo has been delayed by work permit complications.
Argentina international defender Marcos Rojo signed for £16m on a five-year contract from Sporting Lisbon
The signing of Di Maria has been portrayed as akin to sticking the roof on your house before the foundations have been laid, although few would question the contribution he will make.
There is no doubt, however, that there are clear areas where United need top-class reinforcements.
United's three-man defensive system requires the sort of composure and expertise that appeared beyond Phil Jones and Jonny Evans at Burnley, while Tyler Blackett can be excused as one for the future. Whether Chris Smalling kicks on to fulfil the requirements remains to be seen.
If United cannot find a high-class central defender before Monday night - and Borussia Dortmund coach Jurgen Klopp scoffed at a reported interest in Germany's World Cup winner Mats Hummels - then this is undoubtedly an area opponents will see as fair game.
Burnley could not quite take advantage, especially in a desperate opening 10 minutes from United, but there would be real relish at the prospect from the likes of Manchester City and Chelsea.
Herrera's absence is a genuine misfortune but there must also be a need for another top-class operator in that area. There has been the long-standing link with Juventus's Arturo Vidal but time is running out.
A more likely option is that Van Gaal will make do and mend until January and see how Roma's Dutch midfielder Kevin Strootman has recovered from a serious knee injury - hoping not too much damage is done to United's season before then.
Who is on the way out?
There was widespread astonishment that Anderson - who clearly has no place in Van Gaal's long-term plans - came on for the tiring Di Maria, although less when Danny Welbeck was sent on for Robin van Persie.
Anderson is one of those surplus to requirements at Old Trafford while Welbeck, as energetic as ever when he appeared, might also leave before the end of the transfer window, as could Shinji Kagawa.
Van Gaal has told Shinji Kagawa he is surplus to requirements and his former club Borussia Dortmund are interested
Tom Cleverley could well have played his last game for United as Aston Villa attempt to persuade him to complete an £8m move while Javier Hernandez is attracting interest from Valencia and Juventus.
Van Gaal will not be unhappy to see them go to thin out his squad - but the real push over the next few months will be on incomings.
Will he stick with 3-5-2?
Van Gaal used Evans, Jones and Blackett as a three-man back line at Turf Moor - and at no time did it look fully secure.
It is unlikely these three players will be his chosen ones in a defensive system he stands by after the successes of his outstanding career - but can he make it work at Old Trafford?
He will certainly need better wing-backs than Antonio Valencia and Ashley Young to make it a success, which is where the versatility of the likes of Di Maria and Adnan Januzaj will be beneficial, although it is questionable whether Juan Mata is suited to the role as he lacks pace.
Di Maria made no tackles on his United debut but was heavily involved during his 70 minutes on the pitch
Van Gaal will also need better central defenders and there are clear signs that the shift in tactical emphasis has been a struggle for some United players.
They had better get used to it because there are few coaches in world football with such complete belief and faith in their own methods as Van Gaal.
It should also be emphasised that it is very early days in what is a tactical work-in-progress, a new manager getting used to new players and new players getting used to a new manager.
Van Gaal has repeatedly stated that his first three months in a job have often been a struggle before the penny drops and success follows.
It might not look easy on the eye so far - but do not bank on Van Gaal changing it one jot.
£150m of attacking talent: but how to make it work?
The Manchester United manager fielded new signing Di Maria alongside Mata, Wayne Rooney and Robin van Persie - almost £150m worth of attacking talent. Is there really room for all of them in the same team?
On this occasion, Di Maria was tucked in left of centre with Ashley Young wide, while Mata was entrusted with drifting in the spaces behind Rooney and Van Persie and Darren Fletcher as the insurance policy. It was almost a 3-4-1-2.
Louis van Gaal will need to find a way to accommodate all of his expensively assembled attacking players
While there is no questioning the quality of that group, it places a heavy responsibility on Fletcher and there must be question marks over its regular use over the course of a long season.
With Van Persie rated so highly by Van Gaal - although it did not stop him being removed here - and Rooney his captain, it could leave Mata as the most vulnerable, given Di Maria is clearly an integral part of United's future.
And what of Januzaj? He is obviously one for the future but his was the name being chanted regularly and loudly by United supporters as their team struggled at Turf Moor.
Januzaj has the quality of versatility, as does the excellent Di Maria, so there is plenty of solace for Van Gaal in the ability to juggle and shift around his resources.
Rooney, Van Persie and Di Maria will surely be Van Gaal's "go to" men - the others may have to make do with being part of a rotation policy unless they can force the issue with sheer weight of performances.
Where is the urgency?
Van Gaal is not a technical-area stalker. As with his other early United games, the Dutchman did not move from his seat. He stayed in the dug-out clutching his trademark clipboard and consulting his assistant Ryan Giggs.
In contrast, his opposite number Sean Dyche stripped off his jacket and spent the entire 90 minutes in his technical area, encouraging and cajoling.
Van Gaal says it will take three months for the players to adapt to the way he wants to play
No manager should ever be judged by his touchline demeanour or time spent in the dug-out - but it was the lack of urgency on the pitch that was surely a concern and brought an angry reaction from United's fans.
Twice in the second half there was a furious reaction from the thousands gathered in Turf Moor's David Fishwick stand - once when United's players stood a long way back as Burnley took a free-kick on the edge of their penalty area and another as Evans dawdled when in a perfect crossing position.
The United of old would have been attempting to press Burnley into submission and even though the Clarets went into something of a retreat late on, there was never the sense of an oncoming siege or late goal you would have expected from previous teams. |
The anti-immigration group NumbersUSA, an immigration reduction organization that seeks to reduce US immigration levels to pre-1965 levels, has released a new racist ad that tries to pit African Americans against immigrants.
The ad features an African American male with his family explaing that he needs a job and wondering why
The anti-immigrant group NumbersUSA, which seeks to limit legal immigration, has put out a new, racist ad that tries to pit African Americans against immigrants. It features an African American man with his family explaining that he needs a job and wondering why immigrants are being allowed into the country to take jobs from African Americans.
“I’m tired of the stereotype that black Americans don’t want to work,” the man says at the beginning of the ad. “I’ve worked hard my whole life but I got laid off and I’ve got mouths to feed. I need a job.”
“What I don’t understand is why our leaders are going to admit another million immigrant workers next year to take jobs when 3 million black Americans can’t find work. Do our leaders really believe that black Americans don’t want to work? Let’s slow down mass immigration and save jobs for Americans — all Americans.”
Think Progress was quick to react to the ad in a post stating that immigration boosts the economy:
“Persistently high unemployment rates for African-Americans is a systemic problem that cannot be addressed simply by reducing the number of immigrants … The lies and distortions do not change the fact that immigration is good for the U.S. economy, and it is contemptible to try to pit Americans against each other and against immigrants to stop it.”
(Visited 11 times, 1 visits today) |
Please enable Javascript to watch this video
LOS ANGELES (April 23, 2015) -- A student at Indiana University was being “tortured” by an unknown entity for most of her life. She says she had no idea what was wrong with her — and neither did her doctors.
Last September, Yamini Karanam, 26, started noticing a disconnect. The Ph.D. student was having trouble understanding what she was reading and hearing, especially if there were multiple people talking, NBC4 reports.
Multiple doctors pointed to different sources of her strife but could never identify the exact cause.
Until, that is, her own research led to her to Los Angeles. There, she met a innovative neurosurgeon who identified her problem: a teratoma — a tumor with tissue or organs — deep within her brain.
'Evil' twin complete with bone, hair and teeth found inside woman's BRAIN http://t.co/ZZWA3gNOAF pic.twitter.com/KS8bceQFSL — Daily Mirror (@DailyMirror) April 23, 2015
This was no ordinary tumor. It contained bone, hair and teeth, likely the remnants of a twin Karanam absorbed while in the womb.
Karanam joked about the bizarre condition in an interview with NBC4, calling the tumor her “evil twin who’s been torturing me for the past 26 years.”
Tests revealed the tumor is benign and her doctor expects Karanam to make a full recovery.
Her neurologist, Dr. Hrayr Shaninian, said his patient’s condition is rare.
“This is my second one, and I’ve probably taken out 7,000 or 8,000 brain tumors,” he told NBC4. |
In We’re No. 1, The A.V. Club examines a song that went to No. 1 on the Billboard charts to get to the heart of what it means to be popular in pop music, and how that has changed over the years. In this installment, we cover The Rembrandts’ “I’ll Be There For You,” which spent eight weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Airplay chart starting on June 17, 1995.
Advertisement
When Friends premiered in September 1994, it was a moderate hit, lingering outside of the Nielsen Top 10 but regularly drawing between roughly 18 and 21 million viewers a week for non-repeats. As soon as the calendar flipped to 1995, however, something suddenly clicked for the show: According to Nielsen ratings, the January 5 episode (“The One With Mrs. Bing”) drew over 26 million viewers and was the seventh-most-watched show of the week. For the rest of the season, Friends remained ensconced in the Nielsen Top 10, and eventually ended up finishing at No. 8 for the year.
Much of the show’s charm had to do with the cast, of course, and the endearingly awkward sitcom situations into which they got themselves. But Friends also stood out because of its theme song, “I’ll Be There For You,” which was performed by Los Angeles pop-rock duo The Rembrandts. By now, the song is a ubiquitous part of ’90s musical lore, thanks to its ringing guitar riffs, the keening harmonies of Rembrandts co-songwriters Phil Solem and Danny Wilde, the friendship-touting lyrics, and those four chipper handclaps. Due to the theme’s popularity, a longer, fleshed-out version of the theme song was created and appears on The Rembrandts’ third album, L.P. (which arrived in May 1995, just as Friends’ first season was wrapping up). But how the song actually landed on L.P. and ended up becoming a radio sensation is one of the decade’s stranger and more convoluted music stories.
First and foremost, Friends almost didn’t have an original theme song, and the sub-one-minute version of “I’ll Be There For You” heard at the start of the show is actually a collaboration between multiple people. Allee Willis, one of the co-writers of “I’ll Be There For You,” told The A.V. Club that “three weeks to a month” before Friends premiered, a theme song was proposed “because it might help promote the show if it were a hit song.” Michael Skloff, a music composer married to Marta Kauffman, one of the show’s creators/executive producers, came up with a verse and chorus. Another Friends executive producer, David Bright, called up a music publisher to try to find a lyricist for the demo.
“Because it was a Warner Brothers show, they had to go with a writer who was signed to Warner Brothers,” Willis said. “So he called up my publisher, although he didn’t know [I was signed there] at the time, and asked if they had a writer that was both commercial and quirky. Anytime anyone used that word ‘quirky,’ I would get the gig.” Fortuitously, Willis—who had previously written hits for Earth, Wind & Fire (“September”), the Pointer Sisters (“Neutron Dance”), and Pet Shop Boys (“What Have I Done To Deserve This?”)—was trying to finish out her songwriting contract, and owed one-seventh of a song to her publisher. The two camps made a deal: If she wrote lyrics for the Friends theme, she could consider her obligations to her publisher fulfilled.
Advertisement
At the time, Willis was far more interested in exploring the then-nascent internet, and wanted to get out of the songwriting game. “The Friends theme for me was clearly an escape from the music business,” she said. Musically, the existing demo was also not her cup of tea. “I did not like the song at all, mainly because I was known for all of this R&B and soul stuff, and this was the whitest thing I had ever heard. The little demo that was done of it, it almost sounded country-ish. It didn’t sound as Monkees, which is what they were going for—you know, like it sounds now.”
Still, Willis dug in and worked to capture the essence of the show in the lyrics, going off of producer notes and staying in “constant communication” with Bright. “The typical way that I write is that I try and collect as much information as I possibly can,” she explained. “So I watched the pilot a few times, and I wrote down every characteristic about every character. You know, my first thought was that one line will be about Rachel, one line will be about Phoebe.
“[On the show] these are people that would do anything for each other,” she added. “So really, it’s a song about loyalty, basically. The line ‘I’ll be there for you’… I’m not sure who wrote that, but that title was given to me. I always knew that’s where [the song] had to end up. That’s kind of really it.” All told, it took Willis a “solid week” to craft the song’s lyrics. “Because I save everything, I still have everything I wrote, and single-spaced typed lines, it’s 26 pages long, just to get down to that original TV theme,” she says. “It was a lot of work to get to one 45-second song. But it paid off, so I can’t complain.”
The Rembrandts came aboard the Friends theme project also at the behest of Bright, a fan of the band. “We saw the pilot and it was kind of funny, it had ‘It’s The End Of The World As We Know It,’ the R.E.M. song, sort of temped in,” Danny Wilde told The A.V. Club. “We’re going, ‘Fuck, man, R.E.M., that’s pretty cool. Yeah, we’d be interested.’” The pair agreed to be involved if they were able to have some creative input. “There was a verse and a chorus,” Wilde said. “You know, we put our chisel on it. We had the riff you know at the beginning [and] we changed a couple of the words.” With the TV show’s premiere looming, the creative timeline was accelerated: The band met with Skloff on a Thursday and recorded and mixed the song the following Saturday, less than a week before Friends premiered.
Advertisement
After the theme song was out in the open, The Rembrandts kept their involvement with it low-key. The band was an established act with a Top 40 hit (“Just The Way It Is, Baby”) under its belt, but was known for more introspective, nuanced music rooted in ’60s and ’70s rock. Plus, they were nearly done making the record that would turn into L.P. and, as Phil Solem told The A.V. Club, being musicians aligned with a TV show had a much different connotation 20 years ago.
“When we first did it, we did not necessarily want to be associated with any form of entertainment outside the realm of our little world of making records,” he explained. “Back in those days, and this is the crux of the biscuit here, is that in 1994, the last thing a serious band would do would be involved in a television show. We’re flattered that they thought of us and that they somehow thought that the sound that we had was representative of this whole thing. We saw the show and thought it was great, but had no idea that it would actually explode into what it is. We went along with it, but the whole idea was, ‘We’re anonymous, okay? Nobody’s going to know.’”
Advertisement
That anonymity didn’t last long, especially after two employees of the Nashville Top 40 station Y107 (WYHY), assistant program director/midday DJ Tom Peace and program director Charlie Quinn, decided to capitalize on Friends’ growing popularity in late ’94 and early ’95. “[Tom] was talking to me one day and said, ‘That theme song is so great, I just wish that there was a song out there,’” Quinn told The A.V. Club. “And I said, ‘Well, how do you know there isn’t? Go check.’ He checked the web and looked around, talked to a couple of record people and so forth, and came back and said, ‘There’s nothing, just this 45-second version from television.’” Sensing an opportunity, the men took the song, went into a production studio and Frankensteined a longer version of “I’ll Be There For You” by looping the snippet three times and then adding on the final refrain as a coda. It took Quinn “probably 20 minutes max” to stitch together the two-minute version. “I mean, it just fit like a glove. There was not much editing necessary.”
WYHY added the pop-song-length take into “power rotation” (i.e., nearly 60 spins a week). The reaction from listeners was immediate and intense: They thought it was a legitimate, commercially released single, and wanted to know where they could buy it. “People were calling us [like] ‘Oh my God, you’re the only station playing this in town anywhere!’ and ‘I’ve never heard of this song before. When did it happen, and when did it come out?’” Quinn said. “And, of course, we didn’t really help in that situation. There was nothing we could do. We didn’t have the rights to the song, and we couldn’t distribute our version of it to anybody and do anything for any of the listeners.” In fact, all WYHY could do was continue playing their version of “I’ll Be There For You”—and send copies of the song to radio stations in other cities to play, after demand for the tune increased.
“[Creating this version of the song] was totally done with the intent of being a stunt,” Quinn said. “We thought if we could get a little bit of attention locally and maybe some talk in the trade magazines, in that insular little world, that would probably be fun for us, and we would enjoy it. People would begin to recognize the station as doing things that are interesting and unique. So having it move into a national scene for us and getting the exposure that we did was far more than we expected.”
Advertisement
Naturally, WYHY’s cut-and-paste job quickly drew the attention of reps at the Rembrandts’ record label, who were not exactly thrilled: Quinn recalled he started getting “gentle reminders from them that it’s not really a song and you’re not benefiting anybody by playing it” about a week after the premiere. Pressure to stop playing the song increased over time, especially after WYHY ignored these requests. “The rep from the company was like, ‘You’ve got to take this off, man. The thing is, no one’s getting any credit for it, and it’s not for sale in the stores… It’s not really helping, and the band is trying to fulfill their image of continuing to be an alternative-rock band, and they don’t want the exposure from the Top 40 radio.’ Because as you can imagine, [being on Top 40] drove it toward kids, and [the band was] trying to be in a different category and genre.
“At times, it was unpleasant,” Quinn added, in reference to the label pressure on him. “But the thing is, there was such a ball rolling with other radio stations that it was just an undeniable situation that it was going to become a song.”
In fact, once the bootlegged version of “I’ll Be There For You” caught fire on radio, the Rembrandts’ label insisted the band go into the studio and record a full-length version of the song, which would then be used to promote L.P. For the duo, the timing couldn’t have been worse: It was March 1995, and by this time, L.P. was actually completed—in fact, Wilde said promo versions were already circulating to radio—and they were being asked to tack on another song and mess with the cohesion of an album they were proud of as musicians.
“We were getting heavier,” Solem recalled. “After being on tour for four years, we were doing a lot more kind of rock stuff, just from playing live a lot, and we just wanted to amp it up. So our next record was going to display some of this power that we’d been not putting on albums in the past. It was a big change, and to have a song like ‘I’ll Be There For You’ [on the album], as awesomely as it turned out, just didn’t seem like it sat well with the rest of the material.”
Advertisement
Today it’s easy to see why The Rembrandts were reluctant to add “I’ll Be There For You” to L.P.: Tempo- and tone-wise, the song sticks out like a sore thumb when compared to the rest of the album. Although the chiming jangle rager “This House Is Not A Home” and Beatles-esque “Don’t Hide Your Love” are close to the brisker “I’ll Be There For You,” the rest of L.P. is far darker, both musically and lyrically; excursions into Hammond organ-burnished heavy blues rock (“Easy To Forget”), hotrodding rock ’n’ roll (“Lovin’ Me Insane”), and sideways power-pop (“Comin’ Home”) more closely resemble Crowded House’s introspective songwriting and Jellyfish’s penchant for ornate ’70s pop and rock.
Compounding matters was that L.P. was coming out on a different label, after a series of business deals saw the band’s original home, ATCO Records, merge into East West Records, which was in turn folded into Elektra Records. The Rembrandts were thrown from an artist-friendly environment into something driven by the bottom line. “Our first two albums, we got the deluxe treatment from [our label]—they were like family,” Solem said. “And then things kind of fell apart when the third record was coming out, because they shifted all of the people around. You know, a lot of people got fired and there was a new president and all of this stuff. It seemed like the whole ’90s were up against the same [thing] and every band was going through it: ‘Oh, we’re on this label and now we’re on some other label—not because we want to be.’”
This meant the band had little leverage when it came to both the fate of L.P. and the whims of its career. “We didn’t want to put [“I’ll Be There For You”] on the record,” Wilde said. “I mean, our record was already done and it’s like, ‘Hey, this is our art—we’re done—this is all we’ve got to say.’ And they go, ‘No, it’s not coming out.’ It was like that. They said, ‘This record does not come out unless you put a full version of the song onto the album.’ They wanted it to be the lead-off song and we just said, ‘No, that’s not going to happen. That’s not the first impression of where we are at musically that we want people to hear.’ But then everything just sort of went out of our hands.”
Advertisement
Plus, the take on “I’ll Be There For You” that appears on L.P. is actually a different version than the one The Rembrandts intended for the album. Recorded in Madonna’s studio (“I don’t know why we ended up in that studio, but that’s what happened,” Solem said), this little-known take features different lyrics and a longer, synth-speckled bridge. Still, even the band taking the initiative to extend the song caused friction. “We got spanked for doing that,” Wilde recalled. “We didn’t even really think about it, we just went in and cut it. Then the shit hit the fan with Warner Brothers Television and the writers were incensed that we had the gall to go in and finish the song without their permission. So we just said, ‘Hey, sorry, let’s all get together and you guys get involved and we’ll do another version.’” So we did that and basically that’s the version that was on our record.” (For the record, Willis wasn’t involved with this version: “I didn’t want to, because I didn’t even want to write music anymore at that point.”)
The Rembrandts did manage to eke out a few small victories: “I’ll Be There For You” ended up as a hidden track at the end of the album. (Which was also for the best: Had it been the first song on the album, it would’ve been an incredibly jarring preface to the album’s actual opening track, the slow-burning, vaguely psychedelic “End Of The Beginning.”) And “I’ll Be There For You” wasn’t released as a single, which meant that anyone wanting a high-quality, CD copy of the song needed to buy L.P.
“They were waiting for us to put out a single and fighting us for it and our manager wouldn’t budge,” Solem said. “He said, ‘There will be no single.’ Because it was at No. 1 on the charts as a song, we would have had a No. 1 charting single had we released it. But it would only have been boom, in and out. Our album wouldn’t stand a chance. Whether it would in the first place or not, I don’t know—I guess that’s past the point. But it was a business move that we agreed had to happen. If they were going to put us in that position, I thought it was pretty clever that [our manager] said, ‘Put it out just on the album. If people want that, they’d have to buy this record.’”
Advertisement
And people did buy the record: L.P. was certified gold in August 1995 and platinum in January 1996. “I’ll Be There For You” was also a radio sensation, spending eight weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Airplay chart. However, when The Rembrandts tried to drum up interest in other songs on the album, they faced resistance: “This House Is Not A Home” was released as L.P.’s first official single, and it was pretty much ignored. “Radio wouldn’t play it because they still had so much gas on the Friends thing,” Wilde said. “To us, that [single represented] really who we were, and [it] really kind of messed us up to think that the album really wasn’t being heard. Even though it sold a million-plus copies, I think it was basically driven by the TV-show theme.”
The Rembrandts were in a bizarre spot, having unwittingly latched on to a pop-culture phenomenon that made them both well known and invisible. “It was very weird to do shows that used to be people coming into a venue and waiting for us to come on and sing along with our songs—and suddenly, the audiences were like moms and daughters [and] they just were waiting for that one song,” Solem said with a laugh. “And they didn’t care about the rest of our set. So that was kind of a real tough… you know, that period, I wouldn’t want to go back to that.” Wilde was more blunt about the shift: “We were the darlings of alternative radio and all of the sudden they’re not playing ‘Follow You Down’ and some of our deeper songs, ‘Just The Way It Is, Baby,’ and the obvious ones. And yeah, the audience changed. It was all about Friends. It wasn’t even like, ‘Well, let’s go see The Rembrandts’; [it was like], ‘Let’s go see the band that does the Friends song.’ So it was pretty weird.”
Advertisement
For a pair of musicians who had been making music together for years at this point, first as part of the skinny-tie power-pop band Great Buildings and then for the last five years as The Rembrandts, being known as the band associated with the Friends theme ended up being a “golden albatross,” as Solem put it. “It was hard to make the adjustment as artists,” he said. “You know, we had a hit from a few years before that [with ‘Just The Way It Is, Baby’] and we were just trying to get back to that level. And we thought, ‘Okay, this third album, it’s going to be something on here.’ But you know, [for the hit] to be a song that was not even intended to be on there in the first place made it a little bit rough. There was a period of kind of not being that excited about it so much.
“And I think we lost a gigantic portion of our original audience. Because as I mentioned earlier, [getting involved in a television show] was just not a thing to do for a band like ours. And suddenly being that made us look like, I think to our peers, it appeared that we sold out. And that was a hard thing to take. Because no way did we sell out—we were just doing what we do.”
Solem said “I’ll Be There For You” “caused [the band] to kind of get derailed for a while there.” He ended up leaving The Rembrandts for a few years, in part because he was disillusioned with “just the whole business behind [the song]”: “I was completely appalled at that and it made me go kind of berserk.” Wilde made a solo album, Spin This, that ended up being released under the moniker Danny Wilde + The Rembrandts, much to his consternation: His label threatened to shelve the record unless The Rembrandts’ name was somewhere prominent.
Advertisement
Solem rejoined the band in 2000, and 15 years later, The Rembrandts are still very much an ongoing creative concern. In fact, at the moment, the band is gearing up for some summer tour dates, and it also has a new studio album, Via Satellite, that’s hopefully being released soon. (Wilde, meanwhile, has a solo EP coming soon he describes as “a little rockier, a little more Americana.”) And just recently, “I’ll Be There For You” served as the impetus for more new Rembrandts music: After recording a promo video of the song in fall 2014 to promote Friends coming to Netflix, the band was inspired to record an acoustic album featuring some of its favorite songs.
“Just looking from there to now, it’s been quite a stretch, you know, the roller coaster and everything,” Solem said. “We’re trying to come back without saying we ever went away, which is kind of tough, because a lot of people just think, obviously, there’s no way that band is around anymore. You hear a lot of, ‘So, since you guys got back together,’ or ‘Yeah, you used to be in The Rembrandts.’ It’s like, ‘No, no, we never broke up.’ We just took a break and we’re just trying to maintain.”
Advertisement
In hindsight, “I’ll Be There For You” existed in the interesting space and time just before the internet drastically changed the way people discovered and consumed music. On the one hand, its popularity was a byproduct of the ’90s monoculture, an era when a cultural phenomenon could still be pervasive. But at the same time, “I’ll Be There For You” also benefited from people’s growing ability to access the internet; Solem noted that online curiosity about the theme song (and the identity of its performers) started increasing about a month after Friends debuted.
Charlie Quinn also drew parallels between how music is spread today and his role in helping “I’ll Be There For You” snowball in popularity: “Word of mouth always is more effective than anything you can do to advertise or promote something, as you know from the way that viral web experience has changed music. I would say that might have been one of the very first experiments in viral marketing.” And Solem sees how the song’s symbiotic relationship with Friends presaged the way bands today approach promoting and packaging their music. “Nowadays, if you don’t have a song that’s being used for some kind of entertainment besides the musical aspect of it, then you’re crazy,” he said. “It’s all about that now. So I feel like we were at the very cutting edge of what that was, but it cut us first.”
Advertisement
The Rembrandts have also softened toward “I’ll Be There For You” over time, partially because of the incredible impact it’s had on people worldwide. “I’ve talked to people who have learned to speak English from that show or the song,” Solem noted. “It’s crazy.” And eventually, people did start to equate the song with the band, and respect them for it. “People, friends, family and other musicians, we say, ‘Yeah, yeah—that song,’ and they go, ‘What are you talking about? That song is great, man! Nobody else could have done that song like you guys. It’s a total Rembrandts song.’” Wilde said. “So I’m very proud of it now as opposed to before, because it really put L.P. on the backburner. Not even a backburner; it just kind of buried it. But you know, now it’s fucking awesome.”
Two decades years later, the strong love for Friends reruns ensures that “I’ll Be There For You” endures. But more than that, it’s remained one of the last great examples of a TV theme song that enhances a show’s premise. “My goal was to write something that would make someone very happy by the time it was over,” Willis said. “The way the record was done, the arrangement of it, [also added to that]. It picked up exactly what the show was, which is what the best TV themes do. Most TV themes don’t accomplish that—this one did.”
Willis too has come around to the song in recent years, in part because of an opportunity she had to conduct a marching band version of the song for her alma mater, the University Of Wisconsin. “The band leader, who has been there for something like 45 years, did the most spectacular arrangement of this song,” she said. “It really wasn’t until I was conducting it that I went, ‘Oh my God, this is a much better song than I ever thought it was.’ And I started hearing things that were actually in the original record that I had kind of missed before by just dismissing it as this very simple song. There were kind of these drum rhythms and things going on in the second half of the verse that I had missed in the record, but somehow heard in this band arrangement.”
Advertisement
And fittingly, “I’ll Be There For You” also helped The Rembrandts make a lifelong pal: Friends actor James Michael Tyler, who played Gunther, the Central Perk barista in love with Jennifer Aniston’s Rachel. “He’s become one of our best buds,” Solem said. “We hang out all of the time. So we got the best friend out of Friends. It was great.” |
Yesterday, I ran through the league’s eight divisional leaders and tried to figure out which of them were most likely to hold on to their spots over the 11 weeks to come. Sorry for jinxing you, Colts and Patriots.
Today, I’m going to run through the opposite side of the spectrum. There are 20 teams on the outside of the NFL playoff picture that need to make some hay over the next 11 weeks to find themselves playing meaningful football in January. There’s plenty of time for them to do so, of course; I mentioned yesterday that the Panthers and Chargers were each below .500 after Week 6 last year, but the duo combined to finish 17-5 and make the playoffs.
There’s probably another sub-.500 playoff team lurking in the NFL right now. Let’s see if we can find it. I’m going to run through those 20 teams in descending order of (my estimate of) their playoff chances. These aren’t power rankings, since playoff possibilities depend upon things unrelated to a team’s level of play, like their future schedule and the records of the other teams in their division.
For reference, the 12 teams that hold playoff spots through the end of Week 6 are seeded below:
AFC Seed NFC Chargers 1 Eagles Bengals 2 Cardinals Colts 3 Lions Patriots 4 Panthers Broncos 5 Cowboys Ravens 6 49ers
You won’t be surprised to see that the list starts with winless teams and goes from there …
32. Oakland Raiders (0-5)
31. Jacksonville Jaguars (0-6)
Well, it would be unprecedented. No NFL team has ever made the playoffs after starting 0-5, and only one team — the 1992 Chargers — has made the playoffs after an 0-4 start.
Neither of these teams has a prayer unless its rookie quarterback gets incredibly hot, but there’s a simpler way to think about it. The Jaguars are one injured quarterback (Andrew Luck) away from having their division thrown into chaos. The Raiders need two (Philip Rivers, Peyton Manning) or perhaps even three (Alex Smith) quarterbacks ahead of them to suddenly get the yips to open up their path to the AFC West. Unless Steve Blass disease is contagious, these two are probably already looking toward 2015.
30. St. Louis Rams (1-4)
The Rams are about three drives away from 4-1; replace those late-game interceptions by Austin Davis against the Cowboys and 49ers with scores, and sneak in one more big play late in the fourth quarter against the Eagles, and we’re talking about the Rams as a stunning sleeper team. The margin between wild success and routine disappointment is just that thin in the NFL.
The Rams are now three games back of the Cardinals with the 49ers and Seahawks between them; it’s almost impossible to imagine them winning a cheap division title at 8-8 or 9-7, and they’ll almost surely need 10 wins or more to come up with a wild-card berth, meaning they have to go 9-2 over their next 11 games. It’s possible, I guess, just not very likely.
Monday night’s broadcast touched on the fact that the Rams have reached a staggering low in the one place they were expected to dominate in 2014. It was reasonable to suggest before the season that the Rams would have the best pass rush in football; they returned arguably the best pair of ends in football in Chris Long and Robert Quinn, spent a first-round pick on a devastating interior pass-rusher in Aaron Donald, and hired blitzing wizard Gregg Williams to run their defense.
That hasn’t happened. Through five games, the Rams have just one sack. One. They’re not even just the worst pass rush in football. They’re the least-productive pass rush in recorded history. Since the league started tracking sacks as an official stat in 1982, every team managed to record at least two sacks through its first five games until these Rams came along. They lost Long to short-term IR after Week 1, but Quinn has zero takedowns after producing 19 sacks last year. Donald, the promising rookie, has the team’s only sack, a takedown of Josh McCown in Week 2. That probably shouldn’t even count.
You have to wonder whether Williams was the right hire. Robert Mays and I fretted before the year that Williams would try to implement exotic pressures with a defense that was built to rush the passer with its front four, but nobody could have imagined it would be this ineffective. ESPN Stats & Information notes that the Rams have blitzed opposing quarterbacks on 44.5 percent of their dropbacks, the second-highest rate in football. A year ago, when the Rams sacked opposing quarterbacks on 9.2 percent of their (the third-highest rate in football), they blitzed on 32.7 percent of dropbacks, which was just above the league average of 31.8 percent.
To put this sack drought in context, if you believed that the true expectation for the Rams’ sack rate in 2014 was that 9.2 percent figure from a year ago, the chances they would have one sack or fewer on their opponent’s first 143 pass dropbacks are 66,828-to-1, or 0.001 percent. Hell, even if you thought they weren’t any better than the league’s worst pass rush from a year ago and assign them the 5.2 percent sack rate produced by the Philadelphia Eagles, the chances they would go 1-for-143 or worse is still 244-to-1. They’ll get better, but given the talent involved, this might be the worst sack drought in NFL history.
29. Washington (1-5)
It was only three weeks ago that Washington was 1-1 and in possession of a 76 percent win expectancy over the Eagles with 11 minutes remaining. From there, it unraveled pretty quickly; that drive ended in a shanked field goal, a memorable fistfight ensued on the next play, the Eagles drove down the field for a touchdown, Kirk Cousins threw a pick on the first play of the next possession, and that was that. Washington lost that game and each of its next three, and the Cousins experience has improved on the original model without solving the turnover bug:
Split Cmp Att Cmp% Yds Y/Att TD INT Fum Touches/TO Through 2013 117 213 54.9% 1351 6.3 8 10 5 15.3 2014 Totals 116 188 61.7% 1571 8.4 10 8 1 22.4
The Eagles and Giants both hold tiebreakers over Washington, and with those losses, it will be tough for Washington to catch up.
Washington has come back from the dead before; it started 3-6 in 2012 before winning its final seven games after the bye to lock up the NFC East. It is also 4-18 since then. I thought Washington could sneak to the top of the division if Robert Griffin stayed (mostly) healthy and the pass rush overwhelmed the opposition; even with Ryan Kerrigan playing well, Washington’s been a mess.
28. New York Jets (1-5)
It’s hard for a team to be all in by Week 7, but the Jets might already be done, and they’ll almost certainly be finished if they can’t come up with a victory against the Patriots on Thursday night. A loss in Foxborough would leave the Jets four games back with 10 to play and the tiebreaker leaning in New England’s favor, which certainly seems insurmountable for a team as erratic as these Jets.
I don’t think the Jets are going to win Thursday, but I should point out that it wouldn’t be unprecedented. The Patriots are 9.5-point favorites at home. They were also 9.5-point favorites when the Jets traveled to New England in the 2010 playoffs, only for Rex Ryan & Co. to come away with a 28-21 victory. The Jets also took the Patriots to overtime before losing by a field goal as 10.5-point underdogs in 2012 and lost by a field goal in regulation as 11.5-point underdogs in Week 2 last year. We expect a blowout, and that’s not unreasonable given how the two teams have played, but it’s far from guaranteed.
And hey, if the Jets were to win, they would be right back in it. They would be two games back of the 4-3 Patriots at 2-5 with the tiebreaker in hand. A win could galvanize the team and turn around its season.
27. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (1-5)
The Buccaneers have a point differential of minus-84, which is 35 points worse than anybody else in the NFC. And sure, most of that comes from two games, the 42-point loss to the Falcons and the 31-point defeat at the hands of Joe Flacco and the Ravens on Sunday. That’s true.
You know what? That’s still brutal. They lost by 42 points to a Falcons team that is 2-4. They let Flacco throw for five touchdown passes before afternoon nap time. Even their close losses have come to teams quarterbacked by Derek Anderson and Austin Davis. And a three-point win over the Steelers isn’t exactly something to write home about these days.
A report before Sunday’s blowout loss to the Ravens suggested that the Buccaneers were having trouble learning Lovie Smith’s Tampa 2 defense, which is a hard sell, given that the defense is named after Tampa Bay because Tony Dungy taught it to this very same franchise in the mid-’90s. I understand that these players weren’t around then, but you figure there would be a page or two of the old playbook floating around or a stray pattern-matching concept painted onto a bathroom wall or something.
They’ll continue to learn Smith’s defense, and they’re still just 2.5 games out of first place in a wide-open NFC South, but this has not been an impressive football team at any point in 2014, Gerald McCoy aside.
26. Minnesota Vikings (2-4)
Losing your franchise player after one week, as it turns out, is not a recipe for success. The Vikings are the anti-Browns as a team that only really plays blowouts; they have double-digit wins over the Falcons and Rams and double-digit losses to the Lions, Packers, Saints, and Patriots.
The good news is that there’s still a lot of young talent percolating and developing here, so even if they’re a year away, it’s not the end of the world. The Vikings also get a relatively easy stretch over the next three weeks, as they travel to Buffalo and Tampa Bay and host Washington before their Week 10 bye. If they can go 3-0 or even 2-1 during that stretch, they’ll have something to play for during a post-bye run that includes a three-game homestand and four games against the NFC North.
I don’t think the Vikings will make the playoffs, but they have the sort of schedule and ability to leap forward in terms of young talent that makes their path more plausible than others.
25. Tennessee Titans (2-4)
How do the words “holding on for dear life against the Jaguars” sound to you? If you’re a Titans fan, they sound like the sweet caress of victory. After a four-game losing streak, I can’t really blame Tennessee fans for being happy with a win over anybody, regardless of how it arrived. It took two red zone takeaways and a blocked field goal from 55 yards out with 12 seconds left to seal Tennessee’s first win since it blew out the Chiefs in Week 1.
It’s hard to see the Titans as a serious contender, given that they’re stuck cycling through highly questionable quarterbacks and have Ken Whisenhunt arguing that their expensively assembled offensive line needs an undetermined amount of time to jell. At 2-4, though, they’re just two games out of first place in the AFC South. Their schedule’s going to be easy the rest of the way, so even if they’re not a great team, more 16-14 squeakers could be on the horizon.
24. Miami Dolphins (2-3)
23. Buffalo Bills (3-3)
The Bills are ahead of Miami in the standings by virtue of their win in hand, and they beat the Dolphins comfortably in Week 2, but I think they’re basically neck-and-neck in terms of playoff hopes in the AFC East. Indeed, Bovada has their chances of winning the division at an identical +900. For both, their best chance of making the playoffs appears to be a Patriots collapse, as it’s difficult to imagine either of these teams getting to 10 wins.
I’d give the slightest edge to the Bills, if only because they’ve already played the Chargers, which the Dolphins will do in Week 9. The Bills need to reestablish themselves as a good team soon, though, because things get awful in December. They have three road games over the final four weeks, and while they get to play the Raiders, their other three matchups are against the Patriots, Broncos, and Packers. Anything can happen in the NFL, but if the Bills are anything worse than 8-4 heading into that final month, their hopes would be dim.
22. New York Giants (3-3)
The Giants don’t have an impressive win on their record, with victories over teams that are a combined 6-12. Their best single-game performance might actually have been in Week 2, when they outplayed Arizona for most of the game before drops and unforced errors handed the game to Drew Stanton & Co. on a silver platter.
Against Arizona, Detroit, and Philadelphia, the Giants are 0-3 and have been outscored by 59 points. And over their next five games, they get the Colts, 49ers, Seahawks, and a pair of matchups against the Cowboys. Those teams are a combined 16-7. Sure, if they’re still standing after that five-game run, they finish up with the Jaguars, Titans, Washington, and the Rams before hosting Philly in Week 17, so if they could even win two of their next five games, they could make a run against four of the worst teams in football.
With Dallas and Philly already at 5-1, though, a nine-win season from the Giants might not be enough, even if they were able to get there.
21. Kansas City Chiefs (2-3)
The Chiefs would rate higher in a pure power rankings approach, given that they have comfortable victories over New England and Miami and narrow losses to good teams in Denver and San Francisco. This is a very competent football team, regardless of how bad it looked against Tennessee at home to start the year.
Unfortunately for Andy Reid & Co., the Chiefs are stuck in an extremely tough division and have a difficult schedule to come. On a much-needed bye this week, the Chiefs come back to play the Chargers in San Diego. After that, they still have a home game against the Chargers, one more against the Broncos, and out-of-division tilts against Seattle and Arizona. They have to win at least one of those games to have any prayer of coming away with a wild-card spot, and that would be assuming they sweep their other six games against inferior competition. If they slip up even once against the Jets, Bills, Rams, Steelers, or in their pair of games against the Raiders, the season’s probably done.
20. Atlanta Falcons (2-4)
Atlanta got off to a promising start, but a three-point win over the Saints and a blowout victory over the Buccaneers both seem less special now than they did in September. Atlanta’s four losses have each been by double digits, and it might have one of the worst pass defenses in football. It has allowed opposing quarterbacks to complete 65.5 percent of their passes while averaging 8.6 yards per attempt, which isn’t too far off from Peyton Manning’s rate stats (66.5 percent completion percentage, 8.0 yards per attempt) this year.
The saving grace is, of course, the NFC South. For all of their problems, the Falcons are just 1.5 games out of first place, and they already hold a 2-0 divisional record, which will help immensely in tiebreakers as the season goes along. The Chiefs are a better team than the Falcons, but they have virtually no chance of winning their division and will likely need a minimum of nine, probably 10 wins to claim a wild-card berth. It’s not crazy to imagine the Falcons winning the NFC South at 8-8. That’s a huge advantage for Atlanta.
19. Pittsburgh Steelers (3-3)
It’s even better if you’re Pittsburgh, as the Steelers can afford to be the worst team in the AFC North and still have a very viable path toward a playoff berth, starting with their impending three-game homestand against the Texans, Colts, and Ravens before road trips to play the Jets and Titans. They could enter their Week 12 bye at anywhere from 3-8 to 8-3; they should be narrow favorites or slight underdogs in each of those five contests. Flip a coin five times and you can guess what the Steelers will look like by their bye.
My best guess is they hit that bye at 5-6. It’s not clear the Steelers are much of a team this year. Steelers devotees will undoubtedly point to their 18-point victory over the Panthers, one of the most impressive road victories of the year, and I wouldn’t blame them. It was an excellent performance. It also sticks out like a sore thumb on their résumé, which otherwise consists of two narrow wins over questionable teams (Cleveland and Jacksonville), two blowout losses (Cleveland and Baltimore), and an embarrassing home defeat at the hands of Tampa Bay. They won’t need to be a great or even a good team to beat the Titans, Jets, and Texans, but it would sure help.
18. Cleveland Browns (3-2)
Currently in the middle of the softest stretch in their season, the Browns are on a two-game winning streak and still have Jacksonville, Oakland, and Tampa Bay to come over the next three weeks. The schedule gets a little tougher after that, but it’s far from impossible to imagine the Browns hitting the middle of November at 6-2. 6-2! The Browns! The last time the Browns made it to 6-2 or better was when Bill Belichick was coaching this team in 1994. That seems like a lifetime ago, right? Well, the last time the Browns started 6-2 or better before that was during Jim Brown’s final season with the team, in 1965. Hell, the Browns haven’t topped six wins in a 16-game season since 2007.
Mike Pettine’s bunch have been better than Pittsburgh so far; they have four close games that came down to one drive and their blowout victory over the Steelers last week. They also have an early Thanksgiving present that the Steelers don’t: Josh Gordon, who is eligible to return in Week 11. Their schedule ends with a relatively tough stretch against Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Carolina, and Baltimore, but even if Gordon needs a week or two to adjust from the rigors of everyday life as a car salesman, he should be ramped up and ready for that four-game slate.
17. Chicago Bears (3-3)
When Mays can’t figure out the Bears, I’m downright hopeless. What would you make of this team, a group that has lost to the Bills at home and beaten the 49ers on the road in consecutive weeks? They got back on track with a win over the Falcons in Atlanta on Sunday, but after playing the Dolphins this weekend, they’ll play consecutive road games against the Patriots and Packers, split by a bye. They’re well-positioned to compete for a wild-card spot and still have a lot to say about the division with five NFC North games still to go, but check back in on these Bears in four weeks.
16. Houston Texans (3-3)
The Texans have thrown away a 3-1 start with sloppy play over the past two weeks; they were a drive away from beating both the Cowboys and Colts, which would have given them a commanding push toward a playoff spot at 5-1. Now, they’re back at .500 and down a game on the Colts, needing to win at Indy in Week 15 to claw back that head-to-head tiebreaker to a draw.
Houston is not a great football team. It has a few stars and an incandescent monster in J.J. Watt, mixed with a bunch of subpar starters who make mental mistakes and blow basic assignments. Getting Jadeveon Clowney back soon should help a lot, as should playing four games against the Titans and Jaguars.
They also have four more games to play against the AFC North, including this Monday night at Pittsburgh. The second-place team in the AFC West appears to be locked into one wild-card spot, leaving the Texans competing against the rest of the AFC North for the other slot. Any wins they could compile against future competition for the sixth seed, if only for tiebreaking purposes, would have outsize value.
15. New Orleans Saints (2-3)
If you’re a Saints fan, you hope Rob Ryan did something during the bye to stop this defense’s bleeding. Jairus Byrd is gone and wasn’t especially effective while he was around, so somewhat oddly, losing one of their most expensive players shouldn’t matter. Losing Jimmy Graham for two to three weeks to a shoulder injury should matter much more.
Even if the Saints are still flawed, though, they can win in a rapidly decaying NFC South. They’ve been one of football’s biggest disappointments and they’re somehow just 1.5 games off the division lead. My one concern is the schedule, which resumes with Detroit and stays tough. Green Bay, Carolina, San Francisco, Cincinnati, and Baltimore wrap up one of the toughest six-week stretches any team will face all year. The Saints will probably look better after the bye, but then again, so will the teams they face.
14. Seattle Seahawks (3-2)
13. Green Bay Packers (4-2)
We finish up with the two teams that kicked off the 2014 season in Seattle, both of whom are surprisingly out of the playoff picture at the moment. I don’t think that will last, and I suspect I’m not the only one. The Packers are tied with the Lions and are only out because Detroit holds the tiebreaker after beating Green Bay in Week 3. Given that Green Bay will host the rematch between the teams in Week 17, I’m picking the Packers to win the NFC North until the Lions establish a multi-game lead. With Calvin Johnson out and the Detroit offense floundering, it’s more likely the Packers will just take over first place sooner rather than later.
Seattle makes for a more curious problem. It’s struggling with injuries from Sunday’s loss to the Cowboys, with Byron Maxwell out for a few weeks with a high ankle sprain, Bobby Wagner out indefinitely with a turf toe, and Russell Okung playing through a painful torn labrum in his shoulder. They’ve yet to put together an impressive win since beating these very Packers in Week 1, and they’ve been comprehensively outplayed in their losses to the Chargers and Cowboys. Has the rest of the league caught up to the Seahawks?
Not really. Even if you don’t want to give them credit for being quite as good as they were a year ago, the Seahawks can still deliver one of the deepest rosters in football on a weekly basis, leaving them better equipped to deal with injury problems. (Remember that injuries and suspensions to their other cornerbacks opened up a door for Maxwell last year.) Russell Wilson will also be fine; his 47.6 passer rating against the Cowboys was the worst single-game figure he’s posted since his Week 7 loss to the 49ers during his rookie campaign, but he also put up stinkers last year and recovered. There were no hangover effects from his subpar days against the Texans (49.7 passer rating) and Cardinals (49.6), and a couple of weeks later, both losses were forgotten.
The problem for the Seahawks is that there’s a lot to navigate in the NFC wild-card race. As currently constructed, it looks like there will be four teams competing for two wild-card spots: the second-place team in the East (currently the Cowboys), the second- and third-place teams in the West (49ers and Seahawks), and the second-place team in the North (Packers). Throw in the divisional winners and it’ll be seven teams competing for five playoff spots, with the South unlikely to produce a wild-card team. A couple of very good teams are going to miss out. Right now, the Seahawks are one of them. I don’t think that’ll be the case in January, but after their postseason berth looked like a foregone conclusion for just about the entirety of 2013, the Seahawks still have to clear a path to that comfortable playoff spot in 2014. |
Last year, NASCAR driver Johnny Sauter left Oktoberfest not thrilled about a third-place finish in the ARCA Midwest Tour finale at La Crosse Fairgrounds Speedway (WI). This year he chose to do something about it by dominating the race and holding off four-time champion Ty Majeski.
Just thirty-one laps into the 200-lap feature, Sauter powered by Jason Weinkauf to take the lead after starting ninth. From there he never gave it up, even with Majeski and Minnesota’s Dan Fredrickson driving their hardest to catch up. It simply did not matter whether the leaders were dealing with lapped traffic or not, Sauter was in charge.
“(Sauter) was just a little bit better. Our car was pretty good, not much to complain about,” Majeski told Speed51.com powered by JEGS.
The final 20 laps the fans saw a strong battle for the bridesmaid position when Fredrickson continued to pull to the inside of Majeski but could not complete the pass.
“I tried to get by him. We were a lot better than he was,” Fredrickson said, disappointed. “He wouldn’t give me any room, and I wouldn’t expect him to, I would have done the same thing.”
While Fredrickson wished he could have made it to the leader, Sauter played the game smart with a fast car.
“You’ve got to know when to go and when not to go,” Sauter said. “When you get ten to twelve car lengths on them you start backing it up a little bit.”
The historic Oktoberfest weekend continues to be the final race of the ARCA Midwest Tour season and saw Majeski officially celebrate his fourth Tour championship in a row on top of his second-place finish. The Rookie of the Year honors came down to the final race and was won by Michael Ostdiek at the end of the day.
“We knew if we finished the race and John DeAngelis Jr. didn’t finish in the top-5 we would be alright,” Ostdiek said. “We definitely had a good year and it is important to close the year off strong.”
-By Caleb Slouha, Speed51.com Midwest Correspondent
-Photo Credit: Speed51.com/Bruce Nuttleman
ARCA Midwest Tour Oktoberfest 200 Unofficial Results
Pos No. Name Laps 1 5S Johnny Sauter 200 2 91M Ty Majeski 200 3 36F Dan Fredrickson 200 4 119 Dalton Zehr 200 5 39M Andrew Morrissey 200 6 77E Jonathan Eilen 200 7 7S Paul Shafer 200 8 44M Justin Mondiek 200 9 7ED Erik Darnell 200 10 78H Skylar Holzhausen 200 11 9K Derek Kraus 200 12 47 Travis Sauter 200 13 5J Casey Johnson 200 14 12M Nick Murgic 200 15 35D Travis Dassow 199 16 72G Jacob Goede 198 17 18O Michael Ostdiek 198 18 14N Austin Nason 198 19 15L Dean LaPointe 197 20 1S Michael Sauter 197 21 23W Jason Weinkauf 196 22 75H Dillon Hammond 190 23 26P Bubba Pollard 164 24 45S Jim Sauter Jr. 127 25 43K Matt Kocourek 109 26 7D John DeAngelis Jr 97 27 75W Chris Weinkauf 17 28 42P Dennis Prunty
Related Posts
« WATCH ON DEMAND: ARCA Midwest Tour Oktoberfest 200 from La Crosse Weekend Update October 6-8: Who’s Racing & Who’s Winning » |
By
Image Source
Suicide is recognized as the ultimate expression of despair. And even though the person making the decision to die may find some sense of peace, family and friends are left in a maelstrom of devastation and pain.
According to the World Health Organization, there are over one million successful suicides every year – which works out as a death every 40 seconds. Ironically, these desperate acts of self-destruction are often carried out in some of the most beautiful locations in the world.
Bridges and cliffs might seem like obvious choices to people who want to end it all, but in reality, leaping to your doom is often a horribly painful way to go. Jumping from a great height into water often leads to ruptured internal organs, broken limbs, a broken neck and, if the jumper survives long enough, death from drowning.
Read on for the 10 most popular suicide spots on Earth. We’ve ordered them according to deaths per year.
10. San Diego-Coronado Bridge – San Diego Bay, California (USA)
Image Source
The high, graceful arches of the Coronado Bridge make it a thing of beauty, especially at night. Yet sadly, the 200-foot (60-meter) bridge is also an extremely popular suicide spot. From 1972 to 2000, over 200 people leapt to their deaths from this structure. The only year with no suicides was 1984. Unsurprisingly, signs have been put up on the bridge urging people to turn back and call a suicide hotline.
Around 12 people are known to have survived the plunge from the Coronado Bridge – one of them a suspected car thief, who was followed down by a police dog that, unfortunately, didn’t make it.
Psychologists have speculated that the awe-inspiring appearance of famous bridges makes them appealing to people ready to end their lives. These experts also suggest that jumping into water includes an element of fantasy, reminiscent of returning to the womb. Jumpers may not be cognisant of the real and immediate consequences: a long fall, yes – and one followed by an agonizing, disfiguring, painful death.
9. Humber Bridge – East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire (England)
Image Source
Residents living close to the Humber Bridge near Kingston upon Hull have learnt to brace themselves for an average of seven suicide jumps a year. Between 1981 (when the bridge opened) and 2007, roughly 200 people fatally hurled themselves into the chilly waters below. And the 98-foot (30-meter) drop makes death almost certain.
A particularly horrifying incident occurred in 2005. After a long custody battle with her husband, called Julio, a 28-year-old woman named Angela Schuman jumped from the bridge while clutching her daughter. In hospital, the words “Cause of death: Julio” were found written on Schuman’s stomach. Yet amazingly, both she and her child (who was a few days away from her second birthday) survived the incident. The daughter was hypothermic and made a recovery five days later. Schuman, on the other hand, suffered lower body fractures and spent nearly two months in hospital. They are two of five people who have miraculously survived the plunge from the Humber Bridge.
A proposed suicide barrier was announced in December 2009. Previously, such a barrier would not have been possible without compromising the integrity of the bridge. But thanks to modern design, this is now feasible.
8. Sunshine Skyway Bridge – Tampa Bay, Florida (USA)
Image Source
The new-look Sunshine Skyway Bridge opened in 1987. Due to its beautiful, picturesque appearance, it’s a popular place to shoot car commercials – but it’s also one of the top suicide spots in the USA. Up until 2009, no less than 207 people had committed suicide by jumping from the bridge into the green waters of Tampa Bay below. And during the same time period, a further 34 people are believed to have made the 175-foot (53-meter) leap and survived.
In 1999, in order to try and help would-be jumpers, six solar-powered phones were set up along the bridge and 24-hour patrols were initiated. Moreover, between 1999 and 2009, 23 would-be jumpers made the lifesaving phone call. But even so, the number of suicides has not significantly decreased, and according to a 2009 Tampa Tribune study, the bridge still averaged nine suicides a year from 1999 to 2009.
Cape Coral forensic psychiatrist Jerald Ratner says, “You are on stage. It symbolizes a glorification of suicide. It’s an act you want people to notice.”
7. West Gate Bridge – Melbourne, Victoria (Australia)
Image Source
The West Gate Bridge in Melbourne has been tainted with tragedy since it first opened in 1978. On October 15, 1970, while construction was still in progress, a piece of the bridge collapsed and killed 35 workers – most of them on their lunch break in the huts below.
According to police data, around one person every three weeks leaps to their death from the 190-foot (58-meter) high bridge. And a 2000 study by the Royal Melbourne Hospital, based on 62 cases between 1991 and 1998, found that over 70 percent of jumpers had mental illnesses and that 74 percent of them were male.
After the suicide of a mother and her 18-month-old baby in 2008, a temporary suicide barrier was set up on the bridge. Since then, the number of jumping incidents has been cut by 85 percent. Still, if the previous jumpers had received the treatment and counseling they needed, perhaps some of them would still be alive today.
6. Beachy Head – East Sussex (England)
Image Source
Beautiful Beachy Head in East Sussex is reminiscent of Dover’s famous White Cliffs. However, the peaceful-looking area is regularly dotted with memorials dedicated to the overwhelming number of suicides that take place there.
Every year, around 20 people kill themselves at Beachy Head, throwing themselves into the water or onto the rocks below. In recent years, major efforts have been made to discourage potential leapers. The Samaritans (a UK charity) have put up signs around the site asking people to call them before doing anything drastic. There’s even a so-called “suicide phone booth,” with the message, “The Samaritans: always there, day or night” posted in front of it.
The Beachy Head Chaplaincy Team (a Christian charity) also make regular patrols of the area in the hope that they can help suicidal people before they go over the edge. In 2011, they were involved in the rescue of 266 potential jumpers.
5. Niagara Falls – Ontario (Canada) and New York (USA)
Image Source
Sadly, breathtaking Niagara Falls on the border of Ontario and New York isn’t just a famous tourist destination. Every year, around 20 to 25 people leap into the turbulent waters below. Staggeringly, from 1856 through 1995, Niagara Falls was the site of 2,780 known suicides. And only three people are known to have survived the drop unaided by a safety device.
According to psychologist Sandra Sanger, “There is a certain appeal to committing suicide in a place of significance – a romanticism that goes along with it.” She goes on to explain that “there is also a collective sense of connection with other people in these last moments right before suicide occurs.”
Larry Berman, the executive director of the American Association of Suicidology, calls such hotspots “suicide landmarks.” Berman further explains that if a suicide is prevented at one of these locations, only a very low percentage of people who are stopped will make another attempt.
4. The Gap – Sydney, New South Wales (Australia)
Image Source
The South Head peninsula in Australia is a site of true natural beauty, but it’s also home to one of the continent’s top suicide spots. The Gap is a steep cliff that overlooks the Tasman Sea, and each year, about 50 people leap to their death there.
As at Beachy Head, efforts have been made to convince potential jumpers to turn back. An inward-facing security fence provides a physical barrier, and a number of Lifeline telephone booths have also been installed along with security cameras.
Until recently, the so-called “Angel of the Gap,” a retired WWII veteran named Don Ritchie, provided his own brand of home counseling to jumpers. Ritchie would approach people on the cliff top who appeared distressed and invite them home for a cup of tea and a talk. He is credited with having saved 164 people from leaping off the cliff since 1964.
Unfortunately, the cliff’s guardian angel – who was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia for his efforts in 2009 – died in May 2012, leaving a significant gap. Let’s hope someone else will try to fill his shoes.
3. Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge – Nanjing, Jiangsu (China)
Image Source
The Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge has two major claims to fame – or, in the second case, infamy: it was the first heavy bridge designed and built purely in China, and it’s one of the most notorious suicide hotspots in the world.
Between its construction in 1968 and 2006, 2,000 people took their own lives at the bridge. It’s estimated that around once a week, somebody makes the 130-foot (37-meter) leap to his or her death. That said, according to GQ writer Michael Paterniti, the exact number is difficult to pin down, “in part because the Chinese authorities refused to count those who missed the river, the ones who’d leapt and had the misfortune of landing in the trees along the riverbank, or on the concrete apron beneath the bridge, or who were found impressed in the earth like mud angels, two feet from rushing water.”
Measures to curb the loss of life have not yet been put in place, partly because the Chinese government refuses to acknowledge that the high suicide rate in their country is a problem. However, the bridge’s astonishing death toll inspired one local citizen to take up the slack through direct action.
Chen Si, described by Paterniti as “The Suicide Catcher,” is a Nanjing resident who regularly patrols the causeway and prevents jumpers from making their fatal leap. “He had a paunch, blackened teeth, and the raspy cough of an avid smoker, and he never stopped watching, even when he allowed himself a cigarette, smoking a cheap brand named after the city itself,” wrote Paterniti.
Curiously, the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge, which also crosses the Yangtze River, is another suicide hotspot, the site of an estimated 24.7 suicides a year.
2. Golden Gate Bridge – San Francisco, California (USA)
Image Source
San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge has been described as the most popular suicide spot in the world. This 75-year-old structure has seen more than 1,500 (known) suicides since it opened in 1937. And according to some sources, the average is one every two weeks. The worst year was 1995, when there were 45 suicides. Yet a large number of people decide not to jump at the last minute. In 2006, 70 suicidal people were taken off the bridge before they made the 220-foot (67-meter) leap.
One of the few survivors is Ken Baldwin, a married 28-year-old man who had previously attempted suicide with painkillers and alcohol. He reported that his reason for leaping off the bridge was to force people to see that he was “hurting.”
“I still see my hands coming off the railing. I instantly realised that everything in my life that I’d thought was unfixable was totally fixable – except for having jumped,” Baldwin told The New Yorker. He was fortunate enough not to be killed on impact and was picked up by the coastguard.
The number of suicides at previous hotspots like the Empire State Building, the Eiffel Tower and Sydney Harbour Bridge has been greatly reduced thanks to suicide barriers. And the fact that self-destruction is still so easy at the Golden Gate Bridge has led to calls for greater protective measures. So far, however, the cost and aesthetics have prevented action from being taken.
1. Aokigahara Forest – Mount Fuji (Japan)
Image Source
Picturesque Aokigahara forest, also known as the Sea of Trees, has been described as being haunted by angry spirits. What’s more, the death toll in the area is so great that local police have blanketed the forest with signs urging people to reconsider or to get in touch if they’re contemplating suicide.
By 2003, the suicide rate is said to have reached as high as 100 a year. And in 2010, according to The Japan Times, 247 people tried to kill themselves (54 successfully). In fact, the forest is so thick with bodies that there are annual searches to locate them. The location’s association with the occult and the paranormal is often linked with the high death toll.
Suicide is a major social issue in Japan. The problem has been blamed partly on the social stigma attached to mental illness and partly on increased work-related stress. Another theory is that it’s the result of Japanese culture’s tolerant attitude towards suicide and the low number of psychiatrists available to help. Also, national health insurance does not cover the cost of visiting private clinics in there.
Bonus entry: George Washington Memorial Bridge – Seattle, Washington (USA)
Image Source
Often referred to as the Aurora Bridge, the George Washington Memorial Bridge was opened in 1932 as the last link in the highway chain between Canada and Mexico. But over the years, thanks to easy pedestrian access, the bridge has developed a darker reputation as a popular place from which to jump.
The bridge didn’t get the best start when a shoe salesman jumped to his death in 1932, before it had even finished being built. And since 1932, it’s estimated that more than 230 people have committed suicide from the bridge, with an average of five a year between 1997 and 2007.
In December 2006, a desperate attempt to address the high death toll was made when half a dozen emergency telephones plus three times as many signs were installed. Also in late 2006, a group of local activists and community leaders calling themselves the Fremont Individuals and Employees Nonprofit to Decrease Suicides (FRIENDS) looked to raise awareness and get a suicide barrier erected. Finally, in 2011, at a cost $4.8 million, the construction of a barrier was completed. |
The man is first shown backing up his car to a museum side entrance that led directly to the guard station. He steps out of his car and buzzes the door. On the tape, Mr. Abath is seen admitting the man, greeting him briefly and reviewing a small document that the man brought with him. The pair is then out of sight for several minutes before the man walks out.
In a statement released with the video, officials with the United States Attorney’s office in Massachusetts did not identify Mr. Abath. And in interviews on Thursday, they carefully avoided suggesting what the release of the video seems to imply: that his actions are again being scrutinized as part of the investigation into a case that has bewildered the authorities for a quarter-century.
But they did say that Mr. Abath had never disclosed the previous day’s visit during his many interviews with investigators. And in the release, they say that admitting the man was “against museum policy.”
Mr. Abath, now 49 and living in Brattleboro, Vt., where he works as a teacher’s aide, could not be reached for comment. But he has long denied any role in the heist. Reached by phone on Thursday his wife, Diane, said, “I can’t deal with this right now,” and hung up.
The tape was collected just after the theft, but it is unclear whether it had ever been reviewed before 2013. United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz said in a telephone interview that the prosecutor who took over the case about two years ago, Robert Fisher, pulled it from the stacks of Gardner evidence at the F.B.I. and viewed it during a “complete re-examination of the case.” |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.