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“I still think the licence fee is probably still the least worst way of funding the BBC, but that can only be justifiable if the BBC truly is a public service broadcaster. And it palpably isn’t. Or only a tiny percentage of its programme can be so defined. I don’t want to watch my programmes dotted with ads, or sponsored by global corporations which would surely have an even greater effect on
its independence.
If there’s a better method of funding then no one has come up with a convincing model.My point is that the BBC is swollen, does things it shouldn’t be doing and is competing for ratings with the commercial channels. Could anyone really discern any difference between the two main BBC channels and the commercial broadcasters? I seriously doubt it. The BBC shouldn’t be funding orchestras or running local radio stations that are identical to commercial ones.”
Galloway recently took to social media to express his ire, tweeting that he’d “had enough” of the BBC:
Actually, I've had enough of the BBC. Too big too bloated too craven to power. I'm thinking of withholding my BBC poll tax. What about you? — George Galloway (@georgegalloway) September 12, 2013
He continues:
“I want the BBC to be distinctive and different, not grey and boring, unusual, surprising, not stuffed with vacuous game shows, holiday shows and house conversions. Leave that to the other side. Personally I would like more movies, more current affairs, sport – the Beeb has scrapped the tackle on that one – plays, music, and genuinely innovative and excellent shows from Britain and abroad. Is it significant that two of the most recent ground-breaking shows I can think of, The Wire and Breaking Bad, were ignored by Auntie. I could go on.”
The quality of BBC programming wasn’t the only issue that Mr Galloway highlighted with the institution:
“The pay of senior executives is a scandal. They are all of a type too, Oxbridge, glorified civil servants. They go in after university and they stay there for life. It’s incestuous, it’s cushy, it’s well-paid and it’s unchallenging. And they replicate themselves, the Clives and Samanthas. The argument used to be advanced that they had to pay these huge salaries so they wouldn’t go to ITV or abroad. Well, if so, let them. I think the quality of BBC programming is at an all-time low, or at least an all-time low in my experience. And the recent farce involving Mark Thompson and the BBC Trust exemplifies the incompetence. The Trust should be sacked tomorrow but don’t turn it all over to Ofcom, which is degrees worse.”
The salaries of BBC executives both past and present have been repeatedly condemned by commentators across the political spectrum. Speaking to The Daily Telegraph recently, Sir David Attenborough commented that it was “a huge embarrassment that salaries of that size are being paid in a public service organisation”. Exorbitant pay aside, detractors often accuse the BBC of bias – something which Mr Galloway believes exists:
“And it’s undeniable there is bias, and it’s that smug, condescending kind. Now I don’t mind if someone is overtly biased, I can deal with that, the viewer can discern it, but what I can’t stand is this pretence of impartiality. Bias, of whatever kind, starts with the decision to choose a subject and how to handle it. I am all for varied opinion, controversy, but I can’t stand the pretence that it is even-handed and must be so because it is sanctified by the BBC.”
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RedditYesterday, a minute or so before 3pm, with a policeman struggling for his life outside, and with details of what had gone on still sketchy and confused, the work of parliament was suspended. David Lidington, leader of the House of Commons, rose to explain why the lockdown was necessary. And his Labour opposite number, Valerie Vaz, replied that “Our thoughts and prayers are with the police officer”, a sentiment with which Lidington concurred and with which the house murmured its agreement.
I wandered over and unlocked the church, putting up a board to invite passersby to come in and light a candle or say a prayer. You can see Big Ben from some parts of my parish and the church was filled with the sound of helicopters overhead and police sirens whizzing past. A handful of people dropped by over the couple of hours I sat there. Not many, I know, but it was still worth opening up. It was my way of showing respect. Of expressing solidarity. Of managing my own anxiety. This church was bombed by the Nazis on the first day of the blitz. It has seen great violence. And it has been calmly rebuilt. It symbolises the defiance of Londoners in the face of terror. This felt the right place to be. And as I sat quietly, I kept up with unfolding events via Twitter. And that was my mistake.
“Can everyone stop all this #PrayforLondon nonsense. It’s these bloody stupid beliefs that help create this violence in the first place,” tweeted Julia Hartley-Brewer, a middle-England talk radio host in the mould of Katie Hopkins. Now there is a time and a place for atheists to have a pop about whether prayer is a waste of time. Even for a debate about the role of Islam in the formation of terrorism. Bring it on. But bundling together the person who had just come into church to pray for the dying policeman with the policeman’s very attacker was gratuitously offensive and just plain ignorant.
But the charmless Hartley-Brewer was having none of those who challenged her: “So having an opinion on religious expressions is indecent now? Have you thought of joining Isis?” she preposterously spat back. Of course, she hardly matters. But all over Twitter, in millions of micro-encounters, all this surround-sound unpleasantness builds up and gradually eats away at our civility. Under that flag of convenience called free speech, people tear up their decency in the search for “likes”. Oh, how cheaply we trade the things that matter most. Have social media and the stamping foot of the 24-hour news cycle killed off the quiet dignity of grief, both religious and non-religious?
Some things, often the most important things, do not lend themselves to immediate comment. Bigger thoughts take time and silence, and require waiting for the right perspective. Yes, I know, defending slowness and silence in a newspaper is a bit like defending chastity in a brothel. But the world does not readily give up its truth just because you click on a webpage or react to a tweet. “You must wear your eyes out, as others their knees,” said the great Welsh poet RS Thomas.
Prayer is not a way of telling God the things he already knows. Nor is it some act of collective lobbying, whereby the almighty is encouraged to see the world from your perspective if you screw up your face really hard and wish it so. Forget Christopher Robin at the end of the bed. Prayer is mostly about emptying your head waiting for stuff to become clear. There is no secret formula. And holding people in your prayers is not wishful thinking. It’s a sort of compassionate concentration, where someone is deliberately thought about in the presence of the widest imaginable perspective – like giving them a mental cradling.
But above all, prayer is often just a jolly good excuse to shut up for a while and think. The adrenaline that comes from shock does not make for clear thinking or considered judgment. Those who rush to outrage say the stupidest things.Saying she was “not the right person” for the job, Baroness Butler-Sloss has stepped down as head of the UK government’s inquiry that looks into reports of at least 20 senior figures including MPs and cabinet ministers abusing children over decades.
Butler-Sloss, 80, had been under pressure to quit by both MPs and victims due to her family links. Sir Michael Havers, who is the Baroness’ late brother, served as attorney general in the 1980’s, and is suspected of turning a blind eye to incidents of child abuse conducted by politicians during the time.
Butler-Sloss said that she was ‘honored’ to be invited to chair the inquiry but that she “did not sufficiently consider whether my background and the fact my brother had been attorney general would cause difficulties."
“This is a victim-orientated inquiry and those who wish to be heard must have confidence that the members of the panel will pay proper regard to their concerns and give appropriate advice to government” she added.
The retired judge had been appointed by Home Secretary Theresa May last week, a decision that has been called “somewhat shambolic” by a leading MP.
Speaking in front of the Home Affairs select committee today, the Home Secretary said she did not regret selecting Butler-Sloss, and that she would have done an “excellent job” as chair of the inquiry.
Asked about appointing a new chairperson, May said she hoped to name a new candidate “within a reasonable amount of time”.
Prime Minister David Cameron bowed to pressure in calling for a public inquiry into child sex abuse last week, following revelations that the Home Office lost a document alleging that politicians in powerful circles were involved in pedophilia during the 1980s.
Earlier this month, former Conservative cabinet minister Lord Tebbit told the BBC that there “may well” have been a cover up over child abuse in Westminster during the 1980’s, saying that politicians at the time felt they needed to “protect the system”.Apple has officially announced the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus today. The new iPhone features a design that's very similar to last year's iPhone 6S (and the year prior's iPhone 6), with a rounded aluminum body. But what's entirely new is the phone's water resistance, which means you can get the iPhone 7 or the larger iPhone 7 Plus wet without worry. Also new is the long-rumored dual camera system, stereo speakers, and a darker black color scheme. And, as expected, the iPhone 7 does not have a headphone jack, rendering countless 3.5mm headphones useless with the device (or requiring the use of an adapter).
The new phone may look very similar to last year's models, but instead of the matte metal finish we've become used to, it has a glossy, mirrored design. The new color is called jet black and is much darker and richer than the space black of years past. Apple is also releasing a standard black model, along with gold, silver, and rose gold.
Read next: Our iPhone 7 and 7 Plus review
Apple has redesigned the iconic home button for the iPhone 7, making it force sensitive like the Force Touch trackpads used in recent MacBook laptops. The phone has also gained the Taptic Engine haptic feedback system from the Apple Watch, which provides different vibration feedback for various alerts.
The camera in standard sized iPhone 7 has been upgraded with optical image stabilization and a brighter f/1.8 lens that lets in 50 percent more light than the iPhone 6S' f/2.2 lens. Apple says the new 12-megapixel sensor, which has the same resolution as last year's phone, is 60 percent faster and 30 percent more efficient. It's coupled with a new image processing chip and quad-LED flash that produces 50 percent more light. Apple's Phil Schiller boasts that the new processing engine leverages machine learning and has "supercomputer performance." The front camera on the iPhone 7 has been bumped to 7 megapixels with automatic image stabilization for better selfies and video recording.
The real camera upgrades are found in the iPhone 7 Plus
But the real upgrades were saved for the larger iPhone 7 Plus' dual camera system. The company says the new dual camera allows for true 2x optical zoom without loss of image quality. One of the lenses is equivalent to 28mm for wide angle shots (like a standard iPhone camera), while the other has a closer, 60mm equivalent lens. Switching between the two cameras is seamless in the iPhone 7 Plus' camera app — just tap the 1x or 2x button and the camera will switch automatically. You can zoom further, up to 10x, but beyond 2x is digital zoom that crops the photo. Apple has also developed a feature that uses both lenses to mimic a shallow depth of field, like what can be accomplished with a larger DSLR. This feature will be available via a software update later this year.
The new phones have upgraded displays that are 25 percent brighter, with a wider color gamut for better color reproduction and improved color management. Both include the 3D Touch pressure sensitive display that debuted with the 6S line. But it appears that Apple did not update the image resolution of the displays, meaning that this year's iPhone has the same number of pixels as 2014's iPhone 6. (The iPhone 7 is 750 x 1334 pixels, while the iPhone 7 Plus is 1080 x 1920.)
As has been rumored all year, the iPhone 7 line does not have a standard 3.5mm headphone jack. In its place is a second speaker, giving the phone stereo sound, and Apple has developed a set of EarPods with a Lightning connector that will be included with the phone. Additionally, an adapter comes in the box so you can still use 3.5mm headphones with the device.
Wireless is designed to take the place of the headphone jack
In addition, Apple has developed a new set of wireless headphones called AirPods, which are designed to work with the iPhone 7. The AirPods are truly wireless, without a cable connecting the left and right headphone. Apple developed a new wireless technology (based on Bluetooth Low Energy) that handles both audio and the wireless connection to the phone or Apple Watch. They have sensors to detect when they are in your ears and "motion accelerometers" to activate Siri. Apple says the AirPods have five hours of battery life and come with a battery case that provides 24 hours of total use. The AirPods will be available in late October for $159. Apple-owned Beats is also introducing a line of headphones that make use of the new wireless technology.
Read more: Apple killed the headphone jack so it could resurrect the Bluetooth headset
The iPhone 7 also comes with a new A10 Fusion processor that is said to be 40 percent faster than last year's chip. It is paired with a new graphics processing chip that is 50 percent faster than what's in the A9. Apple also says that the new phones have "the longest battery life ever of an iPhone", but the actual improvements seem as incremental as always. The company says the smaller iPhone 7 will last two hours longer than the iPhone 6S, while the 7 Plus gains an hour over the 6S Plus.
Apple says the new phone will be available for purchase on September 16th, though preorders start on September 9th. The iPhone 7 will start with 32GB of storage for $649 (a long awaited upgrade from the 16GB that used to be in the base model) and goes up to 256GB for $849. The larger iPhone 7 Plus is actually more expensive than its predecessor, starting at $769 for the 32GB version and go up to $969 for the top model. The device was revealed by Apple's Twitter account ahead of being announced on stage, a rare blunder for an Apple product launch.
See all of the iPhone and Apple Watch news right here!
Apple's iPhone 7 event in 9 minutesTata Value Homes, a real estate firm focussed on affordable housing, has partnered with e-commerce major Snapdeal to sell houses through the online marketplace model.
As part of the partnership, about 1,000 homes across projects in cities like Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Chennai will be put up for sale on Snapdeal. Ranging from 1 BHK to 3 BHK, the houses are priced between Rs 18-70 lakh.
"According to reports, one in every two online real estate searches is to buy property and there is a USD 43 billion market opportunity here. We started selling homes through our own website last year in December and have already sold over 600 units. This partnership will help us take that to the next level," Tata Housing Development Company (THDC) Senior Vice President Marketing and Sales A Harikesh told reporters in New Delhi.
Tata Value Homes, a subsidiary of Tata Housing Development Company, will continue to sell through its own portal as well.
Upon possession of the house, customers buying the house through Snapdeal will get Rs 10,000 per month for a year as an assured rent (whether they stay on premise or lease it out) as part of the deal.
Customers will have to register themselves on Snapdeal before making a booking, which opens on August 28.
"Details about the project and other things are shared on the website. Registered users can book a unit for Rs 30,000 and then our offline team takes over," he said.
However, the booking amount is not refundable in case the customer does not buy the house.
"We already have close to 50,000 merchants on our board.
I think real estate, as a category, will do well on our platform is because people trust our brand. We want to offer our customers the best deals," Snapdeal co-founder and CEO Kunal Bahl said.
Harikesh said the company also plans to launch new projects in Kolkata and Delhi-NCR before March 2015, which may also get added to the deal.
"We are looking at a long term association with Snapdeal.
While the Rs 10,000 offer is valid for a week, we will continue to sell through them after that too. Units will get added as and when they come up," he added.
First Published: Aug 26, 2014 18:01 ISTGlobal health spending good for U.S. security and economy, National Academies say
If a serious infectious disease blossomed across the globe today, the U.S. death toll could be double that of all the casualties suffered in wars since the American Revolution. Those 2 million potential American lives lost to a global pandemic is just one sobering statistic cited in a new report released today by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that urges sustained U.S. spending on global health initiatives. It also calls on the federal government to develop a new “International Response Framework” to guide the nation’s preparation and reaction to intercontinental epidemics and global pandemics.
“While global crises have largely been avoided to date, the lack of a strategic [U.S.] approach to these threats could have grave consequences,” the report warns. “If the system for responding to such threats remains reactionary, the world will not always be so lucky.”
The next epidemic—whether from nature or bioterrorism—is a question of “when,” not “if,” according to the authors of the report, titled Global Health and the Future Role of the United States. They say the 313-page tome is intended to send a strong message that investing in public health beyond U.S. borders is more than a philanthropy project; it’s also a matter of economic stability and national security here at home.
“I have long argued that it is not just being altruistic to address these issues on a global basis, because sooner or later [they] will impact us,” says Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and a member of the panel that wrote the report. (Osterholm has also recently written that President Donald Trump’s proposed budget cuts to the National Institutes of Health miss the mark on “the greatest national security threat of all: our fight against infectious disease.”)
The report’s authors make 14 recommendations for intervening in global health across four broad areas: prepping for global disease outbreaks; sustaining funds for responding to AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria; improving women’s and children’s health; and reducing incidence of cardiovascular disease and cancers in low- and middle-income countries. It also calls for “the creation of an International Response Framework to guide the U.S. response to an international health emergency.”
Osterholm tells Science Insider that the structure of such a framework was left intentionally open-ended, to give officials leeway to think about how to avoid duplication of effort and wasted resources. Federal law already enables U.S. agencies to respond to domestic disease outbreaks, Osterholm notes, but “it is more complicated when you get into other countries.”
For example, at the height of national concern several years ago about the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa, former President Barack Obama named a temporary “Ebola czar” to oversee the U.S. response. But report author Michael Merson, director of the Duke Global Health Institute in Durham, North Carolina, says the United States needs to “have a more stable system or framework in place so we would not have to do things on an ad hoc basis in the future.”
The report also argues that steady federal spending on disease preparedness—rather than the reactive and often delayed infusions of funds prompted by the recent Ebola and Zika virus outbreaks—would save money and increase effectiveness over the long haul. The report notes that even a “moderate influenza pandemic” that reduces global economic output by 2% could cost the world economy between $570 billion to $2 trillion.
Good health can also equal greater political stability, the authors argue. “When one thinks of global health, one often thinks of disease, humanitarian needs, and the moral imperative,” Merson says. “But now there is evidence that countries with good health are more secure and have less terrorism. So we tried to explain the benefits of global health from various perspectives: It is an economic issue, it is good for markets, it is important for diplomacy.”
The report comes as the Trump administration has proposed deep cuts in public health and foreign aid programs in the 2018 fiscal year that begins 1 October. Key members of Congress have been cool to those proposals, but final spending levels are not expected to be set until late this year at the earliest.ATLANTA (AP) — A Georgia sheriff accused of exposing himself in an Atlanta park and running from a police officer has been suspended for 40 days.
Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal issued an executive order Monday suspending DeKalb County Sheriff Jeffrey Mann starting Tuesday. Deal last month instructed Attorney General Chris Carr and two county sheriffs to investigate and report back within 30 days.
State law allows the governor to convene a panel of two sheriffs and the state attorney general to investigate and to recommend whether to suspend a sheriff facing criminal or ethics charges.
Mann has pleaded not guilty to charges of indecency and obstruction of an officer. Mann's attorney has argued the governor shouldn't get involved because Mann is accused of violating Atlanta city ordinances.
Mann served a self-imposed, one-week suspension but has said he plans to remain in his job.House Republicans have a bold new strategy to attack Obamacare, which involves huge pay cuts for physicians unless Democrats agree to delay the law’s individual mandate to buy insurance.
GOP leaders intend to vote on legislation this week, aides say, to delay the individual mandate in order to fund a “doc fix” that avoids a 24 percent pay cut to physicians under Medicare — which will automatically take effect on April 1 unless Congress acts. Inaction would disrupt the health care system, in part by causing many doctors to stop accepting Medicare patients.
The strategy is unlikely to succeed and could backfire on Republicans. Delaying the individual mandate is a nonstarter for the Democratic-led Senate and White House. By demanding a largely partisan unraveling of Obamacare in exchange for must-pass bipartisan legislation, they risk being blamed by seniors and the health care industry if the doctor pay cuts go into effect. When Republicans insisted on such an approach for federal funding last fall, the government shut down and they took most of the blame.
“This bill represents a new low, even for House Republicans,” fumed Drew
Hammill, a spokesman for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who
decried the plan as “irresponsible and dangerous” and promised it’d be a
“legislative dead-end.”
But Republican leaders believe they have an ace up their sleeve. Many of them expect Obama to delay the individual mandate unilaterally before the first penalties come due (as he has delayed other provisions of the law). So they argue that this proposal puts Democrats in a tough position, particularly given the unpopularity of the federal requirement to buy insurance. A full “doc fix” could be funded by putting it off for several years, an aide said.
“Is President Obama willing to block a doc fix because he disagrees with a mandate delay he himself is likely to implement?” said a House GOP leadership aide. “Democrats are in a tighter position than [they’d] have you believe.”
The House voted last week to delay the individual mandate for one year. It was the GOP-led chamber’s 50th vote to repeal or dismantle Obamacare. The doc fix is a lose-lose dilemma because it requires offsets simply to maintain the status quo, and imposing cuts to influential industry players like hospitals or drug companies is problematic in an election year. It’s plausible that Republicans won’t insist on the mandate delay if their bill stalls, and may be willing to look elsewhere for offsets to patch the cuts.
“It gives them an easy off ramp to a patch while still saying they tried,” said a health industry lobbyist and former congressional Republican aide.
A bit of background: in 1997, Congress enacted a formula to limit Medicare reimbursement rates to physicians, known as the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR). Starting in 2002, it began imposing significant cuts to doctor payments. Congress responded by routinely passing short-term patches to stave off the cuts (and instead giving doctors pay raises), usually by cutting health care spending elsewhere. There is virtually unanimous agreement in Congress that the cuts shouldn’t go into effect, but the formula remains in place because replacing it with a bipartisan alternative would cost a whopping $138 billion over a decade.
Rep. Mike Conaway (R-TX) said Thursday that the House bill will “replace the flawed SGR formula” and be “completely paid-for.” A one-year mandate delay would save the federal government $9 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and repealing it would save $282 billion over a decade. Conway said that “the specifics of the pay-for have not yet been finalized.”
The full doc fix includes five years of higher reimbursements to physicians and instructs the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services to come up with alternative payment systems, a GOP leadership aide explained. After the five years are up, doctors can choose to stay on their current payment plan or select an alternative one.
In recent months, there has been some hope that Congress will finally replace SGR with a more viable formula because the price tag has fallen dramatically from $300 billion, where it was in recent years. The American Medical Association, an influential physicians group, has been aggressively lobbying Congress for a permanent fix. But finding $138 billion in savings that can pass a Congress this divided remains a tall order, especially by the end of this month. Many believe short-term patches are inevitable for the foreseeable future.
The Republicans’ latest strategy is actually a step away from bipartisan negotiations for a fix.
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) warned that the Senate would reject a bill that chops the individual mandate, and said the GOP’s approach makes it harder to fix the SGR problem in time. “Obviously there hasn’t been agreement [to roll back the mandate] in the past,” he said, “and if we use that as a pay-for, it seems to me it puts at risk meeting the March 31 deadline.”
This article has been updated.Australian frontier wars
Mounted police engaging Indigenous Australians during the Waterloo Creek Massacre of 1838 Date 1788–1934 Location Australia Result British victory Dispossession of land of the indigenous clans Belligerents British Army[1]
Native Police
Mounted police
British colonists Indigenous Australians Casualties and losses Minimum 2,000–2,500 dead Most common estimate: 20,000 minimum dead
The Australian frontier wars is a term applied by some historians to violent conflicts between Indigenous Australians and white settlers during the British colonisation of Australia. The first fighting took place several months after the landing of the First Fleet in January 1788 and the last clashes occurred in the early 20th century, as late as 1934. An estimated 20,000 Indigenous Australians and between 2,000 and 2,500 settlers died in the wars[citation needed]. However, recent scholarship on the frontier wars in what is now the state of Queensland indicates that Indigenous fatalities may have been significantly higher. Indeed, while battles and massacres occurred in a number of locations across Australia, they were particularly bloody in Queensland, owing to its comparatively larger pre-contact Indigenous population.
Background and population [ edit ]
In 1770 a British expedition under the command of then-Lieutenant James Cook made the first voyage by Europeans along the Australian east coast. On 29 April Cook and a small landing party fired on a group of Dharawal people who sought to prevent the British from landing near their camp at Botany Bay, described by Cook as "a small village". Two Dharawal men made threatening gestures and a stone was thrown to underline that the whites were not welcome to land at that spot. Cook then ordered "a musket to be fired with small-shot" and the elder of the two was hit in a leg. This caused the two Dharawal men to run to their huts and seize their spears and shields. Subsequently, a single spear was thrown at the whites which "happily hurt nobody". This then caused Cook to order "a third musket with small-shots" to be fired, "upon which one of them threw another lance and both immediately ran away." Cook did not make further contact with the Dharawal.
Cook, in his voyage up the east coast of Australia, observed no signs of agriculture or other development by its inhabitants. Some historians argue that under prevailing European law such land was deemed terra nullius or land belonging to nobody or land 'empty of inhabitants' (as defined by Emerich de Vattel). Cook wrote that he formally took possession of the east coast of New Holland on 22 August 1770 when on Possession Island off the west coast of Cape York Peninsula.[7]
The British Government decided to establish a prison colony in Australia in 1786. Under the European legal doctrine of terra nullius, Indigenous Australians were not recognised as having property rights and territory could be acquired through 'original occupation' rather than conquest or consent. The colony's Governor, Captain Arthur Phillip, was instructed to "live in amity and kindness" with Indigenous Australians and sought to avoid conflict.
The British settlement of Australia commenced with the First Fleet in mid-January 1788 in the south-east in what is now the federal state of New South Wales. This process then continued into Tasmania and Victoria from 1803 onward. Since then the population density of white people has remained highest in this section of the Australian continent. However, conflict with Aborigines was never as intense and bloody in the south-eastern colonies as in Queensland and the north-east of the continent. More settlers as well as Indigenous Australians were killed on the Queensland frontier than in any other Australian colony. The reason is simple, and is reflected in all evidence and sources dealing with this subject: There were more Aborigines in Queensland. The territory of Queensland was the single most populated section of pre-contact Indigenous Australia, reflected not only in all pre-contact population estimates, but also in the mapping of pre-contact Australia (see Horton's Map of Aboriginal Australia).[10]
The indigenous population distribution illustrated below is based on two independent sources, firstly on two population estimates made by anthropologists and a social historian in 1930 and in 1988, secondly on the basis of the distribution of known tribal land.[11]
The Distribution of the Pre-Contact Indigenous Population when Imposed on the Current Australian States and Territories.[12] State/Territory Share of Population in the 1930-Estimates Share of Population in the 1988-Estimates Distribution of tribal land Queensland 38.2% 37.9% 34.2% Western Australia 19.7% 20.2% 22.1% New South Wales 15.3% 18.9% 10.3% Northern Territory 15.9% 12.6% 17.2% Victoria 4.8% 5.7% 5.7% South Australia 4.8% 4.0% 8.6% Tasmania 1.4% 0.6% 2.0%
All evidence suggests that the territory of Queensland had a pre-contact Indigenous population density more than double that of New South Wales, at least six times that of Victoria and at least twenty times that of Tasmania. Equally there are signs that the population density of Indigenous Australia was comparatively higher in the north-eastern sections of New South Wales, and along the northern coast from the Gulf of Carpentaria and westward including certain sections of the Northern Territory and Western Australia.[13]
Indigenous tribe on the banks of the River Torrens, 1850
Estimated Minimum Indigenous Population by 1788 (based on Prentis 1988).[14] State/Territory Population in numbers Population in percentage Queensland 300,000 37.9% Western Australia 150,000 20.2% New South Wales 160,000 18.9% Northern Territory 100,000 12.6% Victoria 45,000 5.7% South Australia 32,000 4.0% Tasmania 5,000 0.6% Minimum Total 795,000 100%
Impact of disease [ edit ]
The effects of disease, infertility,[clarification needed] loss of hunting grounds, and starvation on the Aboriginal population were significant. There are indications that smallpox epidemics may have impacted heavily on some Aboriginal tribes, with depopulation in large sections of what is now Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland up to 50% or more, even before the move inland from Sydney of squatters and their livestock. Other diseases hitherto unknown in the Indigenous population—such as the common cold, flu, measles, venereal diseases and tuberculosis—also had an impact, significantly reducing their numbers and tribal cohesion, and so limiting their ability to adapt to or resist invasion and dispossession.
Traditional Aboriginal warfare [ edit ]
Aboriginal warrior
According to the historian John Connor, traditional Aboriginal warfare should be examined on its own terms and not by definitions of war derived from other societies. Aboriginal people did not have distinct ideas of war and peace, and traditional warfare was common, taking place between groups on an ongoing basis, with great rivalries being maintained over extended periods of time. The aims and methods of traditional Aboriginal warfare arose from their small autonomous social groupings. The fighting of a war to conquer enemy territory was not only beyond the resources of any of these Aboriginal groupings, it was contrary to a culture that was based on spiritual connections to a specific territory. Consequently, conquering another group's territory may have been seen to be of little benefit. Ultimately, traditional Aboriginal warfare was aimed at continually asserting the superiority of one's own group over its neighbours, rather than conquering, destroying or displacing neighbouring groups. As the explorer Edward John Eyre observed in 1845, whilst Aboriginal culture was "so varied in detail", it was "similar in general outline and character", and Connor observes that there were sufficient similarities in weapons and warfare of these groups to allow generalisations about traditional Aboriginal warfare to be made.
In 1840, the American-Canadian ethnologist Horatio Hale identified four types of Australian Aboriginal traditional warfare; formal battles, ritual trials, raids for women, and revenge attacks. Formal battles involved fighting between two groups of warriors, which ended after a few warriors had been killed or wounded, due to the need to ensure the ongoing survival of the groups. Such battles were usually fought to settle grievances between groups, and could take some time to prepare. Ritual trials involved the application of customary law to one or more members of a group who had committed a crime such as murder or assault. Weapons were used to inflict injury, and the criminal was expected to stand their ground and accept the punishment. Some Aboriginal men had effective property rights over women and raids for women were essentially about transferring property from one group to another to ensure the survival of a group through women's food-gathering and childbearing roles. The final type of Aboriginal traditional warfare described by Hale was the revenge attack, undertaken by one group against another to punish the group for the actions of one of its members, such as a murder. In some cases these involved sneaking into the opposition camp at night and silently killing one or more members of the group.
Connor describes traditional Aboriginal warfare as both limited and universal. It was limited in terms of:
the number of members of each group, which restricted the number of warriors in any given engagement;
the fact that their non-hierarchical social order mitigated against one leader combining many groups into a single force; and
duration, due to social groups needing to regularly hunt and forage for food.
Traditional Aboriginal warfare was also universal, as the entire community participated in warfare, boys learnt to fight by playing with toy melee and missile weapons, and every initiated male became a warrior. Women were sometimes participants in warfare as warriors and as encouragers on the sidelines of formal battles, but more often as victims.
While the selection and design of weapons varied from group to group, Aboriginal warriors used a combination of melee and missile weapons in traditional warfare. Spears, clubs and shields were commonly used in hand-to-hand fighting, with different types of shields favoured during exchanges of missiles and in close combat, and spears (often used in conjunction with spear throwers), boomerangs and stones used as missile weapons.
Available weapons had a significant influence over the tactics used during traditional Aboriginal warfare. The limitations of spears and clubs meant that surprise was paramount during raids for women and revenge attacks, and encouraged ambushing and night attacks. These tactics were offset by counter-measures such as regularly changing campsites, being prepared to extinguish camp-fires at short notice, and posting parties of warriors to cover the escape of raiders.
General history [ edit ]
First settlement [ edit ]
Initial peaceful relations between Indigenous Australians and Europeans began to be strained several months after the First Fleet established Sydney on 26 January 1788. The local Indigenous people became suspicious when the British began to clear land and catch fish, and in May 1788 five convicts were killed and an Indigenous man was wounded. The British grew increasingly concerned when groups of up to three hundred Indigenous people were sighted at the outskirts of the settlement in June. Despite this, Phillip attempted to avoid conflict, and forbade reprisals after being speared in 1790. He did, however, authorise two punitive expeditions in December 1790 after his huntsman was killed by an Indigenous warrior named Pemulwuy, but neither was successful.[27]
Coastal and inland expansion [ edit |
debt limit, why pivot to a “balanced” deal that wasn’t clean? On May 31, Republicans brought up a “clean” debt-limit increase, just to make a point. It failed by a vote of 318 to 97, with every single Republican putting the hammer down and voting “no.”
The argument didn’t start by pointing out the role tax cuts played in nudging us closer to the ceiling, even under President Barack Obama (in the stimulus, in the tax deal).
And now it doesn’t really matter. Republicans not only got a deal, they got Moody’s and other raters to expect one. The raters went from favoring a clean deal to demanding one with deep cuts; they did this, they said, because it seemed like the Republicans were making such a deal possible. * “I think we are going to have spending cuts with every increase in the debt limit,” said McCain. It was just what Democrats were saying. Somebody keep an eye out, because this hostage is going to get taken again.
Correction, Aug. 3, 2011: This article originally mischaracterized how the demands of Moody’s raters on Washington policymakers changed during the debt debate.We can all agree that London property prices are very expensive. Now you can see how silly prices are in a graphical form!
The map below shows the average weekly rental price for a one-bedroom property. To create the map we used all the one-bedroom properties we had listed on Find Properly on the 17th July 2013 – 50 679 to be exact.
From the map it would appear that you should be prepared to spend £400+ a week if you want to live in Central London (fun fact – you’ll need to be earning around £51 000 to afford this). However, there are some things to keep in mind:
Look south of the river for cheaper areas – especially Southwark, Lambeth or Elephant & Castle (listed in descending price order). If you go too far south though, you’ll fall off the tube network, making it much harder to get around. Find Properly can help keep your commute manageable. It is possible to find cheap properties in expensive areas. They just may not be very nice. Or they may be on a slightly dodgy road. Sharing a larger property will save you money. One bedroom flats are the most expensive property on a “price per room” basis. Get a group together and share a larger property (obligatory sales-pitch: set up a shared property list on Find Properly to make searching with friends stress-free).
Best of luck in your house-hunting!
51.511214 -0.119824
AdvertisementsNAIROBI (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama told African entrepreneurs in Kenya on Saturday they could help counter violent ideologies and drive growth in Africa, and said governments had to help by ensuring the rule of law was upheld and by tackling corruption.
Obama was addressing a Global Entrepreneurship Summit at the start of the first presidential visit to Kenya, his father's homeland and the biggest economy in east Africa, which has been hit by a spate of attacks by Somali Islamist group al Shabaab.
Security was expected to top the agenda in talks later on Saturday with President Uhuru Kenyatta but Obama is also keen to increase business ties with Africa, where China overtook the United States as the continent's biggest trade partner in 2009.
"Africa is on the move. Africa is one of the fastest growing regions in the world," Obama told the conference, where he was greeted by applause when he began with the words "Jambo", the Swahili for "hello". "It is wonderful to be back in Kenya."
"Entrepreneurship offers a positive alternative to the ideologies of violence and division that can all too often fill the void when young people don't see a future for themselves."
He said government had a vital role on issues such as establishing the rule of law and curbing corruption, citing two issues often cited by businesses as major obstacles. He said more had to be done to help new firms secure capital.
An array of technology and other companies have started up in recent years in Africa in a bid to shift the continent away from a traditional focus of commodity exports, but entrepreneurs often complain they cannot find affordable capital.
"Africa is open for business," Kenyatta said in his opening in which he welcomed the U.S. president. "It is the time for a new generation of Africans to promote inclusive prosperity."
The annual U.S.-sponsored conference was being held for the first time in Sub-Saharan Africaat a U.N. compound in Nairobi.
Obama will later pay tribute to victims and survivors of the 1998 bombing by Islamist militants of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi. After that attack the embassy was moved to a site next to the U.N. compound.
On Saturday evening, he will hold talks with Kenyatta before attending a state dinner. Discussions are expected to focus on security and counter-terrorism cooperation.
"Proud to be the first American president to visit Kenya. Happy to see family, and to talk with young Kenyans about the future," Obama wrote on his Twitter account after arriving on Friday and meeting members of his extended family for dinner.
Some Africans complain that Obama, whose father is buried in western Kenya, has not given paid enough attention to the continent during his presidency. Obama has sought to change that perception, in part by hosting African leaders in Washington last year.
(Additional reporting by George Obulutsa; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Mark Heinrich)SACRAMENTO Calif. (Reuters) - University of California president Janet Napolitano would back off a proposed tuition hike if the state increases funding by $100 million next year, a spokeswoman said, the latest in a very public battle over higher education in the most populous U.S. state.
Napolitano, the former U.S. Homeland Security chief, has been trying to get Democratic Governor Jerry Brown to roughly double the state’s commitment to higher education for months, to no avail, finally writing a newspaper column touting a plan to raise tuition if the money doesn’t come through.
“To completely buy-out a 5 percent tuition increase for next year, we will need an additional $100 million from the state,” Dianne Klein, a spokeswoman for Napolitano, said in an email. “To put it another way, each $20 million would reduce the increase by 1 percent.”
Brown, a fiscal moderate widely credited for righting the state’s finances after years of deficits, has pledged to increase funding for the cash-strapped university system - but only if tuition is held steady at 2012 rates.
He vetoed a bill passed by the legislature that would have added another $50 million, saying that tax revenues were not great enough to support the spending.
To get more money, Brown has said, the university needs to be run more efficiently and become more affordable, by doing such things as lessening the time it takes for students to complete a degree.
Napolitano, who was brought on as president last year with a mission to use her political savvy and fund-raising prowess to restore a system racked by years of budget cuts and turmoil, has argued since January for an increase of about 10 percent in state funding per year, about twice the $500 million over four years that Brown has promised.
“At some point you either need to get more money from the state general fund or you need to get more tuition,” Napolitano said in a televised interview with KNBC-TV in Los Angeles.
Napolitano’s demand has raised hackles in Brown’s administration, where an official said they knew nothing about it until Napolitano’s op-ed column ran two days after the November election.
On Monday, Brown appointed two new members to the university’s Board of Regents, which will consider the proposal on Wednesday, including a lawmaker with whom he has worked closely. Brown, himself a member, is expected to attend the meeting and oppose the plan.Students at the University of Liverpool have voted to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, in a significant victory for Palestinian solidarity campaigners.
The motion commits the Liverpool Guild of Students to, among other things, advocate divestment from companies complicit in the Israeli occupation, and to lobby the university to similarly divest. The motion also mandates the Guild to stop stocking Israeli products.
The full BDS motion can be read here.
More than 1,000 students participated in the Liverpool Guild of Students preferendum, where they were presented with three options: ‘Yes’, ‘No’, or an alternative solution that rejected BDS, but encouraged the union to “raise awareness of the issue.”
Under the preferendum system, students could choose their favourite option from the three choices, or “your top two or rank all three in order of preference.” Points were then assigned “to each option based on the order of preference.”
There were a total of 1,866 points in support of BDS, with 934 opposed to the motion and 1,479 points supporting the alternative solution.
In a press release responding to the victory, the University of Liverpool Friends of Palestine (ULFOP) hailed “a landslide victory” despite a voting system they claimed meant the odds were against them.
“The ballot had one option to pass the motion and two options not to pass the motion. If students didn’t rank all of these options, then their one chosen option was given less weight.”
Despite this and other challenges, ULFOP stated that “the scale of the victory for BDS clearly shows that a large majority of the student body is, or has been made, aware of Israel’s apartheid regime and oppression of the Palestinians, and is prepared to make a stand against it.”
Zohra, a ULFOP member quoted in the press release, described the result as “a genuine reflection of the mood on campus – where students from all faiths and backgrounds believe that the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian people and their territories is unjust, akin to an apartheid system and thus cannot be allowed to continue.”
In a reference to objections by Israel’s defenders, ULFOP said “they wholeheartedly reject any claims that BDS is divisive on campus, instead recognising that the BDS movement is a non-violent and effective means of applying pressure on the Israeli government and the companies benefitting from the occupation of Palestine.”
Meanwhile, the Union of Jewish Students, who sent an official to Liverpool to support the ‘No’ campaign, described the result as “disappointing”, vowing to work with the Liverpool Jewish Society to continue making “the case against BDS” on campus.Display of a proposed enforcement zone along the U.S.-Mexico border, shown during a news conference in Washington. Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press.
By Alicia A. Caldwell and Laura Meckler ▲
Laura Meckler The Wall Street Journal BiographyLaura Meckler
@laurameckler
LauraMecklerWSJ
laura.meckler@wsj.com Updated Aug. 31, 2017 5:50 p.m. ET 1 COMMENTS
Four companies were selected to build short sections of concrete wall as models for the U.S.’s border barrier with Mexico, in the first significant step toward fulfilling President Donald Trump’s campaign promise.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced the four bid winners Thursday. They are Caddell Construction Co. LLC from Montgomery, Ala.; Fisher Sand & Gravel Co., doing business as Fisher Industries, in Tempe, Ariz.; Texas Sterling Construction Co. from Houston; and W.G. Yates & Sons Construction Company in Philadelphia, Miss.
The average cost of the prototypes is about $450,000, and they will be 30 feet long and up to 30 feet high and made of solid concrete, according to Ron Vitiello, acting deputy commissioner for the border security agency. They will be built in San Diego.
Officials said the models will be evaluated to see which will work best. There could be multiple winners, or an alternate design could win.
Construction could start within a couple of weeks.
The agency will announce winners for a second bid, for other types of wall designs, as soon as next week. The administration said it is only considering concrete as a secondary barrier for areas where fencing already exists.
Mr. Trump first promised to build a wall at the Mexican border to check illegal immigration when he launched his presidential campaign in June 2015 and made it a central pillar of his campaign.
He also pledged that Mexico would pay to build the structure, an assertion the Mexican government has repeatedly denied.
Mr. Trump has threatened to shut down the government if Congress doesn’t fund his $1.6 billion request to build the wall. GOP congressional leaders have said they don’t want a government shutdown, and many lawmakers believe a showdown over the funding is likely to be put off until December.
Though Mr. Trump has repeatedly said he wants to build a “big beautiful wall” with a “big beautiful door,” he hasn’t said how long the barrier would be.
A pair of contract notices released earlier this year called for design proposals for a concrete barrier and other structures as tall as 30 feet. Proposed designs, the contract notices said, needed to be both difficult to get through or over but also aesthetically pleasing to people on the north side of the structure.
Mr. Trump has also recently changed his description of the wall from a solid structure to one that U.S. Border Patrol agents can see through. Officials say a solid concrete wall would only be built if it were placed alongside existing, see-through fencing.
There is roughly 650 miles of fencing already in place along the border, including in urban areas such as El Paso, Texas, and Nogales, Ariz. Nearly all of that fencing can be seen through.
Former Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, who is now Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, has said whatever is built won’t stretch from “sea to shining sea.”
Building anything along the border can be difficult because of varying types of terrain—the Big Bend National Park in West Texas straddles the border and is marked by towering cliffs—environmental concerns and a treaty with Mexico.
The waters of the winding Rio Grande mark the border in nearly all of Texas, where most of the land is privately owned, and a treaty with Mexico restricts construction at or near the river. The same treaty governs what can be built along a roughly 24-mile stretch of border in Arizona that is defined by the Colorado River.Sore Thumbs is a manga-style webcomic drawn by Owen Gieni and written by Chris Crosby, which started on March 8, 2004. It is more or less an allegory of the current political landscape in America. Sore Thumbs mainly centres on the trials of Fairbanks Greensworthington and his sister Cecania. The focus of the comic is the Sore Thumbs Video games store, which Fairbanks owns; Cecania, Harmony and Sawyer are employees there. The strip frequently makes use of bizarre and incongruous similes and metaphors, and there is a running gag wherein Mario (the Nintendo character) is supposed to look like a penis. A focal comic point is Fairbanks's strained relations with the oddballs, lunatics, game fanatics, and even normal people who come into the store. An anomaly of the strip is that the characters are supposedly being portrayed by actors in the strip, and there are a few strips that have the 'actors' addressing the audience out of character. The series rarely addresses issues in gaming (at least, compared to other self-proclaimed gaming comics, such as Penny Arcade), instead often focusing on extremely exaggerated political issues (with a notable liberal bias).
SORE THUMBS CHARACTERS
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
Cecania Greensworthington - The main character of the strip, as most of the stories are either about her or involve her in some way. The sister of Fairbanks, Cecania is outspoken and extremely liberal. Her beliefs cause her to be frequently at odds with her brother, and she testified against him at his murder trial. When she returned home from college after attaining her degree in "TV Horror Show Hosting", she was essentially forced to work at Sore Thumbs in order to pay for her room and board at her mother's home. Cecania is mostly known for her cartoonishly proportioned figure, because of which she is forbidden by the U.S. Supreme Court to wear a bikini in public. When she does, dozens of women commit suicide and several male infants spontaneously go through puberty. She is a vegan and has campaigned for drive-through abortion clinics. Cecania is played by the actress Tyfinni Gwynn.
Fairbanks Greensworthington - The Proprietor of the Sore Thumbs Video Game Shoppe and Hot Dog Stand, Fairbanks is the outspoken, extremely conservative brother of Cecania. He is a caricature of modern extremist Republicanism. He once drowned two men in soup for 'looking suspicious' (they had beards). The jury acquitted him, mainly because the trial was a week after 9/11. He has been given an award by Senator Joseph Lieberman for his efforts in combating evil. Before Cecania, Harmony and Sawyer arrived, the games in the shop were generally campy in content, such as "Teletubbies: Journey to Nebraska", "Boring Rabbit", "Bounce Ball 2", and "Sandwich: the Game"; since then, the games he stocks have become more mainstream. He was given a medal by the Vice-President of the United States for slaughtering a hive of terrorists while trying to rescue Cecania from the wrong federal facility (even though Coleman was the one who killed most of the terrorists). He is exaggeratedly courteous to blacks, yet openly contemptuous of Asians. As for his personal life, Fairbanks is in a relationship with Harmony (though there are some hints that Fairbanks might be a closet homosexual). He also has a tendency to play video games in the nude. He was originally played by Australian actor Antonio X. Silver, until he was killed by a bull, and is now played by Antonio's mute twin brother, Miguel Silver, Jr., and voiced by Sally Struthers.
Harmony Nickel - Cecania's bubbly best friend and Fairbanks's love interest, she quit her job as a doctor in the middle of a brain operation to do nothing after finding out that work was hard. Harmony hated being a doctor and only became one because of peer pressure. Harmony loves Fairbanks, but because of her absentminded nature, she at times toys with his emotions or forgets entirely that she is with him. Harmony is played by Sarah Jane Harper, who bore deceased actor Antonio X. Silver's child.
Sawyer Kaden: The earnest and kind hearted rural beau of Cecania. While serving in Iraq, his penis was cut off by a tribesman on horseback when Sawyer was wandering the desert after a prank by his fellow soldiers. He was initially told that it had disintegrated once it hit the sand (though this is proven to be untrue, since his feet would logically also have combusted), however it is actually being held in Japan as the "beloved flesh Super Mario statue". After returning home, Sawyer started a video game store with the numerous games that were donated to him, though business proved bad until he partnered with Fairbanks. Sawyer is the owner of Coleman the Bear and is devoted to his friends. Though Sawyer's kind nature gives people the impression that he can be easily pushed around, Sawyer has proven that he isn't a man to be taken lightly, He has two tattoos; one of his late mother, the other of Johnny Cash. Sawyer is played by rapper Blingy.
Coleman the Bear: A dwarf adult blue polar bear. He is Sawyer's pet and best friend, given to him by his commanding officer of his unit after Sawyer's "injury" in Iraq. Coleman is named after the former child actor Gary Coleman. He is usually quite harmless, though Coleman's full ferocity was once unleashed on a swarm of terrorists. Coleman is also known to attack tennis balls and Fairbanks, either because his head is shaped like a tennis ball or because he may just instinctively hate him. Coleman is quite skilled at video games and is often the best player among the Sore Thumbs crew. Coleman is played by the real Gary Coleman, who needs ten hours of makeup a day to make him look like a bear.
Rondel Mayflower IV: The decrepit, lewd, sexually deviant rival of Fairbanks. He is on good terms with the gang, even though he and his girlfriend Jasmine tried to betray "Fairbanks's Eleven" (the group Fairbanks organized to rescue Cecania) to a terrorist cell (they, in turn, were double-crossed by the terrorists). He is a self-proclaimed "multi-sexual", claiming that bisexuality was "too limiting". He claims to eat a bucket of horse semen every time one of his friends dies, until he is the "last friend standing" (a takeoff of reality television). He is also bald and wears a toupee to cover up the fact. Rondell has made some odd decisions with his money, the most notable example of him having once invested $250,000 into an off-Broadway stage production of War of the Worlds.
Jasmine: Stone-hearted and sardonic rival of Cecania and girlfriend of Rondel, with whom she has a porn-video contract. Jasmine was originally hired at Sore Thumbs when Cecania left, though she would later defect to Rondel when upon her return. It is strongly hinted she once committed many, many crimes, including infanticide. She and Rondel tried to betray "Fairbanks's Eleven" to a terrorist cell (they, in turn, were double-crossed by the terrorists). Apparently a satanist. Jasmine is incredibly superficial and is proud of the fact she has breast implants.
Jimmy Peterford: Janitor of Sore Thumbs who is also a Nintendo fan who, several years ago, wrote a letter to Nintendo Power Magazine and successfully predicted the Wii. He has super powers which are telekentic in nature. He previously dated Cecania but broke up with her on order of Fairbanks.All-clear given at Target after suspicious suitcase scare
A shopping area is back to normal activity after the Harford County Sheriff's Office found a suspicious package at the Target store in Abingdon.Download the WBAL app.Deputies said the package, which turned out to be suitcases, was reported at 10:48 a.m. Customers at the Target at 403 Constant Friendship Blvd., were evacuated as a precaution, the Sheriff's Office said.The Sheriff's Office investigated and saw writing on a luggage tag affixed to the suitcases.Officials immediately set up a perimeter and evacuated the store and requested the assistance of the bomb squad. Roads were also closed in the area, including Constant Friendship Boulevard at Tollgate Road.Technicians performed a variety of diagnostic tests and found no explosive contents in the suitcases. The luggage contained clothing items.The scene was cleared and the store was able to resume normal activity around 4 p.m.Breaking News FM u local Object
A shopping area is back to normal activity after the Harford County Sheriff's Office found a suspicious package at the Target store in Abingdon.
Download the WBAL app.
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Deputies said the package, which turned out to be suitcases, was reported at 10:48 a.m. Customers at the Target at 403 Constant Friendship Blvd., were evacuated as a precaution, the Sheriff's Office said.
The Sheriff's Office investigated and saw writing on a luggage tag affixed to the suitcases.
Officials immediately set up a perimeter and evacuated the store and requested the assistance of the bomb squad. Roads were also closed in the area, including Constant Friendship Boulevard at Tollgate Road.
Technicians performed a variety of diagnostic tests and found no explosive contents in the suitcases. The luggage contained clothing items.
The scene was cleared and the store was able to resume normal activity around 4 p.m.
Breaking News FM u local Object
AlertMeProtesters climb atop a car stopped in traffic as a crowd marches near the venue where Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was speaking during a rally in San Jose on June 2, 2016. (JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty Images)
SAN JOSE (KCBS) – A federal judge is giving Donald Trump supporters the green light to pursue their lawsuit against the city of San Jose. The plaintiffs accuse the city for not protecting them during a campaign rally last year.
The Trump supporters in this case claim that San Jose police officers intentionally steered them into an angry mob of protesters, following a Trump campaign rally last June.
“We’ve seen video appearing on international local and national media that shows the police standing by as people were getting gruesomely attacked,” said Charles Moran is with the California Log Cabin Republicans.
On Wednesday, federal judge Lucy Koh allowed the lawsuit against the city and individual police officers to go forward, however she dismissed claims against Police Chief Eddie Garcia.
Last year, Mayor Sam Liccardo said the lawsuit was baseless.
“The notion that there was some stand down order is ridiculous,” Liccardo said.
City Attorney Rick Doyle is confident the city will prevail. Doyle said Wednesday that police officers didn’t do anything wrong and were trying to maintain some kind of crowd control in a chaotic situation.Is there any kind of stimulus the US did not try in the last 10 years?
We had 1% interest rates from Greenspan fueling housing. We had wars from Bush and Obama fueling defense industry employment. We had two rounds of Quantitative easing from the Fed. We had cash-for-clunkers. We had two housing tax credit packages. We had an $800 billion stimulus package from Congress for "shovel-ready" projects. We had stimulus kickbacks to states. We had HAMP (Home Affordable Mortgage Program). We had bank bailouts out the wazoo to stimulate lending. We had Small Business lending programs. We had central bank liquidity swaps. We had Maiden Lane, Maiden Lane II, and Maiden Lane III We had Single Tranche Repurchase agreements We had the Citi Asset Guarantee We had TALF, TARP, TAF, CPFF, TSLF, MMIFF, TLGP, AMLF, PPIP, and PDCF We had so many programs the Fed must have run out of letters because they were not given an acronym.
Decade of Stimulus Yields Nothing But Debt
When George W. Bush took up residence in the White House in January 2001, total U.S. debt stood at $5.95 trillion. Last week it was $14.3 trillion, with $2.4 trillion freshly authorized by Congress Tuesday.
Ten years and $8.35 trillion later, what do we have to show for this decade of deficit spending? A glut of unoccupied homes, unemployment exceeding 9 percent, a stalled economy and a huge mountain of debt. Real gross domestic product growth averaged 1.6 percent from the first quarter of 2001 through the second quarter of 2011.
It doesn’t sound like a very good trade-off. And now Keynesians are whining about discretionary spending cuts of $21 billion next year? That’s one-half of one percent. And it qualifies as a “cut” only in the fanciful world of government accounting.
The Budget Control Act of 2011 will save $917 billion over 10 years relative to the Congressional Budget Office’s baseline. It leaves the tough work to a bipartisan congressional committee of 12, to be appointed by the leadership in each house. If this supercommittee fails to agree on a minimum of $1.2 trillion of additional savings over 10 years, automatic spending cuts -- evenly divided between defense and nondefense -- will kick in.
Is there any reason to think the same folks who couldn’t agree on a grand bargain this past month will join hands and find commonality in the next three, with one month off for vacation?
Rosy Scenario
Even if the committee agrees on the prescribed savings by Nov. 23 and Congress enacts them by Dec. 23, as required, laws passed today aren’t binding on future congresses.
Throw in the fact that revenue and budget forecasts tend to be overly optimistic, and there’s even less reason to think Congress has put the U.S. on a sound fiscal path.
In a July 2011 working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research, Harvard economist Jeffrey Frankel identified a pattern of over-optimism in official forecasts, a bias that gets bigger in outer years. (Who can forget the CBO’s 2001 estimate of a 10-year, $5.7 trillion budget surplus?) A fixed budget rule, such as the euro area’s Stability and Growth Pact with its mandated deficit-to-GDP ratios, only exacerbates the tendency.
“Political leaders meet their target by adjusting their forecasts rather than by adjusting their policies,” Frankel writes.
First Installment
The deal hashed out in Washington at the eleventh hour this week does nothing to curb the unsustainable growth of entitlement spending -- on programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Medicare outlays have risen 9 percent a year for the last 30 years in a period of stable demographics, according to Steven Wieting, U.S. economist at Citigroup Inc. The automatic spending cuts outlined in the budget act would limit reductions in Medicare expenditures to no more than 2 percent a year.
By the end of 2012 or start of 2013, the federal government will be back at the trough with a request for additional borrowing authority. The debt will keep rising, and the ratio of publicly held debt to GDP will increase from 62 percent last year to as much as 90 percent in 2021, according to some private estimates, depending on what Congress does about the expiring tax cuts, the Medicare “doc fix” and the alternative minimum tax.
The CBO’s estimate of $2.1 trillion in savings over 10 years is well short of the $4 trillion Standard & Poor’s says is necessary to stabilize the debt and avoid a rating downgrade.
‘Architectural Change’
No matter. Some prominent Keynesians are advocating more spending now for an economy that is sputtering. Alas, there is little appetite in this country, and less in Congress, for more spending in light of the questionable results. A lost decade doesn’t seem like a good return on an $8.35 trillion investment. (For purists, only $6 trillion of the increase was in marketable debt, the kind of good old deficit spending Keynesians love.)
Maybe it’s time to try something new and different. In 2002 I wrote a column titled, “ How About Some Tax Reform Along With Tax Relief? ”
How about it? Get rid of the loopholes. Better yet, scrap the entire tax code, which would decimate the lobbying industry. Implement a flat tax or a national sales tax. The time has come for what former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill calls “ architectural change.”
Can the Code
The current tax code is burdensome, inefficient and costly to administer. O’Neill says it costs the Treasury an estimated $800 billion annually, divided equally between administrative costs and uncollected revenue.
Eliminate the corporate and individual income tax, he says, and replace them with a value-added or consumption tax, with tax refundability for lower-income households.
“We should focus the tax system on raising revenue for the things we as a society need,” O’Neill says.
Of course, what society needs is a matter of opinion. Without strong economic growth, the options are more limited, the choices more difficult. Fiscal stimulus can have only a short-term impact. The government taxes or borrows from Peter to pay Paul, reflecting a temporary transfer of resources, nothing more.
What does the nation have to show for chronic short-term thinking and policies like these? Long-term problems and a mountain of debt.
Keynesians Always Want More Stimulus
Some prominent Keynesians are advocating more spending now for an economy that is sputtering.
Lesson of Japan
How About We Try Something Different?
Scrap Davis and all prevailing wage laws Eliminate collective bargaining of public unions Institute national right-to-work lawsBy Natalia Antelava
BBC Central Asia correspondent
Uzbekistan ordered US forces out of the country in 2005
The diplomat said that a return by the armed forces to the Central Asian state was not on the agenda.
The US withdrew from Uzbekistan following a dispute over human rights in 2005.
But recent media reports had suggested that Washington was negotiating a possible return.
Warming ties?
The diplomat categorically denied reports that the US was in negotiations to open a new airbase in Uzbekistan.
The reports were triggered by an agreement between Washington and Tashkent which will give the Americans limited access to the German airbase in Termez near the border with Afghanistan.
Under the arrangement, a handful of mainly civilian advisers to Nato generals will be granted permission, on a case by case basis, to fly to Afghanistan via the Termez airbase.
It is a very small gesture which will have little impact on the Nato campaign in Afghanistan.
But it does show that the relationship between Uzbekistan and the West is beginning to change.
Tashkent cut nearly all ties with the West after the European Union imposed sanctions on Uzbekistan in response to the events in Andijan, where government troops killed hundreds of civilian protestors in 2005.
The US was forced to shut its airbase, and hundreds of Western organisations and companies left Uzbekistan.
Three years on, observers say that Uzbekistan's human rights record has deteriorated even further, but the West has clearly had a change of heart.
There is now a strong lobby within the EU which wants to lift the sanctions.
While most people in the West resent the idea of a dialogue with President Karimov, increasingly many policy-makers say that alienating Uzbekistan has only pushed this strategic, energy-rich country closer to China and Russia.
They also argue that engagement is the only thing that could ease the dire human rights situation.Shortly before 4:30 p.m. yesterday Chelsea Police responded to an armed robbery outside Rosev Dairy on Griffin Way, during which a suspect brandishing a firearm robbed two employees of that business who were leaving the premises with cash proceeds. The suspect forcibly took two bags containing in excess of $40,000, entered a nearby parked vehicle occupied by a female driver and a male passenger. The suspect vehicle, a white Volkswagen Jetta, fled down Eastern Avenue, and one of the victims followed it in his own car. The Jetta continued onto Clinton Street to the dead end portion of Lisa Lane. At that point, the suspect who committed the armed robbery fired at least two shots at the victim’s car that was following him. At that point, the victim backed up, fled the area, and called 911.
The 911 call was received at the State Police Barracks in Revere, and a Be On the Lookout Alert was put out for the suspect vehicle. State Police Sergeant Edward Troy heard the broadcast alert and went to Mahoney Circle in Revere, where he monitored traffic looking for the Jetta. A short time later, Sgt. Troy saw the suspect vehicle coming through the rotary. As the suspect vehicle turned onto Shirley Avenue in Revere, Sgt. Troy pulled behind it and activated his marked cruiser’s lights and siren in an attempt to conduct a motor vehicle stop. The Jetta did not stop and turned right onto Walnut Avenue, where it pulled to the right and stopped next to a playground. At that time, a male passenger got out of the Jetta; Sgt. Troy got out of his cruiser and ordered the passenger back into the Jetta. Instead of complying, the passenger leaned back into the Jetta and began to retrieve something while continuing to glance back at the sergeant and ignoring his orders to cease.
Even when Sgt. Troy then drew his service pistol and ordered the suspect to the ground, the suspect ignored his orders, grabbed a large bag from the Jetta, and ran toward Shirley Avenue. Sgt. Troy ran after him and advised the Revere Barracks that he was in a foot pursuit with a possibly armed suspect. The running suspect took a left turn onto Sumner Street, and tried unsuccessfully to open the passenger door of a parked van. When he couldn’t get into the van he kept running up Sumner to a pickup truck, where he stopped, ducked down, put the bag down, and was trying to remove something from inside his sweatpants while looking directly at Sgt. Troy, who was running toward him. The sergeant again drew his pistol, pointed it at the suspect, and ordered him to show his hands and get on the ground. With his free hand, the sergeant also drew his Taser electronic control weapon and continued to order the suspect to surrender.
Instead, the suspect again grabbed the bag and began running again. He crossed Sumner Street onto Walnut Place with Sgt. Troy again in foot pursuit, continuing to yell commands at him to surrender. On the sidewalk of Walnut Place, Sgt. Troy deployed his Taser again and struck the suspect with the weapon’s probes. The suspect was momentarily immobilized and fell to the ground, but after a few seconds tried to get up and flee again. The sergeant reactivated the Taser. After a few seconds, the suspect again regained mobility and tried to pull the probes out. The suspect began violently resisting Sgt. Troy’s attempts to wrestle him to the ground. After fighting the violent and aggressive suspect for several more moments, Sgt. Troy was able to put the suspect back onto the ground on Walnut Place. He held the suspect down while two other troopers reached the scene and took the suspect into custody, as he continued to resist the entire time.
Sgt. Troy recovered from the suspect’s sweatpants pocket a Springfield Armory.45 caliber semi-automatic pistol with a laser sight. The gun was loaded with one round in the chamber and two more in the magazine. The suspect was given his Miranda Rights and he identified himself as Xavier P. Harbert, adding that he had never been arrested in his life. Troopers recovered the bag the suspect had fled with and determined it to be a large women’s handbag containing multiple stacks of US currency inside plastic deposit bags.
Meanwhile, Troopers returned to the site where the Jetta had been stopped and found the car gone. It was located a short distance on Walnut Avenue. More plastic bank deposit bags containing US currency were inside the vehicle. The armed robbery victims positively identified the suspect as the man who had robbed and shot at them. All evidence pertaining to the armed robbery was turned over to Chelsea Police.
The suspect was brought to the State Police Barracks in Revere to be booked. He had in his possession a driver’s license identifying him as Xavier Paul Harbert, and he said he was a basketball player at Texas A&M University. However, after Troopers took his fingerprints and submitted them to a national fingerprint database, Troopers learned that the suspects true identity is JOSHUA KOUNTZE ANDREWS, 31, with a lengthy criminal history and an open warrant out of Middlesex County for firearm and drug offenses. The shirt that ANDREWS was wearing was turned over to the State Police Crime Scene Services Section for processing for evidence related to gunshot residue.
Further investigation by Troopers revealed that a man named Xavier Paul Harbert, the false identity that ANDREWS used, holds a driver’s license in Texas. Troopers formed the opinion that ANDREWS falsely procured a Massachusetts drivers license using the stolen identity of |
, you still get a few things for free with the patch. You get the day/night cycle, the new day/night budget sliders, increased property values along coastlines, and increased crime in the evenings (though the prison only comes with the paid expansion). There are also a bunch of free new growable buildings to give your city a more diverse look, if you haven't already been doing that with community creations.Posted 5 years ago on July 14, 2013, 10:42 a.m. EST by OccupyWallSt
Tags: justice, racism, trayvon
Trayvon Martin:
Was an honor student with a 3.7 GPA. Was accepted at a college on a full ride Was a volunteer of 600 service hours Was a devoted member of his church Was a loyal friend & a loving son Was an INNOCENT boy
No more divide and conquer. We stand for all. We stand in support of the family of #TrayvonMartin and his memory. He did not die in vain. He was the 99% with promise and potential. Capitalism and Racism legitimize each other. We need something brand new and we need it now.
Join one of the many actions against the unjust acquittal of George Zimmerman for the killing of Trayvon Martin today in over 40 cities. Come to express your sorrow, your rage, and your continuing demand for justice for Trayvon and beyond.
http://trayvonoc.wordpress.com/
#HoodiesUp #NoJustice
Events
Albuquerque, NM: Civic Plaza
Atlanta, GA: Westend Park
Austin, TX: State Capitol
Baltimore, MD: War Memorial Plaza
Barcelona, Spain: Plaza Revolución
Boston, MA: Dudley Square, Roxbury
Burlington, VT: City Hall
Chattanooga, TN: Miller Park
Chicago, IL: Daley Plaza
Cincinnati, OH: Fountain Square
Columbus, OH: 375 South High Street
Dayton, OH: Courthouse Square
Denver, CO: 2pm in City Park
Detroit, MI: Grand Circus Park
Durham, NC: CCB Plaza
Fort Myers, FL: FGCU Campus Library
Frederick, MD: South End Park
Houston, TX: City Hall
Indianapolis, IN: 2PM, downtown on circle
Lansing, MI: Lansing City Hall
Las Vegas, NV: City Hall
Los Angeles, CA: Leimert Park & King and Crenshaw Blvds
Madison, WI: State Capitol
Memphis, TN: Memphis Police Department (meet Monday)
Miami, FL: Torch of Friendship, Bayfront Park
Milwaukee, WI: MLK and Vine
Minneapolis, MN: TBA, Monday
Nashville, TN: Downtown Courthouse
New Orleans, LA: Washington Square Park
New York, NY: Union Square
Oakland, CA: Oscar Grant Plaza
Newark, NJ: Market and Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA: Love Park
Phoenix, AZ: Department of Justice
Pittsburgh, PA: Freedom Corner
Portland, OR: Peninsula Park
Poughkeepsie, NY: Mansion Square Park
Providence, RI: Central High School
Rochester, NY: Liberty Pole
Salt Lake City, UT: Federal Building
San Diego, CA: City Heights, across from Mid City PD
St. Louis, MO: St. Louis Justice Center
Seattle, WA: Westlake
Springfield, MO: Downtown Square
Syracuse, NY: 2pm at Onondaga County CourthouseCanadian musician Jeff Plewman, known famously by his stage alias Nash the Slash, has died. He was 66.
The Toronto-born instrumentalist, whose signature stage garb included surgical bandages on his face, was part of the experimental group FM, and enjoyed a successful solo career with many studio albums and film soundtrack work.
Plewman announced his retirement via his official website in November of 2012 after 40-plus years in the business, saying that he was "rolling up the bandages."
"The thrill is gone it seems for me more than B.B. King," he wrote in a lengthy message on his website.
His death was first confirmed by filmmaker and friend Colin Brunton on Twitter. He has since taken down the message. Frequent collaborator Robert Vanderhorst confirmed the musician’s death with a post on his Facebook page. "My longest, continuing artistic collaboration has been a 30+ year stint with my dear friend, Nash the Slash," he wrote. "Nash the Slash – March 1948 – May 2014."Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a simple new method for producing large quantities of the promising nanomaterial graphene. The new technique works at room temperature, needs little processing, and paves the way for cost-effective mass production of graphene.
An atom-thick sheet of carbon arranged in a honeycomb structure, graphene has unique mechanical and electrical properties and is considered a potential heir to copper and silicon as the fundamental building block of nanoelectronics. Since graphene's discovery in 2004, researchers have been searching for an easy method to produce it in bulk quantities.
A team of interdisciplinary researchers, led by Swastik Kar, research assistant professor in the Department of Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy at Rensselaer, has brought science a step closer to realizing this important goal. By submerging graphite in a mixture of dilute organic acid, alcohol, and water, and then exposing it to ultrasonic sound, the team discovered that the acid works as a "molecular wedge, " which separates sheets of graphene from the parent graphite. The process results in the creation of large quantities of undamaged, high-quality graphene dispersed in water. Kar and team then used the graphene to build chemical sensors and ultracapacitors.
"There are other known techniques for fabricating graphene, but our process is advantageous for mass production as it is low cost, performed at room temperature, devoid of any harsh chemicals, and thus is friendly to a number of technologies where temperature and environmental limitations exist," Kar said. "The process does not need any controlled environment chambers, which enhances its simplicity without compromising its scalability. This simplicity enabled us to directly demonstrate high-performance applications related to environmental sensing and energy storage, which have become issues of global importance."
Results of the study, titled "Stable Aqueous Dispersions of Non-Covalently Functionalized Graphene from Graphite and their Multifunctional High-Performance Applications," were published online by the journal Nano Letters. The study will also be the cover story of the November print edition of Nano Letters.
Graphene eluded scientists for years but was finally made in the laboratory in 2004 with the help of a common office supply -- clear adhesive tape. Graphite, the common material used in most pencils, is made up of countless layers of graphene. Researchers at first simply used the gentle stickiness of tape to pull layers of graphene from a piece of graphite.
Today, graphene fabrication is much more sophisticated. The most commonly used method, however, which involves oxidizing graphite and reducing the oxide at a later stage in the process, results in a degradation of graphene's attractive conductive properties, Kar said. His team took a different route.
The researchers dissolved 1-pyrenecarboxylic acid (PCA) in a solution of water and methanol, and then introduced bulk graphite powder. The pyrene part of PCA is mostly hydrophobic, and clings to the surface of the also-hydrophobic graphite. The mixture is exposed to ultrasonic sound, which vibrates and agitates the graphite. As the molecular bonds holding together the graphene sheets in graphite start to weaken because of the agitation, the PCA also exploits these weakening bonds and works its way between the layers of graphene that make up the graphite. Ultimately, this coordinated attack results in layers of graphene flaking off of the graphite and into the water. The PCA also helps ensure the graphene does not clump and remains evenly dispersed in the water. Water is benign, and is an ideal vehicle through which graphene can be introduced into new applications and areas of research, Kar said.
"We believe that our method also will be useful for applications of graphene which require an aqueous medium, such as biomolecular experiments with living cells, or investigations involving glucose or protein interactions with graphene," he said.
Using ultrathin membranes fabricated from graphene, the research team developed chemical sensors that can easily identify ethanol from within a mixture of different gases and vapors. Such a sensor could possibly be used as an industrial leakage detector or a breath-alcohol analyzer. The researchers also used the graphene to build an ultra-thin energy-storage device. The double-layer capacitor demonstrated high specific capacitance, power, and energy density, and performed far superior to similar devices fabricated in the past using graphene. Both devices show great promise for further performance enhancements, Kar said.
Co-authors on the Nano Letters paper are Rensselaer Post Doctoral Research Associate Xiaohong An; Assistant Professor Kim M. Lewis; Clinical Professor and Center for Integrated Electronics Associate Director Morris Washington; and Professor Saroj Nayak, all of the Department of Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy; Rensselaer doctoral student Trevor Simmons of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology; along with Rakesh Shah, Christopher Wolfe, and Saikat Talapatra of the Department of Physics at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.
The research project was supported by the Interconnect Focus Center New York at Rensselaer, as well as the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems.Newly unsealed FBI files regarding Marilyn Monroe show that officials were curious about differing theories about her death 50 years ago and also reveal new details about the agency's concerns about her political leanings.
The records were obtained by the Associated Press.
According to AP, the files don't provide new clues about her death in Bel Air but added: "Letters and news clippings included in the file show the bureau was aware of theories the actress had been killed, but they do not show that any effort was undertaken to investigate the claims. Los Angeles authorities concluded Monroe's death was a probable suicide."
MARILYN MONROE: Walk of Fame Page
Whether Monroe died by her own hand has been debated and dissected by books, documentaries, conspiracy theorists and Hollywood and Washington insiders alike for years.
Enough credence was given to the various reports that in 1982, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office reexamined the case.
The D.A.'s review concluded that "the cumulative evidence available to us fails to support any theory of criminal conduct relating to her death."
The Times investigated the questions surrounding Monroe's death in this story from 1985:
Through the years, questions have been raised about whether she was murdered because of her association with John and Robert Kennedy; the exact time the actress' body was discovered; where she got the pills that killed her; and why an ambulance was dispatched to the scene when official reports indicate that she was lifeless when found.
In 2005, The Times looked at what officials have learned about her final days.
The new FBI files also show the agency investigated her ties to alleged Communists in the years before her death.
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--Shelby GradEditor’s Note: The following has been prepared by LWOS Contributor LW Oakley.
Before the Edmonton Oilers NHL hockey game on Friday October 1, 1999, special retirement ceremonies were held for The Great One, Number 99, Wayne Gretzky. Most hockey experts consider him the greatest player of all-time.
The program that night contained the first 73 lines of my 99-line poem called, He will always be The Great One, which the Edmonton Oilers purchased from me for one publication run.
Over 30,000 programs were sold that night for about $10 a piece. People at the game were buying them by the box and each box held 30 programs.
Wayne Gretzky Poem Goes to International Hockey Hall of Fame
The Edmonton Oilers cut the final 26 lines of the poem covering Gretzky’s ten-year career, from the time he left Edmonton until the day that he retired, without conferring with me. I understand why they did it. But I also remember telling friends how that was comparable to an artist selling a painting to a gallery and then someone at the gallery deciding to paint over a part of the canvas that he or she didn’t like. Maybe the Oilers wanted to try to erase what seemed like a big mistake and a bad memory for the city of Edmonton. Here are some of the lines the Oilers cut:
Suddenly, he cried, betrayed,
Not traded, but sadly sold away.
There was a Royal wedding first,
On one last joyful summer day.
I wrote the Gretzky poem on my backyard deck in Kingston, Ontario in just a few hours during a summer afternoon in 1999. I saw a news item on TV about his planned retirement ceremony in Edmonton and thought to myself, “A guy like Gretzky needs a poem.” Although it’s the first and only poem that I have written, I have published numerous newspaper columns over the years. The Kingston Whig Standard, a Sun Media newspaper, gave me my start as a writer twenty years ago, and continues to publish my columns today.
The Gretzky poem captures the evolution of the phrase “The Great One” and the rise and fall of a world hockey icon from his father’s lessons on their backyard rink, to four Stanley Cup victories, and finally to the moment he was humbled by the game when he was left on the bench at the Nagano Olympics in 1998, during a shootout against the Czech Republic to determine who would play for gold.
He had one last chance to play for Gold,
But voices whispered, he was growing old.
And when the battle went to sudden death,
And the crowd looked on and held their breath.
He sat watching in an unfamiliar space,
Someone else would take his place.
The Gretzky poem may be compared to one of the best-known poems in American literature, Casey at the Bat, written 111 years earlier in 1888, by Ernest Thayer. The Casey poem also captures the moment a great sports legend is humbled by the game. But there’s one big difference–Casey is a fictional slugger from a make believe town called Mudville. Gretzky is a real Canadian from Brantford, Ontario, and still one of the best-known athletes in the world today in any sport.
The Gretzky poem captures the style of The Great One’s game, which was exciting to watch and as unique as his number 99. I am especially proud of conveying this to the reader in as few words as possible, which is the aim of any good poet:
When he created plays, hunched there, behind the net,
They knew he was the likes of which they never met.
The players stared in disbelief,
As he picked their pockets like a thief.
Canadians may read the Gretzky poem and think of a famous Canadian short story called The Hockey Sweater written by Roch Carrier in 1979. The short story is about Carrier and his friends growing up in Quebec as fans of Montreal Canadiens star Maurice Richard. They all wore Canadiens sweaters with Rocket Richard’s famous number 9. The opening lines of the Gretzky poem pays tribute to the Rocket as a hockey hero, along with a diabetic hall-of-famer from western Canada, and an Ontario boy who wore number 6 for the Toronto Maple Leafs, the first jersey to be retired by an NHL team.
The heroes of hockey each have a name,
That tell the story of our game.
Speed and power, heart and grace,
Became the Rocket, Flin Flon Bomber,
And a Leaf called Ace.
I am honoured to have my 99-line poem and the Oiler program with the 74-line abbreviated version displayed in the International Hockey Hall of Fame and Museum in Kingston, Ontario. It was founded by the National Hockey League and Canadian Amateur Hockey Association in 1943 and is the oldest sports hall of fame in Canada. A sports hall of fame is a sacred place where the remains of dreams are kept. Wooden sticks, rubber pucks and gold medals from dreams that came true are preserved under bright lights in glass cases so we remember those who played the game better and longer and harder than anyone else.
Starting October 9, 2014 my written words were displayed on a five foot banner alongside precious hockey artifacts, including game sweaters worn by “Mr. Hockey” Gordie Howe, Maurice “The Rocket” Richard, and Gretzky’s Edmonton Oilers WHA rookie jersey from 1978-79. Hopefully my words will bring his sweater back to life and spark the hockey dreams of some young boy or girl.
I met Wayne in 1980 before he started winning Stanley Cups for the Edmonton Oilers. He came to Kingston, Ontario one summer to sign autographs at Lasalle Sports, a sporting goods store owned by my friend Gerry Blacker. Gerry knew Wayne from Brantford where they grew up. Hundreds of people lined up that day in Kingston to get an autograph and meet The Great One for a few precious seconds.
Wayne was at the store all day. When it came time for lunch, Gerry asked Wayne to take a break and go out for an hour to eat. Wayne said, “Just grab me a sandwich. I can’t keep all these people waiting.”
My poem doesn’t capture that moment but it’s another of the many reasons why Wayne Gretzky is and will always be The Great One.
LW Oakley is a freelance writer living in Kingston, Ontario. He is the author of two outdoors books – Inside The Wild and Inside The Wild 2, which are available at the publisher’s website, www.gsph.com.
Here’s the entire poem:
He will always be The Great One
The heroes of hockey each have a name,
That tell the story of our game.
Speed and power, heart and grace,
Became the Rocket, Flin Flon Bomber,
And a Leaf called Ace.
There was no name above the rest,
No player who was clearly best.
They shared the spotlight that comes with fame,
But a star was rising with a different name.
He was a Brantford boy, who played for fun,
And not yet known as The Great One.
At three years old he began to skate,
His father taught him where to wait.
In his backyard he built a rink,
There he showed him what to think.
He played with boys as big as men,
When he was six and they were ten.
The legend now began to grow,
In a northern land of ice and snow.
His childhood, it was about to end,
And his father would be his best friend.
But the boy still known as Walter’s son,
Would soon become The Great One.
At sixteen he played in Sault Ste. Marie,
To watch him play you paid a fee.
He was small and thin and frail,
Away from home, but would not fail.
They would test his heart and soul,
And make him pay to score a goal.
He feathered passes, swooped and soared,
And large crowds stood and roared.
His number, it was ninety nine,
It was unique, perhaps a sign.
Who is this? And what was that?
The experts asked, and began to clap.
He stood alone like the fiery sun,
And the London Free Press
Was the first to call him The Great One.
At seventeen he was a millionaire,
The Boy Wonder played the game with flair.
Though far away in Indianapolis,
At home, his name became a household word
To each and everyone of us.
When he went to Edmonton and the NHL,
The Oilers began to win and gel.
Though the doubters sang their same old song,
He knew that he would prove them wrong.
He followed a path made in his mind,
And slipped through creases, seams and time.
His long blond curls flowed from his head,
His game had magic and fire that spread,
Bull necked warriors played him rough,
To see if he was also tough.
They attacked him, but paid the price,
He left them standing, flat footed, on the ice.
When he created plays, hunched there, behind the net,
They knew he was the likes of which they never met.
The players stared in disbelief,
As he picked their pockets like a thief.
He would lift his team to take the cup,
And when they won he held it up.
For the silver chalice was his sole desire,
It was his dream and burned like fire.
And when the banner was hung above,
The battleground that he did love.
The crowd they cheered for more,
And before he left there were four.
When all of this he had done,
They said he truly is The Great One.
Suddenly, he cried, betrayed,
Not traded, but sadly sold away.
There was a Royal wedding first,
On one last joyful summer day.
He became a King, an ambassador for his sport,
Wore the “C” in St. Louis, and 99 in New York.
He had one last chance to play for Gold,
But voices whispered, he was growing old.
And when the battle went to sudden death,
And the crowd looked on and held their breath.
He sat watching in an unfamiliar space,
Someone else would take his place.
Perhaps he knew the end was near,
It must have been his greatest fear.
And when he left amid the tears,
He had been the best for twenty years.
Everyone watched his last farewell,
His friends were there to bid him well.
We all were sad to see him go,
He was the game, now we know.
He remains a hero, father, legend, boy and son,
Who played the game just for fun.
A man like this you seldom see,
His name is Wayne Gretzky.
Though he said, goodbye, my day is done,
He will always be The Great One.
Thank you for reading. Support LWOS by following us on Twitter – @LastWordOnSport and @LWOSworld – and “liking” our Facebook page.
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Have you tuned into Last Word On Sports Radio? LWOS is pleased to bring you 24/7 sports radio to your PC, laptop, tablet or smartphone. What are you waiting for?CLOSE The estimate from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget includes the repeal's effect on the economy. Video provided by Newsy Newslook
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. (Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais, AP)
WASHINGTON — Sen. Rand Paul voted Wednesday against the first step in repealing the Affordable Care Act because the underlying budget proposal increases the federal debt over 10 years.
Paul, a Kentucky Republican with a history of casting protest votes, was the only GOP senator opposed. After the 51-48 vote in the Senate, the budget resolution, which includes the mechanisms to start repealing the 2010 health care law in addition to general spending levels for the federal government over the next decade, will be debated for the next week.
Paul announced his opposition earlier in the day on MSNBC.
“I won’t vote for a terrible budget just to repeal Obamacare,” Paul said.
Paul’s opposition illustrates that even strong Republican critics of the Affordable Care Act have concerns over how to kill it without doing damage to the health insurance market, consumers and the larger American economy.
The proposed Republican budget — a key piece to the repeal effort — increases the federal debt by more than $9 trillion over 10 years, Paul said.
“If I have to weigh the two problems, I actually think the debt is a more important problem than Obamacare,” Paul said.
Read more:
Paul is so far the lone Republican dissenter in the Senate, but some of his fellow deficit hawks are also protesting the projected debt increase.
Sens. Mike Lee of Utah, Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas said they supported the 2017 budget resolution in order to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but they want the spending levels to be revisited in the 2018 budget.
“Our votes in favor of the ‘Obamacare Repeal Resolution’ do not indicate in any way our support for the revenue, and deficit numbers therein, nor for the use of those numbers as the basis for future federal budgets,” they wrote to Republican leaders.
Paul is also part of a growing Republican sentiment to have an alternative health insurance plan ready to immediately replace the repealed law.
“If they don’t, Obamacare continues to unravel and there are many health care experts and analysts predicting bankruptcy for insurance companies and a massive insurance company bailout within six months of repeal,” Paul said.
If the Affordable Care Act’s mandate for individuals to buy health insurance is repealed, for example, there will not be enough healthy people buying insurance to keep the plans solvent.
“It will be a huge mistake for Republicans if we don’t vote for a replacement the same day as the repeal,” Paul said.
Paul took to the Senate floor Wednesday afternoon to defend his vote and criticize the GOP for taking control of the House, Senate and White House and proposing a budget that doesn't dramatically cut federal spending.
"It's not a popular stand that I take today," Paul said. "The debt threatens the very foundation of our country."
Paul said he plans to introduce his own budget proposal, as in past years, that balances within five years.
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No mounted Polish cavalrymen ever charged at German tanks with lances in World War II…What really happened is a far more interesting story, one of bravery and professionalism in the face of overwhelming odds.
This post is only a snippet. Please purchase the Winter 2011 issue of MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History to read the entire article.
On September 1, 1939, German land, air, and sea units struck targets all across Poland. Although it was not a surprise attack, the speed and level of violence of the assault were unprecedented. Polish defenders had to react quickly as planes, tanks, and infantrymen surged into their country. To Poles, this was Kampania wrzesniowa (the September Campaign), when every branch of the armed forces produced heroes and myth. In the front ranks stood ulanow (uhlans, or lancers), szwolezerow (light horsemen), and strzelcow konnych (mounted riflemen)—all cavalrymen employed to cover retreats, gather intelligence, and when possible capture key terrain to support infantry counterattacks. This put these troopers into many of the initial skirmishes, some successful, more not. Soon, dead horses and their riders littered the fields.
Some died after being caught in the open by Ju-87B Stuka dive-bombers; others were mowed down by small-arms fire. Especially unlucky were those cavalrymen who encountered armored vehicles. German general Heinz Guderian recalled Polish uhlans armed with lances and swords charging “in ignorance of our tanks’ capabilities.” Time magazine described German panzers sweeping Polish cavalry “out of the way like rubbish,” while the New York Times suggested Polish tactical methods echoed those used by the British during the Crimean War, most famously in the disastrous Charge of the Light Brigade. Even Hollywood was intrigued: In the movie In Our Time (1944), Paul Henreid’s Polish character recounts how his cavalry was wiped out by German tanks.
Uhlans spearing tanks with lances became an enduring image of the September Campaign. American generals and high-ranking diplomats peppered speeches with allusions to “quixotic Polish cavalry charges
Although mounted Polish troops took part in several battles during the month-long Battle of Poland, they never attacked German tanks while on horseback (Map by Baker Vail).
against invading German panzers” as metaphors for stupid futility. Even as recently as 2009, an editorial in thecalled on politicians to stop comparing modern conflicts to World War II, when “Polish lancers turned their horses to face Hitler’s panzers.”
The problem with all these reports is that no mounted Polish cavalrymen ever charged at German tanks with lances in World War II. It was, as an abashed Guardian confessed two weeks after its gaffe, “a myth of the second world war, fostered by Nazi propagandists….There is no evidence that this occurred.” Indeed, Poland’s cavalrymen—wielding rifles, machine guns, and antitank guns—played an important role in just about every major battle of the September Campaign, yet for seven decades they have had to face down the propaganda promulgated by the Nazis and inflated into myth by the Western press. What really happened is a far more interesting story, one of bravery and professionalism in the face of overwhelming odds, a story that clearly indicates that far from being a military anachronism, the Polish uhlan in 1939 was a tough and dangerous adversary.
This post is only a snippet. Please purchase the Winter 2011 issue of MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History to read the entire article.
Click For More From MHQ! Click For More From MHQ!
Sponsored Content:A 26-year-old Sikh man has been charged with the attempted murder of a Namdhari Sikh sect leader in the UK city of Leicester.
Harjit Singh Toor, who appeared at Leicester Magistrates' Court yesterday, is also charged with making threats in a public place with a weapon during the attack on Namdhari leader Sri Satguru Uday Singh.
“It follows allegations of an assault at the Gurdwara Namdhari Temple on Linden Street, Spinney Hill, Leicester, on Sunday,” a Leicestershire police statement said.
No application for bail was made and Toor has been remanded in custody to Leicester Crown Court in the East Midlands region of England for a preliminary hearing later this month.
Toor, a non-Namdhari Sikh, was caught by members of the congregation present at Sunday prayers at the gurdwara.
He was wrapped in a blanket as he moved towards the sect chief with a Gandasa, a traditional Punjabi farming tool, and aimed for the victim's head.
The victim was able to deflect the attack and suffered injuries to his face and arm.
He was taken to the Royal Infirmary in Leicester and was discharged following stitches to his nose and treatment of a broken wrist.
“He may have been instigated by someone known to the sect,” said Ranjit Singh, general secretary of the Gurdwara, in reference to the attacker.
Uday Singh took over as Namdhari sect leader in December last year after the death of Satguru Jagjit Singh. His selection was opposed by some within the sect, including Uday Singh's elder brother Dalip Singh.
There is speculation that the attacker may have a link with the controversy surrounding the choice of sect leader.
Uday Singh had travelled to the UK from India to convene a Namdhari Darbar and will soon return to Sri Bhaini Sahib in Ludhiana, the base of the Namdhari movement in India.A biographical documentary on the late great comedian Bill Hicks and his career; in particular the censorship by Letterman that scarred it.
Hosted by Janeane Garofalo, this documentary tells the story of Bill's transition from a non-drinking, non-smoking, straight laced funny man, to a hard drinking, hard smoking, drug taking angry ranter, to the happy and finally, peaceful and insightful man of much wisdom.
A rare insight into the battle against censorship that the great Bill Hicks waged against corporate America and it's mainstream media for the better part of 15 years.
After 11 successful appearances on The Tonight Show with David Lettermen, the 'powers that be' axed Bill's final performance from the show. 4 months later, Bill would tragically die from pancreatic cancer at the age of 32.Lessons from the Practice of Basic Income
Marcus Brancaglione. Lessons from the Practice of Basic Income: A Compendium of Writings and Data. Edited by Bruna Augusto. Translated by Monica Puntel, Leonardo Puntel, Carolina Fisher (São Paulo, 2016).
This is a collection of writings by Marcus Brancaglione. Brancaglione is President of ReCivitas (Institute for the Revitalization of Citizenship); Bruna Augusto, who edited the collection, is CEO. Among the activities of ReCivitas listed on its website are “structuring intellectual property licenses,” “creating new products for social investment,” and “governance platforms architecture”; as best I can gather from Google Translate’s unsatisfactory Portuguese-to-English rendering, ReCivitas is partly a sort of phyle or platform in roughly the same ballpark as Las Indias, and partly engaged in the same sort of commons-based municipalism as activists in Barcelona.
Brancaglione co-managed a crowd-funded Unconditional Basic Income pilot project in Quatinga Velho, Brazil. The project paid 30 reals a month to around a hundred members of the community for five years.
He argues that Basic Income is not primarily a redistribution of income, but more importantly “it is an instrument that restitutes natural rights and the fundamental freedom protection against the exploitation of alienated labor,” and “above all, an instrument of liberation from governmental dependency and political servitude and thus, of political-economic empowerment, especially for the more unprivileged and marginalized individuals.”
Although it’s always been the case that poverty is a political rather than a merely socioeconomic issue, that fact has become more apparent than ever today. Poverty is “not merely a state of relative lack of economic conditions, but it is indeed, much deeper and more comprehensive than that, it is the deprivation of fundamental freedom of all sorts: political, economic and cultural.”
Brancaglione rejects the neoliberal framing of poverty as an individual rather than a structural issue, along with its lionization of a “freedom of choice” relegated to consumer decisions within the structural parameters left by monopoly capital and the state.
He comes from a left free-market tradition that sees capitalism as a set of coercive structural features enabled by the state for the sake of rentier classes. Capitalism and state socialism are both variants of the same system of domination by the few over the many — both of which he distinguishes from the “free market.”
He distinguishes — perhaps reflecting some Georgist influence — between legitimate wealth and private properties, and nature which is a property common to all. Some forms of property like land and natural resources are rightfully common to all, and cannot legitimately be privately appropriated; others, like the fruits of individual labor, are rightfully private property and should not be violated by force. Genuine liberty cannot exist if the equal right of authority over common assets is violated. A free market — defined by voluntary relationships negotiated by parties equal in power — cannot exist when the revenues from common properties, which should be distributed as a social dividend to enable individual independence, are privately appropriated and the propertyless are forced into economic dependency on employment by the appropriators of social property.
Brancaglione sees the provision of basic income as a duty of goverments — “the duty of those who have control over the territory and its inhabitants and the commonwealth.” But when they default on this duty, and available resources for state funding have been privately appropriated, “nobody can prevent people to assume, voluntarily and mutually, the responsibility to supply the basic income.” He obviously doesn’t mean this voluntary assumption to be understood as a mere charitable contribution out of the incomes of the poor — rather, he strongly implies, one of the things government has no right to “prevent” is the expropriation of privately enclosed natural commons by society at large to fund a basic income when the state will not undertake that duty on its own. The people have a “natural right to common properties alienated as possessions of [nation-states] and private corporations.”
The Georgist influence comes through in his distinction between “goverments” and “states” and his treatment of states and landlords as different versions of the same phenomenon. The latter is illustrated (along with panarchistic tendencies) in the following passage:
The libertarian republics of the future are going to be societies without states or, more precisely, societies free from the national and private corporate monopolies over common and private natural properties. The governments of the future will coexist peacefully in the same territory as competitive and cooperative management societies, acting in a negotiated manner not only in the same space, but at the same time.
Brancaglione proposes a very anarchist-sounding agenda of federated local communities bypassing the state to create a counter-economy and appropriate illegitimately enclosed resources to fund a basic income.
Roughly speaking, my proposal is the constitution of small communities, completely horizontal, open and connected so as to form a network of social security without borders and which are directly financed by funds created by association of citizens, not being restricted to a venue, but by social investors from all over the world. Investors who can invest directly in the real economy of these communities, villas, cities with an enormous human capital and potential of development, instead of investing on bankrupt governments and rotten banks. Present poor and unprivileged communities… which, in the long run, could not only pay their own basic income, but also become investors or providers of basic income in other places in the world. People and societies which, in the face of the old and unsustainable violent and monopolizing possession systems would finally be able to conquer back what effectively is theirs; recover the control of their land and territories and consequently, their political sovereignty as a people with overall direct self-determination rights.
This idea of radicalized and horizontally federated communities supplanting the state and corporation is reminiscent of Bookchin’s libertarian municipalism and Harvey’s rebel cities.
The Quatinga Velho experiment reaffirmed a common theme among Basic Income advocates: that, far from disincentivizing effort and initiative, the economic security of a Basic Income actually increases them. “…[T]he opportunities, especially when one has the means to take advantage of them, increase the free initiative and the entrepreneurial ability, whereas the deprivations tend not only to reduce, but also to paralyze them.”
This is a writer who combines a lot of congenial threads of left-libertarian thought in new and interesting ways. Definitely worth checking out. |
suspicious match.
Earlier this year we had odds and money movements similar as Nedovyesov-Golubev also in the Dallas Challenger match Agustin Velotti against Denys Molchanov and Molchanov did really everything he could to lose the match (as odds suggested because after being priced 1.77 at match start his price raised to 6 at the beginning of second set…after he won the first set!).
Here you can watch maybe the best part of his acting:
https://twitter.com/TheTennisNerds/status/562365156806905857/photo/1
In February from my Twitter profile I posted another screenshot from a bookmaker that was very sure about the outcome of second set between Gregore Barrere and Alexander Lobkov in ATP Montpellier quali. The correct price should have been at least 2.0 and it was 1.02: in that second set after the initial 1-1 “clinical” double faults happened when Lokbov had “risky” (for the apparently fixed 1-6) 30-15 on *1-2 and 30-30 on *1-4.
Last tweet about fix: remember what happened 2 days ago. Look at odds for set 2 during set 1. Set 2 score? 6-1. pic.twitter.com/ereFHxrRsL — Stefano Berlincioni (@Carretero77) February 2, 2015
I check daily scores and odds of almost every ITF match and it’s easy to say that a considerable part of them are fixed but not always in the same way of these Challenger matches: on Betfair.com there is good liquidity only on Money Line (winner of the match) market.
ITF players usually struggle to survive on the pro tour because of the high costs and of the low prize money so it is really tempting for many of them to sell a match to pay costs for the next weeks on tour. They really fix for peanuts and generally they don’t sell the whole match but just a set, a break or even a double fault (yes, you can bet also on who will win an exact point), especially when they know they will be able to win anyway. How can you detect the suspicious players? Players that used to fix are “blacklisted” from traditional bookmakers and their matches are no more offered or offered with ridicolous limits so no one can actually make money on them.
I am pretty sure that if the number of players that could make a living from tennis will pass from 200 to at least 500 the situation at ITF level will improve, because fixing is still a risk (even if the risk of being caught by TIU at the moment is very low) and it would be stupid to fix if you can make a living from your job. The temptation of fixing could be very high especially for juniors without sponsors that desperately need money to live their dream of turning pro.
Some players just sell the info of themselves tanking because they have to lose to catch a flight or to play the club championship in the weekend, this happens especially when a player has lost singles and is still in doubles: my tip is never bet on ITF doubles on Wednesday/Thursday! So sometimes we have a “fixed tank” but in general is really important to distinguish fixes from tanks: some people judged the Benoit Paire’s tank in San Benedetto Challenger as a possible fix but this was just a blatant tank by a player that often doesn’t care so much on court and there wasn’t any odds movement suggesting this could be fixed.
Unfortunately a lot of resentful gamblers after a bet lost are used to insult players on Social Media calling them fixers even when there is no evidence at all and this is really a shame: this sport is so beautiful also because a player can recover and win from match point down and a heavy favourite can lose against a very worse ranked player. If you say “fix” everytime a favourite loses or a player close to defeat wins you will never be trusted when real fixes happen and this is why I am personally very cautious before writing about suspicious matches.
Another quite suspicious attitude related to fixing is retiring during the match. Some bookmakers consider valid bets after first set is completed but some others consider void the bets if a player retires at any stage of the match: retiring a lot of times, especially when match is almost over, could be considered a bad sportsmanlike attitude or maybe you can think the player had a bet on himself at “void” bookmakers so if he loses by retirement is refunded.
What can we say about the Polish Adam Chadaj that in 4 tournaments in a very limited time frame had this results?
QF L vs MILTON, Joshua (GBR) 4-6 1-5 RET November 2014 16 L vs SCHMID, Michal (CZE) 2-6 2-5 RET August 2014 Q2 L vs KACZYNSKI, Kevin (GER) 1-6 6-2 0-5 RET August 2014 32 L vs GAWRON, Marcin (POL) 6-7(4) 2-5 RET June 2014
Or how should we judge the “King of Retirements” Mexican Daniel Garza that so far retired during his career 55 times in singles?
I know that TIU is present quite often at ITF tournaments and that they usually interview players that are in their suspects list: they ask questions about suspiscious matches and can confiscate laptop or smartphones of suspected players to download data. This didn’t lead to many bans as you can see from their website but I am pretty convinced that they give silent bans to players that cooperated with their investigations: these players are not fined or officially banned but are not allowed anymore to play on pro tour.
Journalists are not supposed to know the gambling world mechanisms but I think they have been too quiet so far in front of very blatant matches. They are often just the TIU echo chamber, in some case also giving false information because they are too lazy to check deeply what happened. We need from the press more and more research as my good friend Stephen Kelly did about David Savic ban in 2012.
Main Photo:"He has put a lot of this foolish behavior behind him," said Joe Francis's lawyer in 2007, but guess what? He had plenty left. Back then, Mr. Francis, who some of you may know as the purveyor of "Girls Gone Wild" videos, was about to do a month in jail on contempt charges for yelling obscenities during a mediation. His lawyer was suggesting that Francis had turned over a new leaf, but that has now been called into question.
On June 11, a federal magistrate judge recommended that a default judgment be entered against Francis in another case, a proposed class action on behalf of young women that Francis allegedly exploited by filming them allegedly going wild. Plaintiffs there had moved for default on the grounds that Francis was not cooperating with discovery requirements. The district judge had deferred ruling on that motion to see how things might go at an upcoming deposition. He told Francis's current attorney (his third in the case) that "the only thing that is saving your client right now is the optimism I have that your appearance [to represent him here] is going to be a turn for the better and that our old problems are over with."
Since you are reading about this on Lowering the Bar, you can probably guess how that turned out.
Francis showed up late, failed to produce documents, and then, once the questioning started, seemed to experience a severe decline in brain function, operating well below even the Francis baseline. The cynical magistrate suspected Francis of faking, of course, charging that he was simply "pretend[ing] not to know the meaning of common words to avoid [giving] a straight answer." True, these were words that Francis certainly should know the meaning of by now, like "felony" and "jail":
Q. Have you ever been convicted of a felony? A. I don't understand what that means. … Q. You don't understand what being a convicted felon is? A. No. Can you explain it to me? Q. Did you serve any time in jail? A. What do you mean "serve"? … Q. Do you know what a prisoner is? A. No. Q. Do you know what a cellmate is in jail? A. No. Q. Do you know what a jail is? A. Sort of.
For those of you keeping score, the correct answers would have been yes, yes I do, yes, yes, yes, and "where I will probably be spending the next few years."
Francis also pleaded ignorance of his own finances and had trouble identifying his own signature on a plea agreement. Asked if he was a defendant in any other lawsuits, he responded: "I could be.... I don't really pay attention to litigation." (He is.) He asserted his Fifth Amendment rights in response to many questions, despite a ruling that he had waived that privilege. "In summary," the magistrate concluded with some understatement, "no information was obtained by this deposition."
Best (or worst) of all, after the plaintiffs' counsel gave up and terminated the deposition, Francis took the opportunity to do what he does best (or worst): he actually took the camera away from the court videographer and started shooting video of a female lawyer for the plaintiffs. (In case you're wondering, she just stared at him.)
Not surprisingly, after this nonsense, the magistrate recommended that the motion for default be granted. But, and this was surprising, District Judge Richard Smoak deferred again, apparently so Francis could be given one more chance. Since Judge Smoak is the same judge who jailed Francis for contempt, and who was previously accused publicly by Francis of having "gone wild," it seems remarkable that he is cutting any slack for Francis at this point.
As bad as this incident was, though, it might have been less bad than the deposition he gave in a lawsuit against him by Wynn Casinos to collect on a $2 million gambling debt. In that deposition, Francis not only engaged in many of the same antics noted above, but also, according to the casino's attorneys, made "repeated attempts to disrupt the deposition with flatulence."
Link: On Point News
Link: Las Vegas SunImage copyright Getty Images
WhatsApp and Facebook will be scrutinised by a data protection taskforce, after they were accused of "non-compliance" with EU laws.
The regulators took issue with the messaging app's plan to share user data with parent company Facebook.
A group of watchdogs and regulators from EU nations, known as the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, said WhatsApp had not fixed issues raised.
WhatsApp and Facebook have yet to reply to the BBC's request for comment.
Facebook bought the messaging app in 2014 and pledged to keep it independent from its social network.
However, in August 2016, it announced plans to share user data with its parent company to offer up "friend suggestions" and "more relevant ads".
At the time, the move was criticised by the UK's Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham, who said she did not believe the firm had obtained valid consent from its users.
In its newest letter to WhatsApp chief executive Jan Koum, the Working Party said "the information presented to users was seriously deficient as a means to inform their consent".
It said:
the pop-up notice on WhatsApp did not make it clear that users' personal data would be shared with Facebook
WhatApp gave a "misleading impression" to users by saying the privacy policy had been updated to "reflect new features"
that using a pre-ticked check box to accept the new terms did not indicate "unambiguous consent"
the company failed to offer "sufficiently granular user controls" to let people opt out of data sharing
Both Facebook and WhatsApp have been invited to meet with the taskforce, which will be led by the UK's information commissioner.Marketplace Pushes Tripe on Social Security
I often think it's too bad that Social Security isn't a private company. If it were, it could sue Marketplace Radio for libel for this sort of reporting. Does Marketplace's host have any idea what she is talking about when she says: "Social Security is in such a sorry state"? According to the Congressional Budget Office the program can pay all benefits for the next 34 years with no changes whatsoever and even after that can pay more than 75 percent of benefits indefinitely. The program is in much better shape in this respect that it was in the 40s, 50s, 60s, or 70s. So what on earth is this person talking about? Can Marketplace Radio pay all its expenses for the next 34 years?
Marketplace's expert then tells us that Social Security will probably be means-tested. This idea is extremely unpopular among both the public and policy experts, so it would be interesting to know the basis for this assessment. She also recommends raising the retirement age, apparently unaware of the fact that the retirement age has already been raised to 67. She also is apparently unaware of the fact that the vast majority of the huge baby boom cohort has almost nothing saved for retirement and therefore will be almost entirely dependent on Social Security.Amanda Bynes Charged with DUI
Amanda Bynes Charged with DUI
EXCLUSIVE
has officially been charged with DUI after her arrest back in April -- when she sideswiped a cop car and allegedly attempted to flee the scene.Bynes has been charged with one count of misdemeanor DUI -- and the D.A. has sought a sentencing enhancement because the actress refused to take either a breathalyzer or a blood test.Bynes has not been charged with hit-and-run.If convicted -- with the sentencing enhancement -- we're told Bynes faces a minimum of 48 hours in jail... and a maximum of 6 months.But because of jail overcrowding, it's unlikely Bynes will ever serve longer than a few hours.-- And now this... Amanda just tweeted, "Hey @BarackObama... I don't drink. Please fire the cop who arrested me. I also don't hit and run. The end."Celebrations aside, LeBron James' decision to return to the Cleveland Cavaliers of the NBA could complicate the Republican Party's plan to nominate its presidential contender on Lake Erie's shores in 2016.
If James leads his team into postseason play then, the GOP could find its preferred June 28 start date for the convention impossible because of the site conflict. Convention planners typically take weeks to customize the space with lights, seats and the traditional balloon drop from the rafters -- impossible tasks if the Cavaliers go into postseason play.
That leaves Republicans looking at their backup date of July 18, still earlier than parties typically nominate their presidential hopeful in recent years, but later than RNC chief Reince Priebus preferred.
"All options remain on the table as we're still very early on in the negotiation process," RNC spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski said. "We're excited about Cleveland, and LeBron's return is further evidence that it's a city on the rise."
Priebus insisted his party's convention be scheduled for early summer 2016, roughly two months sooner than has become the norm. That would give the GOP's next presidential nominee quicker access to tens of millions of dollars in general election cash.
"The candidate can be broke, but they're not able to raise general election money until the convention is held," Priebus said earlier this week.
But James' return to the Cavaliers from the Miami Heat could complicate that timeline and perhaps Republican efforts to win the White House. Teams with James have made it to the league finals in five of the last eight seasons, and his move to Cleveland is unlikely to reverse that trend.
Cleveland on Tuesday won the unanimous backing of a RNC panel, all but guaranteeing the GOP's 2016 presidential pick will accept the party's nomination in perennially hard-fought Ohio. RNC lawyers are now in negotiations with Cleveland's organizing committee over the exact terms of the bid, including how many weeks of early and exclusive access Republicans can expect in the Cavaliers' arena.
If the RNC insists on its preferred date and weeks of early access to hang balloons and bunting, the Cavaliers could be forced to look at other venues for post-season play. Ohio State University's basketball arena in Columbus is one such option.
The full 168-member RNC is expected to finalize the deal next month.
Ohio's allure as a political prize proved tempting. The last candidate to win the White House without Ohio was John F. Kennedy, a Democrat, in 1960.
During the 2012 presidential race, President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney made Ohio a central piece of their strategies. Combined, they spent $150 million on television ads and were frequent visitors to the state, which narrowly broke in Obama's favor.This article is about song by Marilyn Manson. For other uses, see Beautiful People
"The Beautiful People" is a song by American rock band Marilyn Manson. It was released as the lead single from the band's second studio album, Antichrist Superstar in September 1996. Classified as alternative metal, the song was written by frontman Marilyn Manson and Twiggy Ramirez, and was produced by Trent Reznor, Dave Ogilvie and Manson.
The title of the song comes from Marilyn Bender's 1967 book The Beautiful People, about the lifestyles of the jet set[3] In the context of the album's concept, the song refers to the privileged class of elites whom the titular character, a populist demagogue called Antichrist Superstar, fulminate against. Lyrically, it discusses what Manson refers to as "the culture of beauty".[3]
The single peaked at number 26 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart and remains known as one of Marilyn Manson's most famous and most successful original songs; in a 2004 review, Richard Banks of the BBC called the track "still the most impressive"[4] in the band's catalogue, and in 2006 it was ranked at number 28 on VH1's 40 Greatest Metal Songs.[5]
Song information [ edit ]
Origins [ edit ]
"The Beautiful People" was written in 1994, with lyrics by Marilyn Manson and music by Twiggy Ramirez. The original demo version was written in a hotel room while on tour, and recorded to four-track by Manson, Ramirez, and drummer Ginger Fish. Manson recalled to Kerrang! magazine in May 2005: "It was somewhere in the South, which is ironic. I remember playing the drum beat on the floor and then having my drummer duplicate that on the drum machine. It happened in one day pretty much".[6]
The title of the song comes from Marilyn Bender's 1967 book The Beautiful People,[3] which exposed the world of scandal within the "jet-set" lifestyle of the 1960s, and the culture of beauty as it pertained to fashion and politics.[3][7]
Composition and lyrical content [ edit ]
"The Beautiful People" A sample of "The Beautiful People" Problems playing this file? See media help.
The song is preceded with a few seconds of backwards-guitar feedback and electronic noise. It includes a heavily distorted spoken sample by Tex Watson, declaring "[We would] swoop down on the town... [and] kill everyone that wasn't beautiful".[8]
The song is written in drop D tuning, and is built primarily out of power chords based on the notes of a diminished triad. It also incorporates extensive use of guitar distortion, and the use of palm muting creates a highly rhythmic, driving style amplified by a heavy percussion track. The song's characteristic element is its repetitive drum beat: a five-beat common time pattern played on floor toms, with a shuffle note each measure creating a triplet feel.[citation needed]
Sean Beavan, who mixed and co-produced Antichrist Superstar, is credited with "descending horn guitar" on the track. Beavan can be heard playing a repeated descending figure with a brass instrument-like sound using a guitar synthesizer.
Lyrically, it is entwined with the Antichrist Superstar album's overarching theme, a semi-narrative examination of the Nietzschean Übermensch.[9] Within this context, "The Beautiful People" deals explicitly with the destructive manifestation of the Will to Power ("There's no time to discriminate / hate every motherfucker that's in your way"), while also exploring Nietzsche's view of master-slave morality ("It's not your fault that you're always wrong / The weak ones are there to justify the strong"), particularly the concept's connection with Social Darwinism and its relation to various political and economic systems such as capitalism and fascism ("Capitalism has made it this way/Old-fashioned fascism will take it away").
Notable performances [ edit ]
"The Beautiful People" was performed sporadically during the 1995–1996 Smells Like Children Tour, frequently in abbreviated form as part of the Portrait of an American Family song "My Monkey". It was "officially" premiered on October 3, 1996, at the State Theatre in Kalamazoo – the second show of the band's Dead to the World Tour.[citation needed]
The band took two weeks off following the last European show of their year-long Dead to the World Tour and, on September 4, flew to New York City and performed as the grand finale of the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards.[10][11] The song had reached №26 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart and its music video was nominated at the show for Best Rock Video.[11]
Preceded by a marching band playing "Hail to the Chief", Manson entered the stage in a full-body black fur coat flanked by mock United States Secret Service agents,[11] and delivered a speech to the audience of Hollywood celebrities from a microphone-covered lectern emblazoned with the phrase 'Antichrist Superstar' in classical Latin script and the band's "Shock" logo fashioned to look like the Seal of the President of the United States:
My fellow Americans, we will no longer be oppressed by the fascism of Christianity. And we will no longer be oppressed by the fascism of beauty. As I see you all sitting out there trying your hardest not to be ugly, trying your hardest not to fit in, trying your hardest to earn your way into Heaven, but let me ask you—do you want to be in a place that's filled with a bunch of assholes?[10][11]
After the speech the band launched into "The Beautiful People", with Manson striking rigid poses as he sang. Manson removed his coat midway thru to reveal a second costume underneath that consisted of a leather corset and g-string which revealed his bare buttocks, a pair of thigh-high fishnet hosiery attached to a leather garter belt and knee-high leather boots. The performance came to its climax as the band smashed their instruments at the end of the song.[11] As the show closed, host Chris Rock teasingly yelled for the audience to "Run to church right now! Get your asses into church, or you're going to hell!".[10] Despite their extremely negative review of the program as a whole, Rolling Stone singled out the performance as "riveting".[12]
Marilyn Manson and Twiggy Ramirez joined The Smashing Pumpkins at Mountain View, California's Shoreline Amphitheatre for an acoustic performance of "The Beautiful People" during the venue's annual Bridge School Benefit on October 18, 1997.[13] Nine Inch Nails also performed "The Beautiful People", with frontman Trent Reznor on bass guitar and Marilyn Manson on lead vocals, on May 9, 2000 at Madison Square Garden. Manson had been a surprise guest at the concert, appearing unannounced on stage during Nine Inch Nails' "Starfuckers, Inc."; this performance was filmed and released as a bonus feature on And All That Could Have Been in 2002.[14] At the 2012 Echo Awards, Rammstein performed the song, with Marilyn Manson standing in for lead singer Till Lindemann.[15] On October 31, 2014 in a special setup on Halloween night, Manson performed the song with Johnny Depp on guitar and Ninja (from Die Antwoord) as a background vocalist, in the club Roxy in West Hollywood.[16]
In live performances, Manson frequently incorporates the lyric "How does it feel to be one of the beautiful people?" from The Beatles' "Baby, You're a Rich Man" into the song, either shouted over its instrumental break or as a lead-in to the introductory drums.[17]
Versions and releases [ edit ]
sports, fascism of beauty and replaced it with our own standard. We destroyed it to create a new way. Fascist imagery, whether blatant or subversive, exists in everything. Rock'n'roll politics, they all carry an element of it. Totalitarianism fascinates me because I see it everywhere. You are told from birth to death that if you don't participate in various capitalist rituals, ie consumption, good behaviour, religious worship, you won't be accepted, loved or beautiful. That underlying suppression affects you and it's completely ignored... Look, why do people want to be beautiful? To be loved, accepted, conquer their fear of exclusion. I finally realised after years of not being accepted—why not create your own standard and let other people be accepted or rejected by you? We've reversed the whole idea of theand replaced it with our own standard. We destroyed it to create a new way. —Marilyn Manson[18]
In addition to the version on the Antichrist Superstar album and the version on the single (which differ only in the length of the introductory noise) a radio edit also exists, which removes the profanity. The phrase "hate every motherfucker" has been replaced by the alternate lyric "hate every other hater", and the word "shit" has been excised. This radio edit is the version used in the music video for "The Beautiful People".[citation needed]
Three official remixes of "The Beautiful People" have been released. The first, "The Horrible People", was created by Danny Saber and appears on the 1997 Remix & Repent EP; the remix features a fast-tempo drum n bass backing track, and accents the original song's swing jazz-inflected rhythm with brass and piano samples. J. G. Thirlwell's "The Not-So-Beautiful People" is a straight industrial reworking of the track, with rhythmic vocal samples and churning, filtered synthesizers. It was used as the opening theme for WWF RAW is WAR for only a few weeks in March 1997. Later an edited version of the song was used as the opening theme for WWE SmackDown! from 2001 to 2003, and a remix of it was included on WWF Forceable Entry and a 10-inch picture disc single of the song.
Marilyn Manson's 2004 greatest hits compilation, Lest We Forget, contains a slightly reworked version of the track. The longer introduction from the single version has been restored, and certain musical elements (most notably, an organ-like sound not noticeable in the previously released versions) have been made more pronounced.
In 1997, MTV News reported that Manson had expressed interest in collaborating with Snoop Dogg to produce a rock/rap version of "The Beautiful People".[19][20] It is unknown if the collaboration ever actually occurred, although in his September 4, 1997 keynote address at the CMJ Music Marathon, the singer referred to the project as "something I would still love to do"[21] and blamed the hectic touring schedules of both his own band and the rapper for the delay. To date the remix has never materialized.[20]
The song has been made available as downloadable content for Guitar Hero 5 and is included on the Rock Band 3 soundtrack.
Music video [ edit ]
Manson in the music video's "dental device" costume
Floria Sigismondi directed what has been described as "the creepiest of creepy videos"[22] for "The Beautiful People". The clip, filmed in the then abandoned Gooderham and Worts distillery in Toronto, Canada,[23] depicts the band performing the song in a classroom-like area decorated with medical prostheses and laboratory equipment. Intercut with these performance clips are scenes of lead singer Marilyn Manson in a long gown-like costume and aviator goggles, wearing stilts and prosthetic makeup which make him appear bald and grotesquely tall; after being placed in this costume by similarly attired attendants, he appears to a cheering crowd through a window in a scene reminiscent of a fascist rally, and later stands in the center of a circle while people march around him pumping their fists into the air. Other fast cut scenes include extreme close-ups of crawling earthworms, mannequin heads and hands, and the boots of people marching; and shots of the individual band members bizarrely costumed, including Manson in back and neck braces, a leather aviator cap and an orthodontic cheek retractor, exposing metallic teeth.
The video premiered on MTV on September 22, 1996 and was nominated for two 1997 MTV Video Music Awards: Best Rock Video and Best Special Effects.[24]
"I'm a big fan of prosthetics and other medical fetishes. It was an interesting thing. It was used for dental operations and things of that nature. It did leave some bad cuts in my mouth that will unfortunately, probably never heal. But, you always have to suffer to make something great."[25]
Reception [ edit ]
The single was generally praised on its release. AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine highly praised the song, stating that "With its mock menace and pummeling metal triplets, it was the first Manson song with an oversized hook -- the kind of song that even the group's detractors couldn't get out of their heads".[26] In its 1996 review of Antichrist Superstar, Rolling Stone magazine described "The Beautiful People" as "suspense-filled", with "a zombielike, repetitive quality [and] ghostly electronic sounds...", adding that in his vocal delivery, "Manson hisses his lines, punctuating certain words with a shrill, insane pitch, others with a retching scream".[27]
In the United States, the single managed to reach number 29 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart and number 26 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart.[28] In the UK, it reached number 18 on the UK Singles Chart, peaking on June 7, 1997.[29] In Sweden, it was certified gold.[30] Although the single only peaked at number 42 on the Australian ARIA singles chart,[31] it spent 56 weeks in the top 100[32] and became the 89th highest-selling single of 1997 in Australia.[33]
Accolades [ edit ]
According to Acclaimedmusic.net "The Beautiful People" is the 21st best song of 1996, the 349th greatest song released during the 1990s and the 2,451st greatest of all-time.[34] In 2002, Kerrang! ranked "The Beautiful People" 5th in their 100 Greatest Singles of All Time.[35] In 2003, Q ranked "The Beautiful People" 192nd in their The 1001 Best Songs Ever.[36] Q also included "The Beautiful People" under the Metal Tracks category of their Ultimate Music Collection in 2005.[37] The music video for the single would be nominated in three categories at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards namely, Best Rock Video, Best Art Direction and Best Special Effects.[24]
In 2011, Both the original version and the Scala and Kolacny cover would be used as the theme music for the "7" Scarezone at Universal Orlando's Halloween Horror Nights 21 Event
Cover versions [ edit ]
The song has been covered by various artists, including the jazz trumpeter Lester Bowie, on his Brass Fantasy's 1999 Odyssey of Funk & Popular Music, Volume 1; metalcore band Eighteen Visions, on the 2006 compilation Punk Goes 90s; the Scala & Kolacny Brothers girls' choir on their 2007 album One Winged Angel; and heavy metal band Soulfly on Higher Voltage!: Another Brief History of Rock and a special edition of their album Conquer.[38]
Samples from "The Beautiful People" have been used in two songs of the same title, one by rapper Apathy, one by Christina Aguilera for the Burlesque soundtrack. Pop punk singer Avril Lavigne sang the song in a medley with her own song "Bad Girl" (which features guest vocals from Manson) during The Avril Lavigne Tour in 2014.
Formats and track listings [ edit ]
Australian and European CD single "The Beautiful People" (album version) "Cryptorchid" "Snake Eyes and Sissies" UK CD single 1 "The Beautiful People" (single version) "The Horrible People" "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" "Cryptorchid" UK CD single 2 "The Beautiful People" (album version) "The Not-So-Beautiful People" "Snake Eyes and Sissies" "Deformography" European Enhanced CD single "The Beautiful People" (single version) "The Horrible People" "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" "Cryptorchid" "The Beautiful People" (video) "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" (video) 10" vinyl single (remixes) "The Horrible People" "The Not-So-Beautiful People" Japanese CD single "The Beautiful People" (single version) "The Horrible People" "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" (LP version) "Cryptorchid" "The Not-So-Beautiful People" U.S. promotional CD single "The Beautiful People" (clean version) "The Beautiful People" (LP version)
[39]
Production credits [ edit ]
"The Horrible People" [ edit ]
As original version, with
Damian Savage – additional bass
John X – "sonic rape and pillage"
Danny Saber – remix
Gabe and Jim – engineers
As original version, with
[39]
See also [ edit ]Football Outsiders can be called a believer in the 2016 Kansas City Chiefs. That is if their early record projections can be believed. ESPN's Todd McShay released his 2017 NFL mock draft but the mock is not what's so interesting here.
The draft order that McShay used was from Football Outsiders early projected records for 2016.
The Chiefs? Picking 29th and selecting Mississippi LB Marquis Haynes.
That means Football Outsiders believes the Chiefs will be even better in 2016 than they were in 2015. The Chiefs picked 28th in this year's draft after going 11-5 and ending the season in the Divisional round of the playoffs. If they're building and becoming a better team then they should match that Divisional round appearance (first round bye wouldn't be bad) or pass it with an AFC Championship game appearance (this is the correct answer).
Now, Football Outsiders isn't the end-all, be-all. They had the Chiefs going 9-7 last year. Sitting at 1-5, we would've taken that. However, no one predicted the Chiefs would whip off 11 straight wins.
Drafting 29th? Of course I want to see that Super Bowl but drafting 29th is a good reflection of how many Chiefs fans see this team: a very, very good team who hasn't yet proven they're among the truly elite of the NFL.
If we're going reverse draft order, here are Football Outsiders early projections. Please note the Raiders picking top five... AGAIN. (They're going to be good soon so I have to take my time now to laugh at them: Ha Ha)
1. Cardinals
2. Steelers
3. Packers
4. Chiefs
5. Seahawks
6. Patriots
7. Bengals
8. Cowboys
9. Ravens
10. Panthers
11. Vikings
12. Texans
13. Bills
14. Lions
15. Chargers
16. Saints
17. Titans (from Rams)
18. Falcons
19. Broncos
20. Colts
21. Jaguars
22. Bears
23. Titans
24. Jets
25. Bucs
26. Washington
27. Browns (from Eagles)
28. Raiders (LOL)
29. Dolphins
30. Giants
31. 49ers
32. BrownsSometimes in life, you run into situations where turning a voice recording into a text document is necessary. Perhaps this is from an interview for a news publication or perhaps you need to transcribe a verbal lecture from school. On Windows and OS X, there are a number of software programs that can help with this. Yet for Linux users, the options feel a bit sparse by comparison.
Today’s tip will address this issue. In this tip, I’ll show you how to combine Google’s Web Speech API with the Linux sound management server, PulseAudio.
Ready to get started? Great, here’s what you’re going to do:
1) Install pavucontrol (PulseAudio Control). It’s available from most software repositories.
2) Open pavucontrol (PulseAudio Control), click into the Input Devices tab. At the bottom, set Show to Monitors. Select the monitor that reflects the audio device you’ll be listening from by clicking the box next to the padlock on the right side. In my case, this was the USB speakers.
3) Now goto the Output Devices tab, make sure the matching output device is selected by clicking the box next to the padlock on the right side. Leave this app open, for troubleshooting.
4) Install/Open Chrome, browse to Google’s Web Speech API Demonstration page.
5) Now open up your audio player that will play the audio file. Get ready to play the audio file, but don’t hit play just yet.
6) Back on the API Demonstration page in Chrome, click on the microphone icon in the right center of the page.
7) Now in the audio player, hit play.
If everything went well, you should start seeing text appear on the Chrome page. If it isn’t working, re-check your settings. Another reason why it might not work is because of music or other noises in the background making voice audio difficult to detect.
Bonus fun: This also makes for a fun game of Mad Libs, by using a separate tab for YouTube podcasts. Some of the results are quite funny!The Wikimedia Foundation, the organization behind the popular Wikipedia website, has called for the project's contributors to vote on a proposal which calls for the adoption of the Creative Commons Atribution Share-Alike (CC-By-SA) license. This change would lower the barriers for repurposing content from the Internet encyclopedia.
Wikipedia content is currently made available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL), which was devised by the Free Software Foundation to govern the distribution of technical documentation that was produced by the GNU project. The license was adopted for Wikipedia early in the |
that the cost-benefit analysis -- it's a judgment on the cost-benefit analysis as opposed to immediately making a policy decision. That said, where is the --
where is the disagreement between these two sides?
Deborah Goldberg:
Well, I was worried about that actually, when we were going into this, because it seems to me that we're probably much closer than the organizers of this event might have thought.
[laughter]
So, we're trying to make for a lively debate --
Joe Nocera:
I don't -- I don't agree. I think -- I -- I think that --
John Donvan:
He doesn't agree with you already.
[laughter]
Thank you. Joe.
01:25:53 Joe Nocera:
The people on this side believe that the issues of the economic benefits, the security benefits, and even the environmental benefits make fracking -- the benefits far outweigh the costs. And that is our view. And I don't think you’ve said anything that really has changed our minds on that. The issue we're -- do we care about having it done right? Yes, we do. Do we think the benefits are tremendous for America? Yes, we do.
And --
Sue Tierney:
We think the benefits would still be there --
John Donvan:
Sue Tierney.
Sue Tierney:
-- if we added 50 cents to the price of natural gas to cover these things? Yes. The benefits are huge.
Katherine Hudson:
But I would say --
John Donvan:
Kate Hudson.
Katherine Hudson:
-- that the question here is not whether we can do it right at some point in the future,
but whether we're doing it right now. Right now --
[applause]
01:26:57 John Donvan:
All right. I have to say, that concludes Round 2 of this Intelligence Squared U.S. debate.
Thank you.
[applause]
And now we go on to Round 3. And Round 3 is where each of the debaters has a last chance to persuade you to their point of view or to persuade you that they've actually presented the better argument. Our motion is this: No Fracking Way: The Natural Gas Boom is Doing More Harm Than Good. Each debater gets two minutes to summarize hisor her position. And speaking first, against this motion, Joe Nocera, an Op-Ed columnist for “The New York Times.” You can applaud. Let me do that again.
Joe Nocera:
You don't have to.
[applause]
John Donvan:
I'll do that again. And speaking against the motion, Joe Nocera, an Op-Ed columnist for “The New York Times.”
Joe Nocera:
On some level, I gave my closing argument about two seconds ago.
01:27:57 I do feel that it's clear that natural gas has reduced emissions. It is demonstrably better than coal. It is offering us the possibility -- wonderful possibility -- to wean ourselves from Mideast oil. And it's been incredibly economically beneficial for the country to have gas plentiful and cheap. I want to say -- I really want to end on, on this spot. Our opponents -- I want to think about it this way.
When you're arguing against fracking, you're not arguing for a future of renewables. You may think you are, but you're not. You're arguing for the status quo. You're arguing for a world where coal is still the dominant power generation, where oil is still the fundamental fuel that we use to transport ourselves.
01:29:08 You know, all the problems that we have today that have been brought about by the way we use energy are still with us. And so, what I would ask the other side to think about is, what does the future look like if we don't have fracking? What does the future look like if we don't have this wonderful source of natural gas, this abundant source of gas that we've been given. I don't think the future looks all that well -- all that good.
Thank you very much.
John Donvan:
Thank you, Joe Nocera.
[applause]
Our motion is No Fracking Way: The Natural Gas Boom is Doing More Harm Than Good and here to summarize their position in support of this motion, Kate Hudson, watershedprogram director for Riverkeeper.
[applause]
01:29:56 Katherine Hudson:
Having heard what our opponents have said here tonight, you might think we should not be concerned about the impacts of fracking. In their view, any problems we have now will be fixed with golden rules, more regulation, and hopes of improved technology. I think of a few reasons to remain concerned. One, there will always be accidents, spills, mechanical failures, and human error. Two, the gas industry has consistently fought enforceable rules and there is insufficient state and federal staff to ensure compliance with what rules do exist. Three, the idea that the industry as a whole will comply with voluntary best practices -- as I think our opponents have acknowledged -- in the face of falling gas prices, is unlikely.
Given the continued risk of harm and all of frackings costs weighed against its limited benefits for most, it is beyond dispute that the natural gas boom is doing more harm than good. Simply ask the mothers of children who attend the Red Hawk Elementary School in the Front Range town of Eerie, Colorado.
01:31:01 Last fall there were children who stayed home from school with intestinal and breathing problems due to the hundreds of oil drill rigs -- gas drill rigs in the region. Then, the industry insisted on locating gas wells a few hundred yards from the school and a short distance from a school playing field. Parents and children joined together to protest the new well and the town put a temporary moratorium on new permits, but that does not apply to the already permitted elementary school site. So this summer, as drilling takes place, teenage boys will have football practice in the shadow of operating drill rigs. The families of Eerie make it clear, if this uncontrolled experiment, which is the natural gas boom, is allowed to continue, homeowners, farms, schools, and hospitals whose neighbors agree to lease will have no choice. But we have a choice now. The shale gas boom is doing more harm than good and we urge you all to say -- to vote no fracking way.
01:31:59 [applause]
John Donvan:
Thank you, Kate Hudson.[applause]
And that is our motion, No Fracking Way: The Natural Gas Boom is Doing More Harm Than Good, and here to summarize her position against the motion, Sue Tierney, former assistant secretary for policy at the U.S. Department of Energy.
Sue Tierney:
I was --
[applause]
I was also secretary of environmental affairs in Massachusetts, head of the environmental police, head of environmental regulation. I came into this field because I grew up in southern California and couldn't stand the fact that we couldn't see the mountains from where I lived. I went into energy because it seemed to me it was an unbelievably complicated world in which you had these environmental impacts, which were so compelling, and yet you had everybody using cars and a variety of things. In the 30 years that I've been in the energy and environmental fields, I have never seen more polarizing and demonizing discussions as now exist on shale gas, and I saw nuclear plant debates, I saw transmission line plants, everything.
01:33:07 This is one where the science and the information is -- the gap between what we know and what people say we know is wider than I've seen in any other field. The reason I bring this up is this polarizing part of it makes it impossible for the two sides to find the middle ground, and that's why this issue is we need to stop demonizing this particular fuel, because if we do that we kill it and we kill not only the benefits that Joe just described, but we get back to coal. And that is the reality that we face and I urge you,
for that reason, to vote against this proposition.
John Donvan:
Thank you, Sue Tierney.
[applause]
01:33:58 Our motion is No Fracking Way: The Natural Gas Boom is Doing More Harm Than Good,
and here to summarize her position in support of the motion, no fracking way, Deborah Goldberg, the managing attorney at Earthjustice.
[applause]Deborah Goldberg:
I'd like to close with two of my favorite quotes from my opponents. In February of this year, Joe Nocera wrote, "How much methane leaks into the air as a result of fracking?"
Incredibly, nobody knows. In May of this year, Sue Tierney said on NPR, "Fifty years from now, are we really going to be wondering if we really screwed up because we went on this big gas boom? You really wouldn't want to be F-ing that up," and I agree. We don't know, and we really don't want to be messing that up.
And that means we need to scale back, slow down, and resist the boom mentality. We have to scale back. We do not have to drill hundreds of thousands of wells just because we can. We don't have to drill near elementary schools, and we can protect our state forests and our parks.
01:35:00 We need to slow down. We need to take the time to let the science catch up with the practice and the safeguards catch up with the science, and we need the resources to ensure that the rules we have in place are vigorously enforced. There's no rush. The gas has been there for millions of years. It's not going away. Finally, we have to ignore the advertising slogans on both sides, the demonizing goes on on both sides, filling the airways, and stop living in a fantasy world of endless fossil fuel consumption without consequences. We need to restart the conversation about putting a price on carbon,
and we need to develop a real meaningful energy policy, not “all of the above.” That's no policy at all. Does that make sense to you?
[applause]
01:35:54 Deborah Goldberg:
Do you want to limit the intensive gas development and the breakneck speed of fracking until we answer the open scientific questions and put policies in place to ensure that we are not messing up? Then you should vote for us, because you recognize, as we do, that until we have those safeguards in place and until we have that information, we have nothing but an uncontrolled experiment and the natural gas boom is doing more harm than good.
John Donvan:
Thank you very much, Deborah Goldberg. And that concludes Round 3 and this Intelligence Squared Debate. And now it's time to find which side you feel has argued best.
We're going to ask you again to go to the keypads at your seat. Remember, we had you vote at the beginning of the debate on where you stood on this motion, No FrackingWay: The Natural Gas Boom is Doing More Harm Than Good." You've heard the arguments. We want to ask you to judge which side presented their arguments best. If you agree that this side presented the best arguments, the side that is for the motion,
but that means that they are against, in a broad sense, fracking, push number one.
01:37:04 If it’s the other side, which takes the opposite position, push number two. And if you are undecided or became undecided, push number three. And we'll lock in the results in about 10 seconds, and in about 90 seconds we'll have the numbers for the two comparisons. So while that's being tabulated backstage, I just want to -- I really want to thank these debaters for doing what we asked them to do which was really bring good arguments to the --
[applause]
-- and also just by point of comparison, it's our first time in Aspen, and, you know, as a rule, audience questions can be a sort of tricky area to go to.
Tonight, this audience was spectacular in the questions, not just in the format, but really you moved things along, you put very, very interesting things into this debate, so I want to give yourselves a round of applause for that.
[applause]
01:37:57 You did really good.
[applause]
So just a few things to say, we want to again thank the Aspen Institute for inviting us down to this year's Ideas Festival, for letting you see what it is that we do back in New York at Intelligence Squared U.S. Thank you very much for the American Clean Skies Foundation, for their underwriting support for this, and making it all happen.
[applause]
And if some of you are New Yorkers or going to New York, we want to let you know that this fall -- what we intend to do with our series of debate topics is to try to follow the ebb and flow of the dialogue that's taking place in the presidential election, and keep --
you know, bounce off what's actually happening in that debate by exploring the issues in more depth in our own debates. And so the motions that we're working on now will be announced in several weeks, and also who the debaters will be. So we have awebsite, IQ2US.org. You can go look to that. You can buy tickets there and keep in touch with us. And if you get to New York, please do come.
Also, in mid-October, we're going to be on the road again. We're going to be going this time to Chicago. This'll be our second annual Chicago Ideas Week.
01:39:07 If you're in New York, I should say, our -- we're changing locations. We're going to the Kauffman Center, which is near Lincoln Center. We can be seen on public television in New York and also here and around the country on the 220+ NPR stations. We also have a podcast that is on iTunes. And we have a newsletter. You can sign up for our website.
So again, thank you very much for the debaters and for your participation.
And now we have the results, and we'll find out what happened. So remember, before the debate we asked you to vote on this motion, No Fracking Way: The Natural Gas Boom is Doing More Harm Than Good. If you're for the motion, it means you're saying,
"No fracking way." If you're against the motion, you are disagreeing with "No fracking way." So before the debate, 38 percent of you were for the motion "No fracking way,"
53 percent were against. After the -- I'm sorry -- I'm sorry, it's a split. I'm going to start this again.
01:40:03 Before the debate, 38 percent of you were for the motion, 38 percent, against, evenly split, and 24 percent were undecided. After the debate, 53 percent of you are for the motion "No fracking way," that's up 15 percent, 42 percent are against, that's up only four percent, five percent are undecided, that means the team arguing for the motion "No fracking way," has won this debate.
[cheering]
Our congratulations to them. Thank you from me, John Donvan of Intelligence Squared U.S., and we'll see you next time.
[applause]0
The dream of the 90s is certainly alive on television, with news of reboots and revivals coming nearly every day. The X-Files, Full House, Twin Peaks, even Rush Hour is coming to the small screen as a comedy series. If your favorite movies or TV shows of yore haven’t been remade yet, that doesn’t mean you’re safe. And indeed, with the recent spike in 90s-era nostalgia seemingly reaching its zenith, Viacom is looking to get on the party by creating an original feature starring some of its classic Nickelodeon characters.
We heard rumors about this last fall, as far as Nickelodeon looking to revive some of its classic properties (most of which made our list of the Best 90s Cartoons. And now, according to Deadline, a NickToons movie would be “Paramount’s answer to Who Framed Roger Rabbit.”
The feature is set to be directed by Napoleon Dynamite’s Jared Hess, with a screenplay he will co-write with his wife Jarusha Hess (she also co-wrote Dynamite as well as Nacho Libre). The idea came from Ali Mendes, who worked with Disruption Entertainment’s Mary Parent (who will be producing the movie, alongside Cale Boyter). Characters from Rugrats, Ren & Stimpy, Rocko’s Modern Life, Aaahh! Real Monster, and The Angry Beavers have been named as appearing, although what about Kablam! and SpongeBob? (Just leave CatDog out of it, please). Doug, for what it’s worth, is owned by Disney, and Nickelodeon is already making a Hey Arnold! TV movie.
So let’s break this down … first of all, I’m cautiously intrigued by the idea of an Avengers or Justice League-style team-up of NickToons. It’s incredibly weird and ambitious, and I have no idea how it would actually work (partially animated, or full animated?) The introduction of the Hesses into the picture also adds an unexpected element. Though the tide has turned against Napoleon Dynamite since it debuted over a decade ago, it’s a movie that originally resonated soundly with the age group that the NickToons movie would be looking to engage. The Hesses definitely have a very specific style and distinct tone to their films, though, but it’s also one that could make perfect sense for a NickToons movie.
What say you, readers? Are you wary, excited, or downright incensed over the idea? Let us know in the comments, and stay tuned (tooned?) for more updates on the project as we know them.Athlon released the results of a candid 1-on-1 with noted college football player Lamar Jackson this morning.
In the interview, Jackson gives his typical straightforward, no-nonsense answers to questions about what the Heisman Trophy ceremony was like, what went wrong for Louisville at the end of the season, and why he never played a sport besides football growing up.
Still, there’s one section of the Q&A that will likely stand out to Cardinal fans.
How much of a college football historian are you? I did know the history of the guys that I met, but I don’t really put myself in their shoes yet. I still have two years left to play football, and there’s a lot of work that I need to do. That’s interesting that you said, “two years.” Yes, sir. Because you’re planning on staying for two more years? I’m just ready for this year right now and hopefully whatever will happen next year.
College kids are prone to say things in the heat of the moment, Louisville fans experienced that firsthand just a few months ago with Donovan Mitchell’s comments after the loss to Michigan in the NCAA tournament. While I wouldn’t put any significant amount of money on us being able to experience “Lamar Jackson: senior quarterback,” it’s nice to at least hear him say that his focus on the moment is solely on improving as a college signal caller and righting the wrongs of last season.
You can read the full interview from Athlon here. If nothing else, it should drive home just how proud Louisville fans ought to be of Jackson and the way that he has handled his rapid ascent to stardom. There hasn’t been one negative piece of news or one off the field incident since Jackson became one of the most well-known athletes in America, and that’s typically not the case when you’re dealing with a 19 or 20-year-old kid.President Donald Trump’s misguided mission to abandon U.S. clean energy and environmental leadership suffered another well-deserved blow last month when Maryland and eight other eastern states strengthened efforts to cut the dangerous fossil fuel pollution that’s driving climate change.
The move mirrors similar decisions across the country by hundreds of state and local officials and business leaders who recognize the growing dangers of this global scourge and the opportunity to create millions of jobs nationwide as we shift to cleaner, smarter ways to power our growth.
These wiser minds and cooler heads are showing how visionary policies and sound investments can advance needed progress in the economic and environmental play of our lifetime to the direct benefit of their citizens and consumers.
Together, Maryland, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont have cut emissions of climate-disrupting carbon pollution from power plants by more than 40 percent under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which they launched in 2009. Last month, the group agreed to further pollution cuts that put the region on track to cut power plant carbon pollution by at least 30 percent more by 2030.
If these states were a single country, they would have the sixth largest economy in the world. By improving energy efficiency, modernizing the electricity grid and getting more clean power from the wind and sun, they’re becoming more competitive and generating thousands of good-paying jobs.
They’re also stepping up the fight against the global climate crisis that’s turning croplands to desert, accelerating the worst mass extinction in more than 60 million years and driving rising seas, withering drought, blistering heat and raging wildfires, storms and floods.
That’s the kind of leadership that puts our children first, and we’re seeing it across much of the country.
While Mr. Trump makes plans to withdraw U.S. participation in the 2015 Paris climate agreement, leaders from Seattle, New Orleans, Little Rock and more than 2,100 other cities, states, universities and businesses have pledged to move forward with plans to cut carbon pollution in line with the Paris goals.
This summer, California legislators similarly rose to the challenge by voting to lock in market-based policies aimed at cutting the state’s carbon footprint 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. In all, 29 states plus Washington, D.C., have set renewable power goals.
Companies as diverse as Amazon, Walmart, Apple and Zipcar also have put programs in place to cut their own carbon pollution or that of the products they carry. Carmakers as varied as General Motors and Tesla have rolled out all-electric cars for under $38,000 with a range that tops 200 miles per charge. And two-thirds of all the new electric generating capacity installed in the United States over the past two years is powered by the wind and sun, prices for which have plummeted over the past decade as growing demand has improved economies of scale.
We’re still getting close to 80 percent of our total energy from oil, coal and natural gas, the fossil fuels at the heart of our climate crisis. Given it has taken us centuries to develop our fossil fuel dependency, it’s understandable that we won’t change it overnight. Over time, though, we must, and we can. Doing so provides real work that already employs more than 3 million Americans who are helping us to make our homes and offices more energy-efficient, build the best all-electric and hybrid cars in the world, and get more clean power from the wind and sun.
As the world shifts to cleaner, smarter energy options, economists expect more than $7 trillion in clean power investments over the next two decades or so. Policies that promote clean energy are helping to prepare American workers for success in the rapidly growing low-carbon economy of tomorrow.
We’ll never see that bright future in the rear-view mirror Mr. Trump uses to guide his energy policy. His plan puts dirty energy first and puts the rest of us at risk. We desperately need a cohesive national policy that harnesses American innovation and enterprise to fight the greatest environmental threat of our time.
Until we can get there, though, we must support those state, local and business leaders acting in the best interests of the country and the world we share. Together, they’re casting a vote of confidence in our common capacity to help create a brighter, more hopeful world for our children.
Rhea Suh (Rssuh@nrdc.org) is president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group with more than 2.4 million supporters nationwide.A Shanghai company offers training classes for women seeking elite Westerner husbands.
Droves of women from across China flocked to Shanghai’s Love and Marriage Expo this month in hopes of learning a tip or two about how to get hitched.
But Liang Yali, founder of the Seek-a-Husband Training Programme, has been teaching such skills in the metropolis for years.
Ninety days – that’s all it will take for her training programme to teach single women how to find – and marry – that laowai (expatriate) knight in shining armour, Liang purported, in an interview with the Modern Express newspaper.
After a 1½-month courtship, Liang managed to find the American husband of her dreams – you know, the “honest, considerate type” who happens to be a general manager at some big multinational corporation. The two are now happily married.
Liang decided to enter the “marriage business” in 2009 after her experiences as a divorced and single mother. She said she had hoped to “mass produce” her happiness to the spurned and desperate.
Her Seek-a-Husband course, which specialises in teaching women how to find “elite Westerner” husbands, launched in Shanghai to widespread acclaim – she boasts that her success rate has stayed at a constant 60 per cent – as well as controversy.
The programme’s target market is women above 35, divorcees and the so-called shengnu or “left-behind woman”, although clients are getting younger by the day.
Nearly 2.87 million mainland couples divorced in 2011, up 7.3 per cent from 2010, according to Ministry of Civil Affairs‘ statistics.
Meanwhile, a survey conducted by the ministry last year showed that 70 per cent of mainland women would tie the knot only with a man who owned at least one flat.
“Many Chinese women over the age of 35 experience difficulties finding husbands domestically, but in the west, in many foreigners’ minds, women aged 35 are seen as most attractive,” Liang told Modern Express. She said her courses teach women how to select appropriate targets, use charm and to sell their “intellect”.
She gave examples of success stories such as how a 35-year-old woman from northeastern China learned a bit of English and managed to find a husband who worked as a manager at a large German construction company.
The least expensive one-day course costs 2,800 yuan (HK$3,500), and more advanced modules can be taken for more than 40,000 yuan. There’s also the “unlimited” package, which entitles customers to attend all classes for a cool 100,000 yuan.
Liang’s venture has been slammed repeatedly for ethical reasons. It drew heat recently after its youngest client was reported to be just 17 years old. It has also been criticised for teaching women to “throw money at love” and encouraging young girls to look for rich, expat “sugar daddies”.
But Liang stressed that “if your purpose is to find a rich man, please do not sign up. We are in the business of happiness”.
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AdvertisementsFor 15 months between 2011 and 2012, the Dawn spacecraft orbited the asteroid called Vesta, snapping high-resolution pictures of the cratered, potato-shaped rock. Scientists then spent another two and a half years poring over the images and piecing together the geology written on Vesta’s surface. Now, a team led by planetary scientist David Williams of Arizona State University has compiled that information together into this beautiful map, which they’ve published online for the December issue of the journal Icarus.
Vesta was forged within the cloud of dust and debris that formed the solar system about 4.5 billion years ago. During its lifetime, Vesta was pelted with smaller asteroids and rocks, which left a multitude of craters. But according to the researchers, there were three impacts in particular that shaped Vesta’s geological history. The most recent collision happened sometime between 120 million and 390 million years ago, forming the Marcia crater seen near the center of the map.
Two earlier impacts struck Vesta’s south pole more than one billion years ago between 200 million and one billion years apart, making the Veneneia and Rheasilvia craters, which are each about 300 miles in diameter. These collisions were so big that they reshaped the asteroid, leading to its elongated shape today, Williams says. The shock from these impacts was felt throughout the asteroid, producing large ditches called fossae around the equator and the northern side.
These regions that were reshaped by the Veneneia and Rheasilvia impacts are represented by purple and light blue, respectively, on the map. The light purples and dark blue areas show the interiors of the impact basins, where crater walls have crumbled and fallen onto the basin floor. Green represents younger landslides, yellow patches are material from impacts, and red areas are large hills called tholi. Black lines represent fault lines and the brown areas are the oldest, most heavily cratered regions.I don’t believe in God, but I need some kind of a prayer to repeat when things go haywire. I need a prayer because, as a writer with several unruly dependents under my roof, each day is a rollercoaster, a crapshoot, an exercise in uncertainty. Will the morning go well? That depends on my eight-year-old’s ability to make some tough wardrobe choices and my five-year-old’s ability to face ‘colouring dumb stuff’ in kindergarten. Will the afternoon go well? That depends on my mood, my rate of caffeine ingestion, and whether or not words leap onto the page with ease or avoid it like a cat sidestepping a mud puddle. Will the evening go well? That depends on how my husband’s day goes, whether either of us has exercised, and whether there are groceries in the fridge.
After years of trying to manage all of the variables in this picture, I have to admit that I have only so much control over the day’s emotional trajectory. Even when my husband and I are both on top of everything (rare), someone in the family is still going to yell or cry or miss a deadline or sit in traffic for an hour. Admitting that I feel like a cork boat tossed on the high seas doesn’t help, since that’s exactly the sort of clichéd metaphor that tells me I’m going to have a terrible writing day and maybe also indicates that I’m not a writer at all.
See how the tiniest events can shift the barometer just enough to stir up a storm? My buoyant mood sinks. The day that felt so full of promise sags, landing in a haze of exhaustion and niggling worries by the time I crawl into bed.
I need a belief system. I need a morning ritual. I need to say some bold and glorious words out loud at the start of the day, to remind myself who I am and what I’m doing and what the point of it all is.
Unfortunately, I don’t like saying bold and glorious words out loud. So I need a prayer that’s not too prayer-like. I need a belief system that doesn’t require me to suspend my disbelief. My prayer shouldn’t conjure pews and crosses and a vengeful God, but also it shouldn’t conjure wind chimes and scented candles and middle-aged men in linen pants. I need to honour my soul, of course. Who doesn’t? But I want to do it in a way that doesn’t make me feel like I’m living in a douche commercial.
My soul – if I have one, which is still up for debate – is an angry misfit type of soul. It’s not a soul that likes cashew cheese or people who talk about their spirit animals. My soul likes a nice yoga class as much as the next soul, but it wishes the blankets there weren’t so scratchy, and that they’d play better music, and that the lady across the room wouldn’t chat nervously through the whole goddamn thing like her soul has been snorting crystal meth all morning. My soul would like for all the other souls to shut the fuck up once in a while.
My soul is not necessarily allergic to spirituality or to religion itself. It just feels suspicious towards bossy, patriarchal gods dreamt up by bossy patriarchs. Not that my soul doesn’t recognise that it’s a product of its environment! My soul is the first to admit that if my mother weren’t agnostic and I weren’t raised Catholic and I didn’t have a premature existential crisis after watching Horton Hears a Who! (1970) when I was eight, I could just go to church like all the other people who don’t like cashew cheese or wind chimes or men in linen pants. Then I could file into a pew and fold my hands in prayer and ask forgiveness for being such an irritable jackass. Unfortunately, my soul has spent lots of time with the Lord, and my soul is just not that into Him.
We need to know we’re pointed in the right direction but prayer is not just a spiritual version of Google Earth
I’m not alone on that front. In Religion for Atheists (2012), the philosopher Alain de Botton writes that although religions have a lot to offer – they ‘deliver sermons, promote morality, engender a spirit of community, make use of art and architecture, inspire travels, train minds and encourage gratitude at the beauty of spring’ – it can be hard for atheists to reap those benefits.
We might not need to know why we’re here, but most of us want to feel like we’re in touch with something bigger than our own fluctuating moods and needs, and that we’re pointed in the right direction. But prayer isn’t just a spiritual version of Google Earth. Beyond asking for guidance or expressing gratitude, it can be a way of nudging our intentions toward action. As Philip and Carol Zaleski explain in Prayer: A History (2005), ‘Prayer is speech, but much richer than speech alone. It is a peculiar kind of speech that acts, and a peculiar kind of action that speaks to the depths and heights of being.’
That sounds like a pretty tall order, until you consider how fundamental prayer has been to humankind since prehistoric times. There’s some evidence that Neanderthals buried their dead surrounded by flowers, and scholars have suggested that engraved bones from the site at Laugerie Basse in southwestern France depict humans engaged in prayer. Prayer has been used to ask for protection or rainfall, for inspiration, answers or healing, as well as in thanks or celebration or mourning. Prayer can communicate adoration or devotion, ecstasy or ‘mystical union’ according to the Zaleskis, who must be Jeff Buckley fans. But however prayer is used, it makes simple sense that it should feel more received than invented. So where does that leave those of us intent on inventing a prayer for ourselves out of thin air?
The web is certainly filthy with such inventions. Sniffing around for ideas to inspire my own daily ritual, I stumbled on several individuals determined to bring the passion and reassurance of prayer to non-believers. I particularly savoured the morning ritual laid out by a guy who calls himself the Allergic Pagan. Upon rising, he says a prayer to the sun, water, air and earth. His water prayer involves climbing into the shower, turning on the water, and reciting these words from the Hindu scripture the Rig Veda:
Eager for their course, forth flow the life-fostering rivers. Along steep slopes their course tumbles, inundating the deserts. The torrent makes a roaring sound like rushing rivers. The fairest courser of them all, you drive on the flood. And the mountains tremble at the birth of your effulgence.
I’m sure my shower head would find these words pretty life-affirming – and super flattering! But I’m less sure that they’ll help me.
In search of something a little less mystical, I landed on a website called Asian Efficiency, which advised: ‘The start of your morning ritual is your 500ml of water.’ Pretty heady stuff. Next, do some light exercise, eat breakfast, and then ‘set your goals and outcomes for the day’. Doesn’t that sound romantic? But cool your jets, dreamer, because you’ll need to reference ‘your goals, your schedule for the day and your task-management system’. Merely imagining a task-management system makes my head hurt.
Anxious for a routine that feels a little more lively, I found a web page promisingly titled ‘How to Be Unstoppable Everyday of Your Life’. Its author, Stefan Pylarinos, says the goal of a morning ritual is ‘[t]o make you the most important thing in your life, and to ensure that you’re at your best’. But I wasn’t aiming for unstoppable, just less stoppable.
After a few hours of sifting through morning rituals that don’t feel quite right for me, I landed on an article in the Washington Post about Sigfried Gold, a self-described ‘born-again atheist’ who made up a prayer for his family to say every day, to a deity he created himself: a ‘15-ft-tall goddess he named “Ms X” after Malcolm X’. The article reports that ‘[t]here are drawings of her around the house, as well as spiritual pieces of art’. As Gold explains on his website: ‘[M]y personal relationship with this figment of my imagination has helped me to lose 110 lbs, to quit frittering away half or more of every workday on stupid web surfing, to become a devoted husband and father, to put aside cynicism and anger, and be generally optimistic and friendly even towards people who used to drive me nuts.’ He also writes: ‘Four years ago I was a gloomy, depressive cynic and grump, a perpetual complainer, exuding resentment at any person or fact of life that might require me to rise from whatever comfortable chair I was wallowing in. Today I am a perky, middle-aged man bubbling over with hope and reverence.’ Sounds like I should start praying to Ms X, too.
I’m a writer, so I don’t need to make me the most important thing in my life. I’m already there
Still, there’s something a little embarrassing about creating your own God. Just imagine if everyone did it: ‘My God is a voluptuous sea monster with gorgeous green eyes who speaks only in gentle whispers and serves fresh sushi.’ ‘Well, my God rides a purple dragon that shoots ice-cold Peroni beer from its mouth. He’s a benevolent, forgiving, super-sexy shirtless God…’ ‘Hmm. Your God looks just like Idris Elba.’
In fact, none of the morning rituals, pagan practices or made-up religions I read about resonated with me that much. I might be able to pray to my shower head for a few days in a row, but earth, wind and fire don’t really do it for me unless they’re singing ‘Let’s Groove’. Praying to task-management systems isn’t mystical enough for my blood, but praying to the sun is a little too mystical. And somehow, the Tony Robbins |
LBS (local bike shop) nearby, then make the effort to use it. They might not be able to match online/mail order prices but it’s likely that you’ll gain more from their experience and advice than you would save shopping online. If there’s something you’d like to be able to buy from them that they don’t stock, then give them some constructive feedback. Taking the time to develop a good relationship will make buying bike bits even more pleasurable — you might just be glad of it when you need an urgent job doing at 5pm the night before a big ride.
28. Tool school
Learn how to fix your own bike. From the most basic trail skill of replacing punctured tubes to tackling a strip, clean and rebuild of a full-suspension frame, there’s little that can’t be done once you have the knowledge. Start with the small things and work up — there are plenty of resources available to help you learn and you can even go on a training course if you want to take things further.
Be inspired
Social media doesn't have to have a negative impact on your riding
29. Feel the love
“Be in love with cycling. To be a better cyclist you need to feel the passion. True love will drive you out of bed on windy Sundays, remove the temptation to take the car to work and blind you to the trudge of constant bike cleaning. Love comes from squirrelling away beautiful cycling experiences. Ride more, love more, ride more.” Fi Spotswood, adventure racer.
30. Catch up on your reading
Long dark winter evenings confined to barracks make the perfect opportunity to seek out motivation. No, we’re not talking about the latest YouTube hit; there’s a huge amount of inspirational writing available in a variety of formats from regular riders’ blogs on the internet to more involving reading material published in good ol’ paperback format.
31. Break out the popcorn
Bigger bucks, better kit and innovative techniques have boosted the bike film industry in recent years. Fire up the on-demand TV or DVD player and prepare to be amazed.
32. Get connected
Love it or hate it, the growth of social media makes organising days out and finding riding buddies significantly less arduous. With Twitter lists and ‘tweet ups’, Facebook groups and forum rides popping up all over the place, it’s a great way to get involved with like-minded fools. Just beware of the difference between some people’s online persona and their real life personality.
33. Take out a newbie...
As anyone who’s experienced the joy of basking in the glow of a new convert to the cause will tell you, nothing quite beats taking out a novice for their first ever mountain bike ride. Make sure they’re properly equipped, be prepared to weather a few sticky moments and have a stash of sweets on hand ready to ease progress, and you'll find the experience thoroughly rewarding.
34. …but not your partner
We’d recommend that you don’t press-gang your partner onto the trails. Sending him or her out to learn the basics with an impartial third party if — and only if — they express an interest, is usually far safer and more diplomatic for all involved.
35. Time crunched
Make the time to ride with your friends. It’s easy to blame work and domestic arrangements for keeping you away from regular rides, but the company and laughter will keep you riding happily through the worst of the winter weather. We all have the same number of hours in the day; it’s how you use them that matters. As Debbie Burton, full-time mum and keeper of the Minx Girlcycle clothing website, says: “Just ride your bike whenever you can. Nipping to the shops, half an hour free? Get out on your bike.”
Practical steps
Explore, it's what it is all about
36. Go exploring
“Escape trail centres. Do it now. Maps aren’t scary and there’s a big world out there.” Seb Rogers, tester and photographer.
37. Skills school
Brush up on your trail skills. Take an outdoor-specific first aid course, learn the basics of get-you-home bike repair, make sure you know how to read a map and use a compass. You’ll probably have need to call upon one or more of these skills in the coming year and they could even save your life one day.
38. Map magic
Expand your horizons by researching new places to ride. Use the web to find out about places that interest you, then buy an OS map and get plotting. Guidebooks are a big help to the adventurous rider, but nothing beats finding your very own secret singletrack out there in the back of beyond.
39. Local knowledge
To get the very best out of an area you’re visiting, consider employing a professional guide. Many people don’t see why they should do this in the UK, but you’ll benefit from their legwork and knowledge of the local trail network, the local economy will get a boost and they'll be able to tailor the riding to suit the kinds of trails you’re looking for. Check out trail centres, tourist information centres and local bike shops for prospective candidates.
40. Dig day afternoons
The trails don’t fix themselves and a great way to give something back is to participate in a maintenance day. Alternatively, adopt a local trail as ‘yours’ and make a habit of stopping every once in a while to trim back encroaching undergrowth and stop up chicken runs or widening puddles. You’ll get a warm glow and the trail will love you back.
41. Eyes open
Be nosey — ride with your eyes open. Investigate the patches of woodland, scrub and wasteland tucked between the houses; it’s likely there’s a trail or two right under your nose.
Expand your skill set
Looking up and further ahead will allow you to see things in good time so as not to get caught unawares. As a result, you’ll pick better lines, and ride better/more smoothly
42. Improve your riding
“If you want to ride like a big bowl of awesome, just get your chin up and look well ahead. While you’re at it, let’s have elbows out, move your hips, open your legs, open your mind and relax harder.” Ed Oxley, trail guide and skills guru.
43. Top technique
We all have our mantras to ride by. Mike Davis, tester, says: “Bend your elbows — the tip to end all tips.”
44. Vision power
Former What Mountain Bike editor Matt Skinner has these words of wisdom: “Looking up and further ahead will allow you to see things in good time so as not to get caught unawares. As a result, you’ll pick better lines, and ride better/more smoothly.”
45. Harden up
We’re big hardtail advocates here at BikeRadar. Resident snapper Seb explains why: “Ride a rigid hardtail through the winter or at least a hardtail. You’ll go much faster when you get back on a susser.”
46. Skill up
Many riders who wouldn’t think twice about splashing hundreds of pounds on hardware baulk at spending a fraction of that on some skills training, yet booking yourself in with a guide for the day is one of the most fruitful ways to boost your skill level and enable you to make the most of your equipment.
47. Positive spin
Boost your efficiency and you’ll be able to ride harder for longer while expending less energy. Develop a smooth pedalling rhythm and learn how to select the right gear for a given section of trail; you’ll climb better and have more energy left for the downhills.
Time to have fun
Lastly, just get out there and ride!
48. Vroom vroom
Make motorbike noises just for the hell of it. Mountain biking is all about fun after all, and who knows, it might even make you go faster!
49. Stop blaming your kit
It’s easy to make excuses for riding badly. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. We all do it and sometimes alarmingly frequent. It’s often the best way to learn and it keeps other riders entertained. Just try not to make them too painfully!
50. Get out and ride!
Turn off your computer and go out for a ride. When you get back plan the next one — it’s habit forming, this mountain biking lark. What are you waiting for?
Sadly Jenn died last year after a long battle with lung cancer. If you would like to donate to one of the many charities that helped her and her family please click the links below.
Cancer research UK and Macmillan Cancer SupportFor the sculptures promoting Jackson's 1994 album, see Michael Jackson HIStory statue
The Michael Jackson Statue is a plaster and resin sculpture of Michael Jackson commissioned by Mohamed Al-Fayed and originally unveiled in 2011 outside Craven Cottage, the ground of Fulham Football Club of which Al-Fayed was chairman. It was removed by new Fulham chairman Shahid Khan in 2013 and moved to the National Football Museum in Manchester in 2014.
Statue [ edit ]
The statue is 7.5 feet (2.3 m) high and is made of plaster and resin.[1] While outside Craven Cottage it stood 13.5 feet (4.1 m) high inclusive of a plinth.[2] Jackson is portrayed wearing a silver jacket, black trousers, white socks and a single glove.[3]
Inspiration [ edit ]
Jackson was a friend of Al-Fayed. He had attended a football match, in 1999, at Craven Cottage as a friend of Al-Fayed to see Fulham play Wigan Athletic.[4] Following Jackson's death in 2009 Al-Fayed commissioned a statue with the plan of siting it inside Harrods in Knightsbridge, London, at the time owned by Al-Fayed. After Harrods sale the new Qatari owners did not want it and he arranged for the statue to be placed outside Craven Cottage.[5][6]
Unveiling and reception [ edit ]
The statue was unveiled on 3 April 2011 by Al-Fayed before Fulham's game against Blackpool.[3] The reception to the statue was almost all negative. It was described as kitsch and received comments from some fans of Fulham F.C such as, "We're a laughing stock. It has nothing to do with football." and "It makes the club look silly. I thought it was an April Fools joke."[5][6] Al-Fayed rejected such comments saying, "'Football fans love it. 'If some stupid fans don't understand and appreciate such a gift they can go to hell."[3] Some Fulham footballers, including Brede Hangeland, supported the club's decision to commission the statue.[5] After the unveiling Fulham won their game against Blackpool, 3–0.[5] Louisa Buck, contemporary art correspondent for The Art Newspaper described it as "a spectacularly bad piece of kitsch that doesn't even look all that much like Michael Jackson". Fisun Guner, art critic for The Arts Desk website said "It certainly looks as if his plasticky limbs were too stiff to co-ordinate properly so he's doing a bit of a constipated, Metal Mickey dance. However, I have a strong feeling that Michael would have simply loved it."[7]
Removal and resiting [ edit ]
In July 2013, Shahid Khan completed the purchase from Al-Fayed, of Fulham FC, for a fee believed to be between £150m and £200m.[8] In September 2013 it was decided that the statue would be removed and returned to Al-Fayed; the statue was not part of the ground's redevelopment plans.[9] On 25 September 2013 the statue was removed.[10] On 3 May 2014 Fulham were relegated from the Premier League after 13 seasons in the league, the top tier of English Football. Mohamed Al-Fayed blamed the removal of the statue for causing the club's relegation. Believing the statue to bring good luck he said he had told Shahid Khan, "Fine, it is a lucky thing, you will regret it later.".[11] The statue was moved to the National Football Museum in Manchester in May 2014.[12]
References [ edit ]
Coordinates:Donald Trump is declaring war on the press (which has been giving him the most free ad time). He told a rally in North Texas how he wants to make it easier for him to sue a news entity if they write something which doesn’t go with his own narrative (emphasis mine)
I think the media is among the most dishonest groups of people I’ve ever met. They’re terrible…But one of the things I’m going to do, if I win, and I hope I do, and we’re certainly leading…is I’m going to open up our libel laws, so when they write purposefully negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money. We’re going to open up those libel laws. So that when The New York Times writes a hit piece, which is a total disgrace, or when Washington Post, which is there for other reason, writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win lots of money instead of having no chance of winning because they’re totally protected. You see, with me, they’re not protected because I’m not like other people, but I’m not taking money, I’m not taking their money. So we’re going to open up those libel laws, folks. And we’re going to have people sue you, like you’ve never been sued before.
AP wrote yesterday how most people probably won’t care about Trump’s threat because they loathe the media, like most cats do water. There are plenty of people who would love the chance to go after the mainstream media because of their agenda. But this declaration has an even bigger effect because it could also cause problems for online publications like American Spectator, Breitbart, The Federalist, Hot Air, Rare, Reason, and Town Hall. Think about it. If someone were to write Politician A was a grandstanding hypocrite because they said one thing, while voting another way, the writer could be sued under the loosened libel law. If someone were to write a piece criticizing Republican leadership for not being actual conservative, they could be sued. This is a threat to the foundation of America in freedom of the press. It’s threatening a crackdown on dissent, even if the media is giving Trump free coverage to bring his message to the masses.
But let’s be honest, the press has ALWAYS had an agenda. Dr. Frank W. Scott from University of Illinois points out it’s how Federalists and anti-Federalists fought over the Constitution.
Partisan bitterness increased during the last decade of the century. New England papers were generally Federalist; in Pennsylvania there was a balance; in the West and South the anti-Federalist press predominated. Though the Federalists were vigorously supported by such able papers as Russell’s Columbian Centinel in Boston, Thomas’s Massachusetts Spy, The Connecticut Courant, and, after 1793, Noah Webster’s daily Minerva (soon renamed Commercial Advertiser) in New York, The Gazette of the United States, which in 1790 followed Congress and the capital to Philadelphia, was at the centre of conflict, “a paper of pure Toryism,” as Thomas Jefferson said, “disseminating the doctrines of monarchy, aristocracy, and the exclusion of the people.” To offset the influence of this, Jefferson and Madison induced Philip Freneau, who had been editing The Daily Advertiser in New York, to set up a “half weekly,” to “go through the states and furnish a Whig vehicle of intelligence.” Freneau’s National Gazette, which first appeared 31 October, 1791, soon became the most outspoken critic of the administration of Adams, Hamilton, and Washington, and an ardent advocate of the French Revolution. Fenno and Freneau, in The Gazette of the United States and The National Gazette, at once came to grips, and the campaign of personal and party abuse in partisan news reports, in virulent editorials, in poems and skits of every kind, was echoed from one end of the country to the other.
William Safire wrote the book Scandelmonger on how James T. Callender used his pamphlets and newspaper business to go after John Adams, then Thomas Jefferson, because he didn’t like either of them. So individual newspapers have always had some type of bias, and Trump’s call to open up libel laws so he can sue is just pure dictatorial chutzpah. It’s a step further than the press crack down President Barack Obama has taken, including getting rid of its FOIA regulations for the Office of Administration, grabbing the phone records of the Associated Press, and spying on Fox News correspondent James Rosen. It’s also a step further than California Senator Dianne Feinstein’s attempt to claim journalists are only people who are paid to be a writer for a news entity. It’s another attack on the First Amendment by people who don’t care at all about the necessity of free speech and press freedom, and just want puff pieces which make sure their agenda is put forward. The best way to fight against “lies” of the mainstream media is to tell the truth, whether it’s via news conference or just talking to people. Trump’s desire to loosen libel laws would put everyone at risk from newspapers to TV outlets to online websites. It must be rejected.
.Home » Blockchain » Beginner’s Guide to ICO Investing: How to Participate in ICOs
A beginner’s guide to ICO investing. This guide is an introduction to ICO investing and the steps to look out for when investing in an ICO.
Up till July of 2017, the total dollar amount raised in Initial Coin Offerings (ICO) was a staggering USD$1,252,676,352. That’s over a billion dollars raised within a span of 7 months. With a total market capitalization of over USD$100 billion, the cryptocurrency market has attracted the attention of many, from traders wanting to make a quick buck to experts that are concerned with its lack of transparency. (See also: Guide to Common Crypto Terms)
Total Capital Raised from ICOs in the first 7 months of 2017
Source: CoinSchedule
What is an ICO?
An initial coin offering (ICO) is a means of crowdfunding, through the release of a new cryptocurrency or token to fund project development.
There are currently more than 1,000 coins available on different exchanges, with hundreds more in the process of being listed on exchanges. It’s important to understand that not all cryptocurrencies have their own blockchain, as most are issued on top of another Blockchain. A good example is ERC-20 tokens, which represents a standard of interoperability within the Ethereum Blockchain. Ethereum is a general purpose blockchain where different tokens can be issued on top of its blockchain without creating their own infrastructure. For a more detailed understanding, have a look at Coins, Tokens & Altcoins: What’s the Difference?
Advantages of ICO
Democratization: Allow projects to circumvent the traditional method of asking Banks/Venture Capitalists that may take a lot of time and resources. Anyone can invest and can earn the possibly huge returns just like how the big boys are accustomed to. Of course, investing in ICO’s is a high-risk venture.
Immense Profit Potential: Many in the space want to invest in the “next Bitcoin”, potentially riding the wave of buying coins at pennies on the dollar and selling them later at an astronomical valuation. Most ICOs have only a conceptual white paper with little to no proof of concept, thereby validating a high payoff potential due to the extremely high-risk investors are taking. Just look at the returns if you were to invest in the ICOs below:
Returns on Investments (USD)
(Source: https://icostats.com/roi-since-ico)
Main Issues
Absence of Regulatory Oversight: Regulations are good in that it protects people/investors/YOU. Currently, the ICO market is unregulated and can attract bad actors that are fraudulent/manipulative/scammers. It’s easy to raise money through ICO; just write a white paper and you’re good to go. Conclusion? Be very careful, have due diligence before investing! (Read more: Guide on Identifying Scam Coins)
Unlike in the stock market, though, the token does “not confer any ownership rights in the tech company, or entitle the owner to any sort of cash flows like dividends,” explained Arthur Hayes of BitMEX, one bitcoin exchange.
No Track Record: The majority of ICOs don’t even have a working product, just a conceptual white paper that outlines how the coin will work. Not only that, ICOs have been asking for an incredibly large amount of funding. For instance, the biggest ICO was the recent Tezos crowdsale, which netted a whopping $232 million. Valuations like this is non-existent in a traditional setting.
(Read more: Crypto ICO vs. Stock IPO: What’s the Difference?)
How Can I Participate?
Look at resources or outlets that features the latest ICOs. Knowing which ICOs are coming up will enable you to plan ahead, especially for ICOs that has a whitelist. A whitelist ICO means that you have to register in advance to participate in the ICOs, which are usually hallmarks of popular ICOs that have a limited number of coins to offer. Here’s a list of various resources for ICOs:
Step 2: Perform Your Due Diligence
You should perform your own research to ascertain that the ICO is a good project. There are many key factors that must be considered for you to effectively assess an ICO. We’ve summarized the key elements you need for identifying a good coin in our free Fundamental Analysis Checklist.
You can also look at reviews and analysis done by others to verify the potential of the ICO. Based on our evaluation, good ICO review resources include:
Crush Crypto: A website dedicated to analyzing ICOs through detailed fundamental analysis
Reddit: Certain channels feature ICO reviews done by community members, such as /r/Cryptocurrency, /r/icocrypto, /r/ethtrader
Step 3: ICO Participation Process
Opening an Exchange Account
Assuming that you’re confident after performing your research and want to proceed with participating in the ICO, then you should open a fiat-accepting cryptocurrency exchange account to convert your domestic fiat currency into popular cryptocurrency of Bitcoin (BTC) or Ether (ETH). If you have not opened an exchange account, please look at our Crypto Guide 101: Choosing The Best Cryptocurrency Exchange.
Opening Your Own Wallets to Participate in ICO
It is absolutely essential that you have your own wallets. Your exchange account (e.g. Poloniex/Bittrex/Kraken) DOES NOT COUNT as your own wallets, as you do not control their private keys. Participating in an ICO requires you to send BTC or ETH from your personal, private wallets. If you send it from an exchange, you WILL NOT get the ICO tokens since the transfer originates from the wallet of the exchange and technically you do not own any wallets in an exchange. Please read the Guide to Cryptocurrency Wallets: Why Do You Need Wallets? to learn about the importance of having your own wallets and how you can set it up.
I would recommend using Ether as the base cryptocurrency as many ICO coins are compliant with the Ethereum standard called ERC 20, and the most convenient wallet is MyEtherWallet (MEW). Read Guide to Cryptocurrency Wallets: Opening a MyEtherWallet (MEW) to find out the steps to opening your own MEW wallet. Alternatively, you can also open a free Bitcoin software wallet here.
Follow the ICO Instructions
More often than not, ICOs will provide a step-by-step guide to participating in their ICOs. You should join their official communication channels such as Slack or Telegram to receive the latest updates and ask questions directly to the developing team. Here’s an example of an ICO guide:
Step 4: Exchanges to Trade ICO Coins
If you believe in the tech, then hold the coins for the medium to long-term, or until your price target is hit (e.g. 2x, 3x, 10x of capital). If you just want to flip it, then sell it once it reaches an exchange that usually lists an ICO. Alternatively, if you’ve missed out on the ICO, you can buy it at an exchange. Here is the list of common exchanges that have a tendency to list ICO coins:
Tip: Always verify your transactions when you send your coins from one location to another. Here’s a guide that can help: Guide to Verifying Cryptocurrency Transactions)
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CommentsBOCA RATON, Fla. -- Back in January, Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll laid out his offseason plan for Russell Wilson: It was time to go to quarterback school.
Wilson's continued development was probably the most encouraging aspect of the 2015 season. He led the NFL in passer rating (110.1), set career highs in completion percentage (68.1) and yards per attempt (8.3) and finished the year on a 24 touchdown/one interception tear.
After seeing Wilson make great strides as a pocket passer, Carroll said the next step was to really help him understand what defenses were trying to do against him. On Wednesday at the owners' meetings, Carroll expanded on that thought.
"It's always the right time to keep growing, but I just think he has come the furthest, and he knows the most, and he is most aware, and he has the benefit of the five years of putting things together," Carroll said. "I think his vision will be even more broadened and receptive to what is going on in the game. There's nothing that Russell can't handle, so I need to creatively keep coming up with ways, as we all do as coaches, to keep pressing him forward so that he can understand more about the game so that he can function at the highest level he can function at.
"There is nothing holding him back -- work ethic, he has the smarts, the mentality and the physical makeup to do whatever you can do in this game. We just need to keep pressing ahead in that regard so he can totally command all aspects of the game."
Wilson is only 27 years old. And while much of the offseason discussion has been about the offensive line, the truth is that as long as the quarterback is healthy and the defense is intact, the Seahawks will be in the mix to make a Super Bowl run.
The Seahawks are 46-18 in the regular season since Wilson became the starter. They have made the playoffs all four years, reached the Super Bowl twice and won it once.
Individually, Wilson has made the Pro Bowl three times, but Carroll is quick to point out that he likely has not yet peaked as a quarterback.
"I don’t think he’s going to make it this year," Carroll said. "I think he’s got a few more years. It’s hard for you guys to realize it, but you go back to Aaron [Rodgers], he didn’t play for a long time. He was watching the game, watching [Brett] Favre play, and then it took him some years to get going, and he’s like year nine, year 10 or whatever the heck he is now. But he’s played a lot of years. Russell is just trying to get into it, so I think there is more football for him to understand, there’s more for him to command, and we are going to keep going for it. We can’t talk to him now... so this is kind of a dead period for growth. But when we get him back in there, we are going to get after it."WASHINGTON — As House appropriators approved a spending bill that rolled back some of the proposed cuts in the administration’s 2018 budget request for NASA, Senate colleagues raised similar concerns about cuts to agency programs.
The commerce, justice and science (CJS) subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee approved on a voice vote June 29 a spending bill that includes $19.872 billion for NASA in fiscal year 2018. Members made no changes to the bill, which the committee released the day before the markup.
“NASA has had far too much on its plate for too long, and too little funding,” Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas), chairman of the subcommittee, said in remarks at the markup. “I’m determined to see that turned around.”
The bill provides nearly $780 million more for NASA than the administration’s request, including an increase of more than $615 million for exploration programs, such as the Space Launch System and Orion. “We made sure the Space Launch System is fully funded, and that astronauts will have the ability to go beyond low Earth orbit in the Orion crew vehicle,” Culberson said.
The bill restores funding for NASA’s Office of Education, which was slated to be closed in the budget proposal. The bill provides $90 million for the office, including funds for two programs in that office, Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) and National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program, that would have been shut down.
“The bill largely rejects effort to cut funding for the education efforts at both NSF and NASA, which help inspire and train our next generation of scientists,” said Rep. José Serrano (D-N.Y.), ranking member of the subcommittee.
He criticized, though, cuts to NASA’s Earth science program, saying the bill provides $50 million less than what the administration requested, which was already a cut of $167 million from 2017 levels. “The result is that we will jeopardize our ability to improve our scientific understanding of our planet and its changes,” he said.
The bill does not include specific funding levels for the divisions within NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, or other breakouts for NASA programs. Such details are typically included in the report accompanying the bill, which will be released prior to the markup by the full appropriations committee after the July 4 recess.
Senate criticism about NASA cuts
The House subcommittee markup took place a few hours after the Senate Appropriations Committee’s CJS subcommittee held a hearing on the NASA budget request. Members there raised similar concerns about cuts to education, Earth science, exploration and other NASA programs in the administration’s request.
“While this overall cut is less than what many other agencies experienced in the president’s budget request, it still reflects a significant reduction of $561 million,” said Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), chairman of the subcommittee, in his opening remarks. “This budget request attempts to navigate a challenging fiscal environment, but would disrupt ongoing missions and delay future exploration for years to come.”
Shelby raised concerns about cuts in human exploration programs, notably SLS and Orion, that he feared would delay future missions. “The current administration picks up where the previous administration left off, by projecting a lofty vision for space while providing a budget that keeps the vision from leaving Earth,” he said.
NASA Acting Administrator Robert Lightfoot, the sole witness at the hearing, said the agency was still working on a revised schedule for the first SLS/Orion mission as it deals with welding issues with the SLS and delays with the European-provided Orion service module. “We’re in the middle of a relook at the schedule,” he said. “We’re trying to get an understanding of where those are before we come back with a full-up plan.” He added he expected a report by the end of August on the schedule for that initial mission.
Several other senators raised questions about cuts to NASA education programs. While Lightfoot said that outreach programs would continue within NASA’s mission directorates, some senators signaled their intent to reverse the closure of other education programs.
“EPSCoR is another one that is important in our state as well, to a lot of our educational institutions,” said Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.V.) after Lightfoot said that program would be shut down in the budget request. “So I think we need to rethink this strategy, and I’m going to be working on that across the aisle and with the chair.”
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), ranking member of the subcommittee, opposed the education cuts as well. “I certainly disagree with the idea that we’re going to zero out the education program and EPSCoR, and I hope that this committee will be persuaded that that’s not the right direction to go in,” she said.
Shaheen and others also criticized Earth science cuts, including plans to cancel several missions. That includes the Earth imaging part of the ongoing Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) mission, launched in 2015. “I don’t understand the justification is. Why does that make sense?” she asked.
“We believe we have 20 spacecraft already on orbit that give us the same data, if not better data, based on the sensors that we have,” Lightfoot said, “and we’d rather put our research and analysis efforts around those spacecraft rather than DSCOVR.”
Another issue at the hearing was the plan to end funding for the Restore-L satellite servicing mission, putting instead a smaller amount of funding into a more general satellite servicing technology demonstration effort. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) said he was “perplexed” by the request, noting that Restore-L was on schedule for a 2020 launch to refuel the Landsat-7 spacecraft.
Lightfoot told Manchin and other senators that NASA’s approach will emphasize partnerships with industry. “We’re still going to develop the technologies that will allow us to do satellite servicing,” Lightfoot said. “We think this is a great opportunity for public private partnerships, to allow commercial folks to take our technologies we develop and build the systems you’re talking about.”
Manchin was not convinced. “I would respectfully ask you to reconsider,” he said. “I’m not sure the private sector is going to step in with so much left undone.”Ontario will become the fourth province to implement some sort of carbon-pricing model, Premier Kathleen Wynne pledged Monday.
After years of discussion, Ontario has finally settled on a cap-and-trade model of carbon pricing and will join Quebec and California in building a North American market for the carbon credits. B.C. already has a carbon tax on many goods, and Alberta has a very limited tax on just the province’s largest emitters. Over 75 per cent of Canadians will live in a province with carbon pricing once Ontario gets its system running.
Almost all of the premiers will meet Tuesday in Quebec City to discuss climate change, and expect Wynne and Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard to try and get more to buy into cap-and-trade
The big news is that Ontario has chosen what type of carbon pricing it will pursue. Many details remain up in the air, and the specifics, or even a start date, won’t be revealed until the fall, when Ontario will release a revamped climate change strategy. But here’s what we do know about Ontario’s plans and what the rest of Canada is doing:
1. What’s carbon pricing?
Carbon pricing is the idea of charging polluters, whether businesses or individuals, for their greenhouse-gas emissions. It can take many forms, from regulation to direct taxes to a cap-and-trade system. The whole purposes is to reflect the monetary value of such pollution, even recoup some of the costs of climate change, and to decrease future emissions.
2. What’s cap-and-trade?
A system under which a government, whether national or subnational like Ontario, limits the amount a given industry can pollute and then allows companies to sell unused parts of their allotment. These caps can vary by industry (Quebec’s aluminum industry is often cited as an example), but once companies exceed their allotted amount they can buy more carbon credits from the government or buy them from a company that didn’t use all of its emissions allowance. That in turn creates a market for carbon credits.
3. What will the Ontario scheme cost you?
This is the harder part as many of the details are yet to be worked out. But, in both Quebec and California cap-and-trade has added a few cents to the price of gas, estimates of how much range from two cents to 10. The Ontario system could also include rebates or encouragement for households to install energy preserving technologies, such as automatic thermostats. Wynne also pointed out climate change already costs consumers dearly, whether it’s through higher house insurance costs or higher costs of food because of drought. The Progressive Conservatives at Queen’s Park dismissed the plan as a new “tax on everything” since polluters will pass costs onto consumers.
4. How much revenue will it raise and where will it go?
Estimates suggests that proposed system will add anywhere to $1 billion to $2 billion a year to Ontario’s coffers. Wynne said this money will be “reinvested” to either in green projects and businesses, transit and other eco-friendly ideas. A government spokesperson said it has yet to be determined whether that money will flow into general revenues, which could pay for anything from salaries to new schools, or if it will be “siloed” away. Whatever the final plan is, the Liberals promise where that money goes and how it will be spent will be transparent.
5. How is it different from a carbon tax?
B.C. implemented a revenue-neutral carbon tax in 2008. That means everything from gas to businesses who emit paid a bit more in taxes, but anything the province took in, it gave back through other tax cuts or rebates. The purpose is to change behaviour not raise revenue, though there are revenue-generating carbon taxes that do both. Some estimates suggest B.C.’s taxes have reduced fossil fuel use (not just gas for your car) by over 17 per cent since 2008, though other studies have questioned whether it had any effect at all.
6. Are there other models?
Instead of a strict carbon tax, some jurisdictions — like Alberta — target the heaviest polluters with taxes set against how much they emit each year. When Alberta imposed its greenhouse-gas emissions regime in 2007, it was the first province to legislate greenhouse-gas emissions from large companies. Some say Alberta should go further, but no one expects the parties in the oil-rich province to suggest that in the middle of an election.
7. What is the Western Climate Initiative?
The Western Climate Initiative is a group of U.S. and Mexican states and Canadian Provinces, including Ontario, B.C., Quebec and Manitoba, that have joined together to tackle climate change. The Initiative itself provides administrative support for coordination and helps to run the growing market for carbon credits created through cap-and-trade.
8. What are other provinces doing?
Many provinces are working towards carbon pricing of some kind, in addition to the four who already have some form. Manitoba, as mentioned, is part of the Western Climate Initiative. Saskatchewan has hinted it wants to follow Alberta’s model. Nova Scotia is considering a recent report on tax revenues that recommended revenue-neutral carbon pricing. Both Newfoundland and the Northwest Territories have studied cap-and-trade |
The film is about a S&M relationship between a character played by Micky Rourke and one played by Kim Basinger. At first Basinger's character is drawn to Rourke and they begin an S&M style consensual relationship. As the film goes on, Rourke becomes abusive and the sex becomes non-consensual, but the beauty of the film is that Basinger is eventually able to let go and take something from the relationship--a heightened sense of her sexuality and desires. There's an infamous scene with Rourke feeding Basinger a number of food items while she's blindfolded. It’s basically a series of soft core money shots. It is a consensual scene. When conversation began in class, a white male student started talking about the scene as one of consent. Four hands shot up. One said, “no—it is clearly not consensual.” Other students concurred. They argued that if someone is in an abusive relationship, they can never consent to sex because they are being manipulated.
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This triggered me. I was furious.
Sexual assault survivor support is about empowerment. The model says, "Hey! It’s not for you to tell the survivor what happened to them; that's their story, they know, don't fucking label it." What these students were essentially doing was stripping every person in an abusive relationship of all their agency. They were telling every survivor that they were raped, even when the survivor may have wanted to have sex with their abuser. They were claiming god like knowledge of every sexual encounter. And they were only 20. If that. Their frontal lobes haven't even fully developed.
I was done with it. I was drained. I was anxious. I was tired. I was fed up. But I didn't want to be. I had been teaching for ten years with passion.
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I went to get advice from a colleague in the department. He listened and said that during that time of the semester, students tended to get testy. He thought it was seasonal. I asked him if he ever had such a hard time with his students and he said, "No, I am an old white dude, I really think that as a young woman of color they probably just aren't afraid of you, they see you as a peer." For the record, I'm not that young but he may have been right. And here's the irony, all of the students who were upset were the feminists, the activists, and there they were, treating a woman of color professor like she wasn't an authority while treating old white dudes like they are.
There has been a lot written about triggering and trigger warnings, discussions about how triggers are often not explicit references to one’s traumatic experiences. Smells, tastes, different objects, they can all be triggering. Think of Proust's madeleine and the surge of memories about his mother. Memory, emotional trauma, grief and healing are complicated and unique to an individual’s experience. Blanket trigger warnings treat them as impersonal predictable entities. The current movement of calling for trigger warnings prioritizes the shielding of students from the traumatic, whereas, ironically, so many other therapeutic models focus on talking through and confronting trauma as a mode of healing.
Recent work by Greg Lukainoff and Jonathan Haidt looks in depth at this phenomenon, the call for safe spaces and trigger warnings. Their tone could be read as condescending to people who are survivors of trauma, but I do think they raise a number of important points. Similarly, the work of Laura Kipnis on trigger warnings is crucial and illuminating, but in an unfortunate and sometimes typical academic fashion, it can be snobbish and dismissive (Jack Halberstam is also in this camp). Here lies the problem. Taking a tone like that just pisses students off even more. I'm not saying that if we said these things nicely, students would suddenly get it; they won't. I am living proof of that. I’m just pointing out the fact that putting on an academic face of elite speak isn't helping either. Maybe pointing out the horrifying political stance these students are making would be more effective.
When a Duke Student refuses to read a book because it has lesbian sex in it and students who are liberal, who are activists, also refuse to read and watch things because they see it as triggering, we see the collusion of the right and left wing. When I get an evaluation from this course that says, "as a white male heterosexual I felt unsafe in this course," and another that reads, "as a survivor this course was traumatizing," we are at a moment that needs some radical re-thinking. Do students of a radical nature think that if they are seeing eye to eye with the most extreme conservative element of the population that they are doing something right? Fighting for something positive? Participating in something different?
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I don't have the answers. Hell, I gave up on the whole thing. This was the last straw for me. I didn’t know the answers but I knew this was a crisis. Colleges are the new helicopter parents, places where the quest for emotional safety and psychic healing leads not to learning, but regression.
I don't know about trigger warnings outside classes that deal with race, gender and sexuality, but I do know that if you promote trigger warnings in subjects that are supposed to make people feel uncomfortable, you're basically promoting a culture of extreme privilege, cause I'm pretty sure that the trans women who are being murdered weekly, the black men who are victims of police brutality daily, and the neighborhoods in America that are plagued by everyday violence, aren’t given any trigger warnings. Let’s be honest: life is a trigger.LONDON (Reuters) - Recruiting and keeping staff is having a bigger negative impact on smaller businesses in Britain than the post-Brexit vote fall in the pound or a weakening economy, a survey has found.
People walk through the financial district of Canary Wharf, London, Britain 28 September 2017. REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde
Firms are divided over what Britain’s exit from the European Union will entail and crave certainty as they deal with higher costs since the vote to leave the bloc last year, a survey of more than 1,000 small and medium sized enterprises said.
The survey by Bibby Financial Services found that 41 percent of those firms polled cited finding and keeping good quality staff as among the biggest headaches facing them.
Smaller businesses can be more exposed to uncertainty over staff turnover, especially if they invest in training employees only to see them leave.
Another survey by the Confederation of British Industry showed a dip in business confidence, and said concern over hiring unskilled labour was at its highest since 2004.
SMEs are already feeling the effects of the vote to leave the EU, which prompted an 11 percent fall in the pound.
The Bibby survey found that 34 percent of SMEs identified the increased cost of imports as a major impact to their business since the vote.
However, while 22 percent said they had seen declining domestic sales, 21 percent said that domestic sales had increased since the referendum in June last year.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan joined with Britain’s bigger business in warning that companies would start moving jobs and investment out of the country if they do not get a transition deal soon.
Companies surveyed were roughly split on whether they expected there to be a transition deal before Brexit.
“Despite the clock counting down to March 2019, there are almost as many unanswered questions facing UK SMEs as on the day the EU referendum result was known,” said Edward Winterton, UK Chief Executive Officer at Bibby Financial Services.
“Right now businesses need to start planning ahead. The UK and EU simply must agree a new trade deal, reducing the current state of uncertainty UK business finds itself in.”
(This version of the story corrects “exports” to “imports” in paragraph seven).The Return of David Booth
Something was up with David Booth earlier this season, but he's been excellent for the Vancouver Canucks since returning from his conditioning stint a month ago. He's been an interesting case since the trade bringing him here from Florida at the beginning of the 2011-2012 season.
Booth was sent down to Utica for a conditioning stint on November 4, and returned for two home games against San Jose and Dallas, both losses, before finding himself back in the lineup for good a game before the Canucks' recent four-game road trip. In the 11 games played since his re-insertion, Booth has four goals on 27 shots. The shots are the more encouraging sign: in his first 11 games on the season, Booth had played reasonably-well on defence, enough to make him a plus player and lead the team in penalties drawn, but his offence was lacking, having averaged just over one shot per game.
"Shots per game" is a fine way to judge an offensive player's contribution. Goals are sporadic occurrences and shots are a more repetitive indicator of a player's ability. Shooting percentage acts as a sort of random walk that tends to revert to the mean over long stretches, and the players that generate the most shots consistently tend to be the top scorers. Most notably, perhaps, is that since the 2005-2006 season, Alexander Ovechkin, the league's best goal scorer by 90 goals, averaged over five shots a game, and eight of the top ten individual seasons for shots per game, including the top six, belong to him.
So after 11 games, how did David Booth look compared to the rest of his career?
Shots/GP Shots/60 Min 5v5 2008 3.12 11.45 2009 3.42 11.04 2010 3.39 12.51 2011 3.41 10.51 2012 2.56 9.26 2013 2.25 10.69 2014* 1.09 5.55
(Data from Hockey Analysis and Hockey Reference)
The first column is just shots on goal per game. The second column is shots on goal per 60 minutes of 5-on-5 play, and while you could argue that the decrease in Booth's shots rate between 2011 and 2012 is due to lesser ice-time, that definitely wasn't the case at the start of the 2013-2014 season. Booth had gotten unlucky in his limited time in the 2013 season due to it being shortened by injury, and just 3.7% of his shots reached the back of the net. Unlucky, but that excuse vanished at the start of this year.
Here is his shot production since his conditioning stint:
Shots/GP Shots/60 Min 5v5 2014 pre-Utica 1.09 5.55 2014 post-Utica 2.23 9.49
(Data from ExtraSkater's game logs)
Whether the stint gave Booth more time to heal, or simply lit a fire under the Detroit native, Booth's recent numbers look very much-more like his 2012 numbers than those from the early part of the season. Also, since being re-inserted into the lineup permanently, he's taken 2.45 shots per game and his shots per 60 minutes rate is back in the double digits, at 10.39. He's been rewarded through that time with four goals, bringing his "goals per 82 games" rate back up to 17 on the season and 20 over his brief stint as a Canuck. It's still below 25, which is what Booth came to Vancouver advertised as, but 17 goals is just above average production for a second line player in the National Hockey League. We'll see what happens from now until the end of the season, of course, but there are some very encouraging signs for Booth in the individual shot department. Again, he's a very interesting case because his production has been extremely volatile over the last five seasons, but in the NHL, volatility breeds opportunity, and capitalizing on a hot scoring streak is something the Canucks need to do right now.
As for the rest of Booth's numbers, he remains a tough nut to crack. The Canucks have put up good Corsi numbers with Booth on the ice, out-shooting their opposition 197 to 172 in score-close situations with Booth on, for a rate of 53.4%, slightly higher than the rate when he's off the ice. His penalty differential is still a strong +3, which is tied for second on the club with Dan Hamhuis, Alex Burrows, and Mike Santorelli behind Daniel Sedin's very strong +7. Getting more penalties called in your favour generally happens when the puck is on your stick, so, again, encouraging signs for Vancouver, who seemed to be missing an extra 20-goal winger through the first bit of the season. Booth's return has been more consistent with his career-to-date, and I expect that kind of performance going forward. Anything above 2.50 is a good and sustainable shots per game rate, and with a normalized shooting percentage, should add up to a goal every four or five games. Booth is just below that, but ought to get more minutes in the days going forward as he improves.
Chris Tanev's penalty killing proficiency
For an individual player perspective, the best story this season has been Mike Santorelli, but over the last four years, would anybody deny that the distinction goes to Chris Tanev's rise from an undrafted free agent to a player on the team's number one defensive pairing?
There are several ridiculous things about Tanev this season. The first has been his minutes played. He's one of 18 defencemen in the league to have more than 20 minutes played per game, including at least two more minutes shorthanded than on the powerplay. At 2:29, Tanev leads the Canucks in shorthanded ice time per game, and has had just 14 seconds of powerplay time per game. A lot of big-minute defencemen rack up minutes on the powerplay, such as Dan Hamhuis, Alex Edler and Jason Garrison, but among the 94 defencemen at 20 or more minutes, Tanev has the 12th fewest powerplay minutes, there with notorious stalwarts Brayden Coburn, Andrew Ference and Johnny Oduya.
Second, his quality of competition. There are several different ways to quantify the level of competition against, but my favourite is counting the ice-time of the opponents a player lined up against. Tanev's forward opponents play 26.5% of their team's shifts, which is second on the Canucks defence behind Hamhuis' 26.7%, and also 36th in the NHL, ahead of guys like Ryan Suter, Victor Hedman, P.K. Subban and Drew Doughty. Quality of competition does not "make" the defenceman, but the Canucks have been a better team with Tanev on the ice at even strength than off of it. They've had a 53.4% share of all shot attempts (Corsi) in score-close situations, which is half a percentage point better than the team when Tanev is off the ice. That makes his team-leading shot blocking number (51 at even strength) even more notable. A lot of shot blockers rack up numbers because they spend a lot of time in their own end, but that doesn't appear to be the case for Tanev. When he's on the ice, the Canucks have the puck more than they don't, and force the other team to block the shots.
Third, though, is this incredible statistic from Thomas Drance dug up Saturday night after his shorthanded tally against Boston:
Chris Tanev is now over 88 minutes of 4-on-5 icetime this season. Vancouver's goal differential in those 88 minutes? +1. — Thomas Drance (@ThomasDrance) December 15, 2013
The Canucks conceded a powerplay goal against in the Minnesota game, but it was Kevin Bieksa and Jason Garrison on the ice for Vancouver, so the statistic continues to hold up. The.944 save percentage goaltenders have put up with Tanev on during 4-on-5 situations helps, but through Sunday's game, Tanev was 7th in the league among defenceman in the fewest shots conceded per 20 minutes of shorthanded ice-time.
In May of 2010, do you think that the Canucks scouting staff envisioned Tanev would be one of the league's elite penalty killers before his 24th birthday?Aaron Paul has proven over and over again that he's the coolest TV star around, and now there's even more proof.
The "Breaking Bad" star surprised a group of Irish tourists in a sightseeing van in front of his Hollywood home. To the shock of Paul McNeive and his family, the two-time Emmy winner spied the tour bus and actually came outside to greet them!
"Sometimes I see the van, and sometimes I don't. And when I do, I always try to say hello," he told McNeive, who captured the encounter on camera.
[Related: 'Breaking Bad' at Comic-Con: That Guy Dressed Up as Walter White Might Actually Be Bryan Cranston]
Paul was hanging out with his family, who had flown in to celebrate the final season premiere of his acclaimed AMC drama.
This isn't the first time Paul has shown fans the love. He and co-star Bryan Cranston thrilled premiere attendees by driving to the event in the show's iconic RV. A couple weeks ago, Paul tirelessly signed autographs and posed for pictures at Urban Outfitters during San Diego's Comic-Con. And in the past he would tweet out the number of a public pay phone and take calls from fans.
All that's left for him to do is show up at someone's house for dinner! (Come by anytime, Aaron.)
Check out "Breaking Bad" photos:Browsing your website does not mean I want your spam
fred benenson Blocked Unblock Follow Following Aug 9, 2016
I recently fell down a deep dark hole on the internet.
It began by researching a part for my central air conditioning but ended up with me stumbling upon a terrible development in modern advertising: spam driven by my browsing habits.
If that sounds like a privacy invading hellscape you’d like to avoid, read on, dear reader.
It was one of those manic googling sessions; copying and pasting in serial numbers, clicking frantically, trying to make sense of a piece of hardware I had assumed I would never need to understand.
I can’t remember if I found what I was looking for on sears.com, but I certainly wasn’t interested in buying anything from them.
Sears wasn’t about to let me off the hook so easily: a week or so later, I received an email asking me if I was still interested.
Also, emoji in subject lines from marketers is officialy lame
Interested? Interested in what?
Since I keep pretty good track of what newsletters and promotions I’m subscribed to, I was certain I never signed up for a Sears list – I don’t even have an account on sears.com:
So how did Sears get my email address?
At the bottom of the spam was a clue from a company named Criteo:
This message is personalized by Criteo Email based on your previous browsing behavior. To understand why you received this email and access Criteo Email privacy policy, click here. If you want to opt-out only from Criteo Email personalized emails, click here.
On Criteo’s website they further explain how this retargeting works:
…if you browse on one of our advertisers’ website and click on a product of that website, you may receive a personalized email promoting that product or similar items from that advertiser.
But this doesn’t really explain how they got my email address— it’s not that that big of a secret, but clearly no human was involved in this process, so I was extremely curious how Sears managed to sign me up without ever knowing my email in the first place.
On Criteo’s website, it says received they received my email from a “partner” database:
What partner? What database? There’s no explanation of who gave my email address to Criteo.
But after puzzling through their site, here is what I think happened:
I am signed up to some platform which is a Criteo partner. It’s entirely unclear who this partner is. While Criteo boasts a “close partnership” with Facebook, Facebook claims that they do not share personally identifying information such as your email address with ad partners. Regardless, a platform with my email address gave it to Criteo. That platform dropped a Criteo cookie in my browser at some point in the past. That platform delivered my information (a way to identify me using a cookie and a hash of my email address) to Criteo. A couple weeks ago servers alerted Criteo that my Criteo ID was browsing sears.com. They are able to do this because sears.com loads Criteo code and uses a criteo.com cookie, screenshot here. Criteo queries its partner for my email address when Sears wants to send spam to users who browsed their website. Sears gets my email via Criteo and subscribes me to a newsletter and sends me the spam.
Criteo (and their partners, like sears.com) have successfully performed an end-run around the traditional newsletter opt-in process.
By managing email lists and functioning as an advertising retargeting network, Criteo enables spammers to enroll innocent users browsing the web to 3rd party newsletters.
Criteo claims that they “never stored [sic] any personal information”, but at some point they have to get my email address to give to Sears.
Here’s how they describe how that happens:
Only when we craft the email on behalf of our advertisers, we receive your name, surname and email address from our partners, should you have consented to receive their emails marketing. At no point are these identifying data stored by Criteo Email. Criteo Email deletes these data as soon as the email is sent to you.
Let’s ignore the fact that they assume Sears had my consent (they didn’t).
Criteo’s claim that they didn’t store my information is besides the point. The problem is that I got signed up for spam because I was merely browsing the web, and now a third party has my name and email address. Criteo gets to claim they don’t store that information, but what does it matter if it ends up in the hands of spammers like Sears?
This transaction breaks a core promise using the internet: just because I visit a website doesn’t mean I consent to getting spam from it.
Is this legal?
Unfortunately, in America, it appears to be. The CAN SPAM act actually allows direct marketing email messages to be sent to anyone, without permission, until the recipient explicitly requests that they cease (opt-out).
That said, Criteo is a company based in France, where email laws are more strict: the EU requires users to opt-in into direct marketing unless there’s a preexisting business relationship. Whether browsing a website could be considered a “preexisting business relationship” is anyone’s guess, but my gut is that Criteo is in an extremely grey area of the law if they’re doing this to European users.
But is it right?
It’s one thing to have on-page display ads follow a user around the web, but it is another to use retargeting to sign users up for spam. And spam might be just the beginning: the metadata about your browsing habits circulated by companies like Criteo could be used for much worse things than sending you junk mail.
What happens if Criteo partners with a background check service? Or an insurance company? Suddenly your browsing habits might be curtailing real life opportunities that have nothing to do the web.
And combined with the risks of traditional data brokers, the power of ad retargeting data is ripe for abuse.
Call me old-school, but this is a pretty depressing development of the web.
But until legislation catches up to regulating the negative consequences of retargeting, there may not be much you can do about this besides blocking cookies, ads, and opting out of Criteo’s entire system by submitting your email address here.Forget the most important meal of the day. Brunch is the most important meal of the weekend, and with the start of the spring season, we thought it was the perfect time to revisit our roundup of brilliant Philadelphia brunches. Especially since we’ve added an entirely new “alfresco” section, featuring our top picks for where to brunch outdoors.
And with this weekend’s gorgeous weather, it’s the perfect opportunity to get out and do exactly that.
Happy brunching!
Note: Prices mentioned are accurate as of the published date, always check with the restaurant for the latest prices.
**Update: As of September 2013, we’ve published a brand new best brunch in Philadelphia guide, which you can check out right here.
Brunch Newcomers
• Red Owl Tavern: Adjacent to the gorgeous new Hotel Monaco and overlooking Independence Mall, Red Owl Tavern offers a perfect perch for brunch on Saturday and Sunday. Snag a seat on the new sidewalk patio or in the airy dining room to choose from chef Guillermo Tellez’s feel-good dishes like build-your-own oatmeal or granola pancakes and indulgent eats like Denver-cut steak and eggs or huevos rancheros.
• Honey’s Sit ‘n’ Eat on South: The long-awaited second location of Honey’s opened on South Street, and the Graduate Hospital neighborhood rejoiced. Believe the hype and go for weekend brunch, which might include challah French toast, enfrijoladas or biscuits with gravy.
• Ela: Refined dining extends to Sunday brunch at Ela, the stylish Queen Village restaurant from chefs Jason Cichonski and Chip Roman. Dine indoors or out on elevated morning makers like biscuits with bone marrow, short rib eggs Benedict and French toast with hot chocolate chip cookie dough. The brunch cocktail list deserves attention, too; try a truffled or kimchee Bloody Mary.
• Miles Table: With just a handful of tables, this intimate Graduate Hospital eatery keeps things simple and fresh. Serving breakfast all day, everyday, folks can stay or take-away eggs sandwiches, bagels and whitefish and omelets with a side of Miles Sriracha turkey sausage.
• The Cambridge: With all the furnishings and fittings of a traditional pub, The Cambridge invites diners to kick back and settle in either indoors or on the backyard patio for its weekend brunch. Start with a house-made Bloody Mary before digging in to pork-belly sliders with a quail egg or a Taylor pork roll and chorizo egg sandwich.
• The Mildred: House-made and local are the mantras at this Bella Vista neighborhood spot, which recently debuted alfresco seating. On Saturdays and Sundays, The Mildred dishes an accessible-yet-sophisticated brunch, serving plates like beetroot-cured wild salmon and ricotta pancakes.
• SoWe: In Graduate Hospital, hungry brunch-goers already know newcomer SoWe will satisfy with hearty fare and casual digs. Served up both Saturday and Sunday, menu standouts include piled plates ranging from sweet (carrot-cake waffles, bacon beignets) to savory (Kentucky hot brown, house-cured lox). Vegetarians will do well here, too, with veg-friendly dishes like vegan Ruebens and vegetable hash.
• Sophia’s: Chef Christopher Lee’s contemporary American bistro, Sophia’s, began brunch service in April with a curated menu of breakfast stars like brioche French toast and classic eggs Benedict, and lunch bites like Virginia ham and Gruyere pressed sandwiches and meatballs with polenta. Don’t miss the Smokin’ Mary cocktail — a Bloody laced with smoked poblanos.
• Metropolitan Cafe: Though a meal may be made solely of Metropolitan Bakery’s fantastic just-baked breads and pastries, at Metropolitan Cafe daily brunching options reach beyond baked goods with a modest menu spanning house-cured salmon to creative grilled cheese.
• Bainbridge Street Barrel House: This Queen Village pub maintains its bar-appropriate menu through Saturday and Sunday brunch with heavy-hitters like bourbon-banana pancakes and a French toast burger with bacon cream cheese whiskey maple syrup. Lighter fare features prominently too, though, with smoked-salmon eggs Benedict, quinoa salad and nice selection of omelets.
Alfresco Brunches
• Milk and Honey Cafe: Along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in verdant Sister Cities Park, an outpost of West Philly-staple Milk and Honey keeps families and museum-goers well fed. On Saturdays and Sundays, a $10.95 per person prix-fixe brunch includes coffee or tea and from-scratch waffles or made-to-order eggs. Snag an alfresco table for an exceedingly pleasant experience.
• Alla Spina: Marc Vetri’s Alla Spina on North Broad Street has an Italian Sunday brunch that’s a must-try. The pig’s head hash poutine is a winner, especially washed down with one of the excellent brunch cocktails. When the weather is fine outdoor tables fill quickly and floor-to-ceiling garage doors open widely.
• Morgan’s Pier: Morgan’s Pier is set to open its doors on Thursday, May 9. The Delaware River waterfront spot boasts outdoor seating for more than 400, a beer garden, spectacular river views and casual fare. In short, its an awesome brunch destination. For the 2013 season, the Pier’s new chef, George Sabatino (formerly of Stateside), is set to release his take on what’s best to eat in the great outdoors.
• Rittenhouse Tavern: Saturday and Sunday brunch at Rittenhouse Tavern, combines deliciously fresh plates (we love the heritage turkey schnitzel with redeye gravy) with sophisticated environs. Venture inside the Philadelphia Art Alliance for restaurant access, and whether you’re in the mural-adorned dining room or outside in the picturesque courtyard, you’ll feel transported.
• Bar Ferdinand: This popular Northern Liberties spot has brunch on both Saturdays and Sundays, with a good deal of outdoor seating for sunny days. The menu offers decadent Spanish dishes like an open-faced grilled chorizo sandwich paired with a fried egg, spinach and pine nuts and churros loaded with chocolate. You can also get in on the awesome brunch special, $3 a glass or $12 per pitcher of mimosas or Bloody Marys.
• The Industry: On Saturdays and Sundays, this Pennsport bar from the folks behind Good Dog aimed at restaurant industry members dishes up brunch to the masses. There is a whole section of the menu devoted just to Hangover Cures, and bottomless coffee for three bucks.
• Sidecar Bar & Grille: Graduate Hospital’s popular Sidecar Bar & Grille serves a priced-right Saturday and Sunday brunch with a great range of options for any appetite, whether you’re craving Bloodies or bellinis, burritos or Benedicts.
• Cantina Los Caballitos: This East Passyunk staple offers an extensive fiesta of a brunch every weekend. Cantina’s comprehensive Mexican menu offers all manner of empanadas, tostadas and tacos, plus a full suite of brunch beverages like tequila-laden Mexican favorites and Bloody Marys infused with garlic and basil.
• Silk City: It may look like a typical diner on the outside, but inside Silk City serves up anything but standard brunch fare. And what better to go with smothered chicken and waffles, cider-braised pork belly hash or shrimp and grits than one of the specialty lunch cocktails (the options change weekly) or a beer from the 35+ option suds list?
• Parc: Oui, monsieur, we will take another of those delicious bread baskets. Parc’s brunch menu just gets better after the freshly baked bread, with a perfect quiche Lorraine, chicken paillard, pommes frites and other French plates that pair perfectly with prime Rittenhouse Square people-watching.
• Talula’s Garden: Stephen Starr and Aimee Olexy’s Washington Square spot offers elegant plates starring local ingredients during its Sunday brunch, like seared scallops and farro salad with market veggies and an omelet with local Kennett Square mushrooms. And for those who prefer garden views (which are aplenty) with a splash of liquor, there are cocktails like The Optimist featuring citrus vodka, sweet tea, huckleberry and lemon.
• Water Works Restaurant: You can’t ask for a better view for Sunday brunch than the gorgeous waterfront vistas visible from Water Works Restaurant on the Schuylkill River. The Sunday brunch buffet is worth getting dressed up for, and perfect for special occasions. It’s $40/person, kids 12 and under $17.50.
• Pub & Kitchen: If you find yourself in Graduate Hospital on the weekend, head directly to Pub & Kitchen for brunch, where there is great outdoor seating along 20th Street. P&K has just launched a brand-new brunch menu with a lot of awesome-sounding choices — a grilled cheese with duck rillette on sourdough, bourbon butterscotch French toast, a maple bacon sticky bun, etc. And be sure to try one of their award-winning Bloody Marys.
• Varga Bar: Chef Evan Turney’s spot in Washington Square West offers creative, kicked-up American food by night, and equally compelling brunch dishes by weekend day. Cheese fries come topped with truffle oil and jumbo lump crab meat (but don’t call them “Crab Fries”); grilled cheese comes with the most velvety, decadent tomato soup imaginable; and with a knowledgeable bar staff to guide you through the more than a dozen beers on tap, there’s no way you’ll go thirsty during a meal here.
• Frankford Hall: Nothing says brunch like $3 Bloodies or Rattlers. During Sunday brunch, the eye-openers are just $3 until 2 p.m. at Fishtown beer garden Frankford Hall, where the adult beverages pair well with a handful of breakfast items — including fluffy pancakes and a tasty egg sandwich with German sausage and Gruyere. When the weather is fine, the alfresco courtyard is an ideal spot to sip away the afternoon.
A lot more brunch picks below.
• Continental Midtown: Nighttime revelers keep the party going at The Continental Restaurant and Martini Bar and its sibling The Continental Mid-town, with brioche French toast, bananas foster belgian waffles or a turkey club with caramelized apple mayo, all of which can be accompanied by a bacon-infused Bloody Mary. Take the elevator the rooftop for open-air dining.
• Standard Tap: The burgers, fried smelts and chalkboard omelet specials at Northern Liberties’ Standard Tap can chase any hangover away, though a pint of local microbrewed beer won’t hurt, either. Take it outside, too, on the second-floor patio.
• Square 1682: We just love Chef Guillermo Tellez’s food. Brunch at Hotel Palomar’s Square 1682 means locally sourced, sophisticated American fare with excellent cocktails to boot. Dog lovers, take note, pet-friendly during the summer months.
• The Food Trust Farmers’ Markets: As purveyors of farm-fresh food, The Food Trust Farmers’ Markets are excellent destinations for weekend grazing, with locations across the region. Open year-round every Saturday, the Clark Park market in Spruce Hill and the Fitler Square market deliver grab-and-go foodstuffs from vendors and food trucks. Come May, the Headhouse Market will bustle will fresh-food lovers every Sunday.
• Farm To City Farmers’ Markets: In 2013, Farm to City rolls out 18 farmers’ markets around town, including the always-bustling year-round Rittenhouse Square market every Saturday. Plenty of brunch-appropriate goods abound — from fresh breads to lovely lemonade and more.
Brunch Staples
• The Gold Standard Cafe: A West Philly institution, The Gold Standard Cafe keeps its faithful crowd full and happy with a menu of hearty homemade fare during its busy weekend brunch. Go for one of the three preparations of eggs Benedict, all served on homemade English muffin, and for those who want to BYOB, pitchers of Bloody Mary mix are standing by. When the weather is fine, outside tables pop up.
• Green Eggs Café: Specializing in eco-conscious fare with local and sustainable ingredients, Green Eggs (in South Philly, Northern Liberties and Midtown Village) makes socially responsible breakfast super tasty (and BYOB) every day with peanut butter crunchy French toast with blackberry coulis; scrambled eggs over homemade biscuits with sausage gravy; and quinoa porridge with fresh berries.
• Sabrina’s Café: At all three of its locations (in Bella Vista, Fairmount and University City), Sabrina’s redefines brunch all day, every day, with creative dazzlers like the blue cheese and bacon frittata, polenta fries and, of course, its famous thick slices of French toast stuffed with all manner of sweets.
• Café Lift: The Callowhill neighborhood’s sleek Café Lift specializes in European-style delicacies like a banana and chocolate hazelnut crespelle and a pesto and tomato frittata with thick home fries.
• Jones: Stephen Starr’s take on the The Brady Bunch living room delivers on the brunch front in a way that would make Carol proud. You must order the shareable monkey bread, served gooey and hot, followed by any of the delicious egg dishes (spinach and feta omelette with tater tots, smoked salmon Benedict). And don’t forget the brunch cocktails.
• Morning Glory Diner: The lines out the door never lie: Sam’s Morning Glory Diner is a favorite spot for its homemade ketchup and creative pancake specials served with a side of hot biscuits (really, try the biscuits) and greasy-spoon attitude. Brunch happens on weekends, but the daily breakfast menu features many of the favorites.
• Day By Day: A Philadelphia catering institution since 1981, Day By Day at 21st and Sansom Streets also serves a mean brunch to a dedicated local following Fridays through Sundays. The stuffed challah French toast is seriously good (even though it’s not the size of your head, as at Sabrina’s — which may be a good thing), and make sure you order at least one thing from the specials menu.
• Trolley Car Diner: In lovely Mt. Airy, the uber-charming Trolley Car Diner sits right on Germantown Avenue and beckons with daily served-all-day breakfast offerings. It’s a gimme to head here for weekend meals, too, which could include malted Belgian waffles, homemade corned beef hash or cornmeal-dusted catfish with cheesy grits. A trip to the Trolley Car wouldn’t be complete without a stop at the adjacent converted 1948 trolley car for ice cream or water ice.
International Brunches
• Chhaya: Open for breakfast daily and a weekend brunch, Chhaya is an East Passyunk Avenue go-to for fair-trade coffee, homemade pastries (including vegan cupcakes) and a lengthy menu of decadent waffles, which can be laced with sweet or savory toppings from classic macerated berries and maple syrup to veggie chili and cheddar cheese.
• Aksum: On Baltimore Avenue in West |
—may enhance yields in the short-term, but as the climate gets hotter and hotter, crops could wilt, especially in the tropics. Changes in precipitation—both prolonged droughts and bigger storms—will hit farmers hard as well. And with a 842 million hungry people around the world—and another 2 billion or so who will need to be fed by mid-century as global population grows—accurately nailing down the impact climate change will have on crop yields could make the difference between life and death for vast numbers of people.
The last assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) from 2007 found that temperate regions like Europe would be able to deal with moderate, 2º C warming without much of an impact on crop yields. But the newer research used in the Nature Climate Change study indicates that that conclusion might have been too optimistic, especially as the climate gets warmer and warmer towards the century’s end. Farmers in the tropics will have it particularly difficult—yields from maize could drop by 20% or more if temperatures increase by more than 3º C (5.4º F). And those reductions in yield could hide much bigger year-to-year swings, if the weather gets more extreme. “Climate change means a less predictable harvest, with different countries winning and losing in different years,” said Challinor. “The overall picture remains negative.”
We should have a better sense of where climate research stands on crop impacts later this month, when the IPCC comes out with the next chapter in its newest climate science assessment. And farmers—especially in developed nations—can and likely will adapt to what global warming will throw at them, whether by changing crop planting schedules, shifting to more efficient irrigation or taking advantage of biotechnology. But there’s no guarantee that poor farmers—who already produce less per acre—will be able to keep up. The Great Famine was triggered by the potato blight, but it was intensified by cruel policy on the part of Ireland’s British masters, who ensured that rich stores of grain and livestock were exported out of the country even as Irish citizens starved to death in the streets. As a warming climate makes the difficult task of keeping the world fed even tougher, we can only hope that wiser policy prevents the next famine.
Contact us at editors@time.com.Introducing Reactor
Reactor is no longer available, but you can get all the same features (and more) with AppPresser 3.
Reactor is a re-imagining of the app building process. With a specific focus on integrating WordPress content, Reactor allows you to build higher quality mobile apps more easily. Sign up for more info at http://reactor.apppresser.com
What is Reactor?
When we created AppPresser, it had a great response right away. We knew that with almost 25% of the internet using WordPress, some of those businesses would want mobile apps.
AppPresser allowed them to essentially put their website into an app, and access native device features. It was a breakthrough technology.
After getting feedback for almost a year, we realized our customers wanted more from AppPresser. They were asking for better performance, offline capabilities, and more native features.
Around the same time, a couple of fortuitous things happened outside of AppPresser. The Ionic framework came on the scene, and set a new bar for hybrid app performance and quality. Utilizing angularjs, they rebuilt a new experience from the ground up, and it blew us away.
Later in the year, the WP API released a stable version 1, which signified a huge leap forward for using WordPress as an application framework.
We started experimenting with these 2 technologies, and built some custom apps with them. The result was so incredible that we instantly knew we had to build the next generation of AppPresser products using them. These technologies would allow us to give our customers what they had been asking for, and much more beyond that.
We realized we had to recreate the mobile app building process from the ground up to give our customers what they were asking for.
The result of that effort is Reactor.
A whole new app building experience
With Reactor, we re-imagined the customer experience of building an app. We were making people download and install our plugins, configure them, then go to Phonegap Build to compile their app, a 3rd party service for push notifications, and then finally to the app store to submit their app.
It would be much less of a hassle (and less expensive) if everything was in one place.
We also realized that WordPress out of the box is great for creating websites, but it can be confusing when you are trying to create a mobile app and a website from the same interface.
Reactor puts all the 3rd party services under one roof, along with a brand new user interface you’re going to love. Creating a mobile app that integrates with your WordPress site has never been easier.
What makes Reactor incredible
The main focus of Reactor is to help you make incredible apps. The rest is just icing on the cake.
Reactor apps are special because they look amazing and perform even better. We are confident that you will be blown away by the apps you create with Reactor, we can’t wait for you to try it out.
Update: Reactor is open!
Start your free trial today at http://reactor.apppresser.comNEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City Michael Bloomberg on Tuesday vetoed two measures meant to curb the city’s controversial stop-and-frisk policing policy, setting up a likely showdown with the City Council.
New York Police Department officers stand in the Times Square in New York, April 25, 2013. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Bloomberg called the bills dangerous and irresponsible and said they would make the city less safe.
One measure would create an independent inspector general to monitor the New York City Police Department. The other would expand the definition of racial profiling and allow people who believe they have been profiled to sue police in state court.
Bloomberg has defended the policy of stopping, questioning and frisking suspected wrongdoers to fight crime.
Opponents of stop-and-frisk, among them minority groups, civil libertarians and some of the Democratic mayoral candidates, have said police officers disproportionately target young black and Hispanic men.
Each of the measures, together called the Community Safety Act, passed the 51-member City Council with the two-thirds majority necessary to override a veto.
City Council members who back the measures vowed to override Bloomberg’s vetoes.
“The Community Safety Act will help us make New York a place where everyone can walk the streets without fear of violence or discriminatory policing,” said Democratic council members Jumaane Williams and Brad Lander. “We look forward to overturning Mayor Bloomberg’s veto and making this legislation law.”
Bloomberg argued that the first measure would create not an inspector general but an official who would rival the police commissioner on law enforcement policy and strategy.
“The consequences would be chaotic, dangerous, and even deadly for our police officers and for our city,” he wrote. The second, he said, would unleash an avalanche of lawsuits against the police department.
Communities United for Police Reform, an organization that advocates an end to the stop-and-frisk policy, said it was disappointed by the vetoes, which it called “misguided.”
“New York City must outlaw racial profiling and all discriminatory profiling,” it said in a statement.
One of the Democratic mayoral candidates, Bill de Blasio, said Bloomberg was turning a blind eye to racial profiling.
“I believe we need a real change, and encourage City Council members to stand by their votes and override the Mayor’s veto,” he said in a statement. “Our young men cannot afford for us to waver in the face of intimidation from City Hall.”The L.A. streets will run red with the blood of failed freshmen shows tonight, as ABC has just committed the season’s biggest culling so far, cancelling six series in all. Among those that won’t live to see another fall: No Ordinary Family, Detroit 187, Off The Map, Mr. Sunshine, [UPDATE] and Better With You, as well as the staggering corpses of Brothers And Sisters and V, a show that concerned giant lizard people yet somehow even failed to be bad in an entertaining way. At least a couple of the younglings were spared—namely Dana Delany's sexy forensics thing Body Of Proof and the brand-new Happy Endings, which will get at least one more chance to become the modern-day Friends TV so desperately craves. Anyway, the deaths of V, No Ordinary Family, Off The Map, and Mr. Sunshine in particular will no doubt serve as a harsh lesson to the network about attempting to build their schedules around high concepts, Grey’s Anatomy clones from Shonda Rhimes, and the return of ’90s sitcom stars.
But clearing away the old serves to make room for the new, and in their place ABC has already picked up fresh replacements, many of which are based on… high concepts, Grey’s Anatomy clones from Shonda Rhimes, and the return of ’90s sitcom stars. We’ve been following most of these since their inception, such as Paranormal Activity director Oren Peli’s horror series The River, the Count Of Monte Cristo-in-the Hamptons soap Revenge, and of course, Once Upon A Time, which will compete with the just picked-up Grimm at NBC to see which “fairy tales are real” mystery series will survive.
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In much the same way, ABC’s Pan Am—the show about swingin’ ’60s stewardesses on the iconic airline—will attempt to outdo NBC’s also-confirmed The Playboy Club in attempting to replicate Mad Men on network TV. Unfortunately, the much-anticipated showdown to see which reboot of a campy ’70s fighting female series will be the first to become the Bionic Woman of 2011 may have already been decided, as ABC has picked up the new Charlie’s Angels while Wonder Woman holds out for a mid-season save.
Of course, ABC also has a couple of internal battles raging, beginning with its two very similar-sounding series Last Man Standing and Man Up. How similar? The former—which marks Tim Allen’s return to series TV as yet another man sticking up for manliness—was originally titled Man Up, presumably until the network decided it wanted the latter sitcom too. And yes, that show also concerns men manly struggling with their manliness, with the difference being that there are three of them and none of them are Tim Allen. Also undergoing name changes, both predictably: The network's "bitch" pilots, Don’t Trust The Bitch In Apt. 23—now shortened to the far less descriptive Apt. 23—and the Desperate Housewives-in-Dallas drama Good Christian Bitches, which has been softened to Good Christian Belles so as not to offend Christian bitches.
Speaking of Desperate Housewives, creator Marc Cherry’s Hallelujah became one of the most buzzed-about pilots to not get an episode order, perhaps because most of that buzz had to do with how awful its “Greek chorus gospel choir” gimmick sounded. The news was a little more bittersweet for ABC’s other in-house success story Shonda Rhimes, who lost Off The Map—the show she repeatedly insisted was not “Grey’s Anatomy in the jungle”—but gained Scandal, a show she will soon be insisting is not “Grey’s Anatomy in the world of crisis management.”
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Although, both Cherry and Rhumes may soon take a back seat to the network’s apparent new pets, former Friends producers Andrew Reich and Ted Cohen, whose previous ABC sitcom Romantically Challenged lasted only four weeks, but still the network has picked up their Bosom Buddies-copying cross-dressing comedy Work It, and is reportedly keeping their other show Smothered (about a young couple who butts heads with their two sets of comically overbearing parents) either in contention, according to Deadline, or has already given it a green light, according to Entertainment Weekly.
Also getting a second chance, albeit one that we can get behind: Better Off Ted producer-director Michael Fresco, whose Suburgatory pilot—about a New York girl who faces the heightened-reality horrors of the suburbs—was just picked up, although the news is probably also bittersweet, seeing as the show seems to have completely usurped the very similar-sounding Sunnyside from Fresco’s brother (and Ted creator) Victor Fresco. On the other hand, it provides more work for Alan Tudyk and Cheryl Hines, which we also support.
Deadline is calling Suburgatory the last of the pilots to be picked up today, although we suppose there’s always a chance ABC will throw one more in the mix. However, it most likely won’t be the historical mash-up Poe, about the famed author solving crimes in between writing short stories and blacking out—a premise that tested poorly, if you can believe that. Next up: CBS, which we’re expecting to be far less exciting, in keeping with its programming.“You’re lucky I’m a fucking cop,” LeBert says. “Cause I’d be beating the fucking piss outta you right now.”
Police Chief Leo Sacco has put LeBert on administrative leave and expressed discomfort at the behavior captured on video. It’s easy to imagine an uglier ending to the very first part of the video, when the motorist was being threatened by a stranger with no way of knowing that he was a cop; and it’s unnerving to think of a man who cannot control his temper in traffic being vested by the state with the power to use lethal force. But there’s something else about the video that bothers me.
Boston’s ABC affiliate notes that towards the end, “LeBert, who was not in uniform, called other Medford police officers, who are recorded as handling the situation calmly and telling the driver that he will receive a summons for the traffic violation.”
But notice what those other, admirably polite police officers don’t do.
“Can I talk to you guys a little more?” the motorist asks them after they tell him that he’s free to go. At this point they’ve had a long, polite interaction with one another, and established the motorist did nothing wrong save a minor traffic infraction.
“Like I said,” the motorist tells them, “I have a dashcam and everything is recorded. I mean, this guy jumped out and he’s yelling that he’s gonna blow my brains out.”
Appropriate responses might include, “Are you saying that detective over there verbally threatened your life?” or “Would you like to file a complaint?” or “Would you be willing to come down to headquarters so that we can take a look at what happened?”
Here’s what happened instead.
“All right, he already informed you that he’s going to issue you a citation,” the polite police officer said. “So there will be a box on the back to check off that you wish to make an appeal and you can bring all that up when you go to appeal the ticket.”
Then Detective LeBert can be heard again, taunting the motorist to bring the dash-cam footage that shows his dangerous driving. And the polite police officer tells the motorist, “The longer you stay here the more trouble you’re just going to get into, so the stop has ended, you’re all set, you’re free to leave.” If I were a purist, I’d complain that the polite police officer shouldn’t tell a citizen who isn’t breaking any law that he’ll get in more trouble by asking questions about another cop’s misconduct. Since I’m a pragmatist who recognizes that a bully of a cop with a hot temper was still on the scene, I see the wisdom in urging our motorist to move along, and would be happy if he’d only reported on his colleague when he got back to the station.
But news accounts suggest Detective LeBert was only caught and suspended when the clip appeared online, so it seems like the polite police officers failed to do anything about misconduct by a colleague severe enough that the police chief put him on leave after seeing it. One wonders how many times Medford cops who’d never behave that way covered for their colleague. All who have bear a measure of responsibility for his behavior, which is an embarrassment to their department and their profession.
If police officers want to rebuild their image in the era of YouTube, they’d do well to respond as if they’re upset when fellow cops behave unprofessionally. America is watching.WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of the National Security Agency defended his beleaguered organization on Tuesday, saying it acts within the law to stop militant attacks and calling reports that the NSA collected data on millions of phone calls in Europe false.
Chris Inglis (L), Deputy Director of the National Security Agency, General Keith Alexander (2nd L), director of the National Security Agency, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Deputy Attorney General James Cole (R) are pictured at a House Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, October 29, 2013. REUTERS/Jason Reed
Army General Keith Alexander, testifying with other U.S. spy chiefs before the House of Representatives Intelligence committee, sought to defuse a growing controversy over reports of NSA snooping on citizens and leaders of major U.S. allies.
The hearing took place as Congress is weighing new legislative proposals that could limit some of the NSA’s more expansive electronic intelligence collection programs.
“It is much more important for this country that we defend this nation and take the beatings than it is to give up a program that would result in this nation being attacked,” Alexander said, referring to criticism of his agency.
On Monday, that criticism broadened to include Senator Dianne Feinstein, chairman of the Senate’s intelligence panel and a long-time ally of U.S. spy agencies.
The White House has moved to limit some NSA programs, including one that monitored the cellphone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Reuters reported on Tuesday that U.S. President Barack Obama has also curtailed NSA monitoring of United Nations headquarters in New York.
But under sympathetic questioning from the committee chairman, Representative Mike Rogers, Alexander said reports of NSA spying in Europe were exaggerated. He called media reports in France, Spain and Italy that the NSA collected data on tens of millions of phone calls in those countries “completely false.”
Some of the data referenced in documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden were collected not just by the NSA itself but was also “provided to NSA by foreign partners,” he said. “This is not information that we collected on European citizens. It represents information that we and our NATO allies have collected in defense of our countries and in support of military operations.”
The U.S. intelligence officials also sought to turn the tables, saying that Europeans also spy on the United States.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper replied “absolutely” when Rogers asked him whether allies conducted espionage against the United States and its leaders.
Rogers got into a heated debate with Democratic Representative Adam Schiff, an NSA critic, who questioned Clapper about whether the intelligence community thought eavesdropping on allied leaders was important enough to have informed the committee.
Rogers, a former FBI agent, told Schiff, a former federal prosecutor, that all committee members could wade through “mounds” of information provided by intelligence agencies.
Schiff said it would be “disingenuous … to suggest that we have information if we don’t have it.”
To which Rogers shot back: “To say that this committee is somehow in the dark on intelligence activities is simply not accurate.”
Feinstein said on Monday that her Senate panel “was not satisfactorily informed” of some NSA activities.
EUROPEAN ANGER
The intelligence chiefs appeared against a backdrop of angry accusations by European allies that the United States spies on their leaders and citizens, accusations prompted by highly classified documents that Snowden leaked to media organizations.
Alexander, however, described Snowden as a website administrator without access to the most secret of files.
The loudest protests have come from Germany over reports of U.S. monitoring of Merkel’s communications. A German media report last week said the United States monitored her mobile phone. The White House did not deny the report but has said no such surveillance is taking place now.
More than any previous disclosures from the Snowden documents, the reports of spying on close U.S. allies have forced the White House to promise reforms and even acknowledge that America’s electronic surveillance may have gone too far.
Clapper told the hearing that one of the most fundamental missions of U.S. intelligence agencies is to understand foreign leaders’ intentions. He spoke broadly and historically and did not refer to any specific leaders.
“Leadership intentions are an important dimension of the landscape out there for all policymakers,” he said.
The hearing took place as multiple reviews of NSA programs are under way or being launched by the White House and Congress.
The top Republican in Congress, House Speaker John Boehner, told reporters there should be a review of NSA spying on allied leaders. He said the United States must balance its obligations to allies with its responsibility to keep Americans safe.
Two lawmakers from different political parties introduced legislation to end the government’s “dragnet collection” of information. The bill also calls for greater oversight, transparency and accountability for domestic surveillance.
Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy and Republican Representative James Sensenbrenner, the primary authors of the USA Patriot Act implemented after the September 11, 2001, attacks, to improve the government’s ability to protect its citizens, now want to make sure information gathering does not go too far.
“No one underestimates the threat this country continues to face, and we can all agree that the intelligence community should be given necessary and appropriate tools to help keep us safe,” said Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “But we should also agree that there must be reasonable limits on the surveillance powers we give to the government.”
Feinstein joined the ranks of critics on Monday, expressing outrage at American intelligence collection on allies, and pique that her committee was not informed.
“With respect to NSA collection of intelligence on leaders of U.S. allies - including France, Spain, Mexico and Germany -let me state unequivocally: I am totally opposed,” said Feinstein, who has been a staunch defender of some of the NSA programs leaked by Snowden.
Slideshow (9 Images)
The White House is conducting reviews of intelligence programs prompted by disclosures from Snowden and said it has already made some unspecified changes. Snowden is living in Russia, out of reach of U.S. attempts to arrest him.
Alexander said Snowden’s job was “to administer a website that brought information into NSA Hawaii for the people in NSA Hawaii” and he did not have access to Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act data or some of the agency’s most sensitive information.
Snowden had “tremendous access” to information about “core capabilities” for NSA product reporting and he took a lot of that, Alexander said. “It wasn’t that he had knowledge, because he clearly didn’t understand things about how these tools actually operate.”With nearly $8 million in market capitalization, the cryptocurrency attempting to take a slice out of the enterprise cloud storage industry largely dominated by huge firms like Amazon (Amazon S3), Google (Google Cloud Storage), Microsoft (Microsoft Azure) and Dropbox (Dropbox for Business), SiaCoin, has begun to break into the mainstream.
Nebulous Labs, the developers behind the project, say although SiaCoin has been flying under the radar for over a year now, it has begun to take off recently, and has been dipping in and out of the top 15 on CoinMarketCap. Cointelegraph spoke to lead developer at Nebulous Labs, David Vorick about how SiaCoin works and its place in the cloud storage market.
What is SiaCoin?
Cointelegraph: How would you explain SiaCoin to someone familiar with blockchain, but not the cloud storage industry?
David Vorick: Sia is a platform for putting data into the cloud while still retaining control. The siacoin is the token used in the smart contracts to pay the hosts. When a file contract is created, the renter and the host both put siacoins into the contract. The host gets the siacoins only if they still have the data when the contract expires.
SiaCoin vs. Traditional Cloud Storage
CT: What are some of the benefits of using SiaCoin over traditional cloud storage services?
DV: Today, when you upload your data to the cloud, it's usually only a single company such as DropBox or Apple that has all of your data, and there for all of the control. Recent trends, database leaks, privacy policy changes have showed repeatedly that corporations cannot be trusted. Sia gives you a way to store your data in the cloud without losing control. When you upload a file to Sia, it is made redundant, encrypted, and then uploaded to a large number of hosts, none of whom are able to manipulate your data, violate your privacy, or prevent you from retrieving the original file. Smart contracts are used to ensure that the hosts do not get paid unless they store your data.
Effect of speculation
CT: Is SiaCoin fundamentally a currency, or is it just a means of tokenising data? Will SiaCoin be subject to speculation, and how does that affect customers’ data?
DV: Siacoin is subject to speculation, and there have historically been large price movements. Because the host adds collateral to file contracts, the host assumes most of the risk of a volatile price. Price increases can only benefit the network, but price drops can impact the host's revenue. Severe price drops, where the price cuts in half or worse, can put files at risk of being dropped by hosts, but even large price drops such as 25% do not put data at risk.
Blockchain competitors
CT: Are you aware of anyone else utilising Blockchain technology in the cloud storage industry? How do you differ from them?
DV: There are a few other teams and platforms working on decentralized cloud storage. Sia is the only platform I'm aware of that holds payment for the host's in escrow until the host has fulfilled the file contract. Sia also has a heavy focus on price efficiency and data speed, and a highly capable engineering team.Training Camp Schedule
Training camp events listed below are free
and open to the public. Schedule is subject
to change.
Thursday, Sept. 12 - Scottrade Center
Practice (Group A) - Noon
Practice (Group B) - 2 p.m.
Friday, Sept. 13 - Scottrade Center
Practice (Group A) - Noon
Practice (Group B) - 2 p.m.
Saturday, Sept. 14 - St. Louis Outlet Mall
Practice (Group A) - Noon
Practice (Group B) - 2 p.m.
Sunday, Sept. 15 - St. Louis Outlet Mall
Practice (Game Roster) - 10 a.m.
Scrimmage (Non-Game Roster) - 11:30 a.m.
Monday, Sept. 16 - Scottrade Center
Practice (Group B) - 11 a.m.
Practice (Group A) - 1 p.m.
Tuesday, Sept. 17 - Scottrade Center
Practice (Group B) - 11 a.m.
Practice (Group A) - 12:30 p.m.
Wednesday, Sept. 18 - Scottrade Center
Practice (Game Roster) - 10 a.m.
Practice (Non-Game Roster) - 10:45 a.m.
Thursday, Sept. 19 - Scottrade Center
Practice (Group B) - 11 a.m.
Practice (Group A) - 1 p.m.
Friday, Sept. 20 - Scottrade Center
Practice (Game Roster) - 10 a.m.
Practice (Non-Game Roster) - 11 a.m.
Saturday, Sept. 21 - Scottrade Center
Practice (Game Roster) - 10 a.m.
Practice (Non-Game Roster) - 11 a.m.
Monday, Sept. 23 - Scottrade Center
Practice - 11 a.m.
Tuesday, Sept. 24 - Scottrade Center
Practice - 11 a.m.
Wednesday, Sept. 25 - Scottrade Center
Practice - 10 a.m.
Thursday, Sept. 26 - Scottrade Center
Practice - Noon
Friday, Sept. 27 - Scottrade Center
Practice (Game Roster) - 10 a.m.
Practice (Non-Game Roster) - 11 a.m.Image copyright Solu Image caption Solu does away with the typical files and folders system
So you know how you've been using your computer all these years? With files, folders, a mouse and all that?
It's wrong. All of it. And well overdue a rethink.
That's the view of Finnish techie Kristoffer Lawson and his team.
"Solu" (that's Finnish for "organic cell") is a new type of computer that has just been announced.
It's a little device with a stylish wooden finish that looks a bit like an expensive coaster.
It can be used independently as a standalone touchscreen device, a bit like a smartphone - although it doesn't have cellular capability yet.
It can be hooked up to a bigger display at which point the handheld device is used as a controller. Various gestures - swiping, tapping, pinching - are used to control what happens on the bigger screen.
It's a neat interaction, let down by the fact the device doesn't connect to the screen wirelessly - it instead requires an HDMI cable and a power source if you want it to last longer than six hours or so.
Software subscription
Solu's main selling point is its software. It looks nothing like any computer you've ever used before.
Running on a heavily-modified version of Google's Android operating system, the Solu software does away with many of the conventions we're used to in home computing.
Image copyright Solu Image caption The computing power is packed into this little touchscreen device
The most noticeable is file management. No folders to be seen here - instead an interface that looks like a mind map, with projects and ideas grouped in little orbs and clusters. It provokes better focus, the team says.
And when it comes to collaborating, there's no emailing documents back and forth. Instead, Solu uses cloud computing to help people work together on documents at the same time, in a way that's far more aesthetically pleasing than what's out there right now.
You can see what colleagues are up to on shared files, and when something is being edited by a co-worker, it lights up on your screen too. It's smart, it's pretty intuitive, but you can't imagine any serious business using it at scale.
But here's a nice idea: you don't buy any software.
Instead, you pay a monthly subscription fee (the amount hasn't been decided yet, but they're hoping for around $20 a month) and you can use whichever programs you like. Developers will get a slice of that fee if you use their program. Think Spotify, but for software.
But nice ideas don't guarantee success. And while making technology predictions can leave people with egg on their faces, I think it's pretty safe to say Solu is unlikely to get off the ground.
Let's start here: Solu is being launched as a crowdfunded Kickstarter campaign. If you "buy" one today - through Kickstarter - you won't get it until May 2016.
That's pretty typical for crowdfunded technology, but alarm bells begin to ring when such lofty promises are being made.
Desperately unintuitive
For starters, despite it now being "on sale", the product is nowhere near ready.
As well as minor tech fails during the launch presentation - which can be attributed to dodgy wifi at the venue - one of the apps, a kind of stripped-down accounting program, appeared so desperately unintuitive that the company's chief operating officer, on stage to demonstrate how simple it was, ended up asking Lawson how to use it.
The device itself looks neat but falls short of the promise of an edge-to-edge touch surface. The only devices made so far are prototypes that are way off feeling like a product just a few months away from hitting the market.
To give you an idea: after one crashed, one of the team's developers admitted that right now the only way to restart it was by connecting it to his normal laptop.
The future version will solve that problem, I was assured. It will also have a better touchscreen. And might have cellular capability.
Its cost is competitive - 349 euros (£257) or 299 euros if you buy it early. It's low because, like a subsidised mobile phone, Solu's profitability will come from the monthly subscriptions rather than the hardware sale.
You get three months of subscription included when you buy the device. Great! How much will it be after that? They couldn't tell me. It hadn't been worked out yet.
How long is the battery life? Not sure.
If it sounds like I'm being too hard on an ambitious team that is at the early stage of an innovation - let's look at it a different way.
Most Kickstarter launches consist of a good pitch and slick video explaining an idea. This was something on another level of reality. In a huge hall in San Francisco, with free drinks, food and a fella playing an organ, the Solu team boldly declared the end of computing as we know it. Apple and Microsoft, they said, should watch out.
The confidence is both admirable and alarming.
Because for Solu to succeed, Lawson and his team need to convince people to ditch an operating system they're used to, on hardware they trust, and instead go for a mobile device that does less than the mobile you currently have in your pocket. The software subscription service is nice, but there's no word on whether major developers actually want to do business on Solu's terms.
Not only that, but for the collaboration features to be effective the team needs entire businesses to buy in to the Solu vision.
Lawson is right in that we do need to take a hard look at some of the computing conventions that are inefficient and frustrating. But unfortunately for him and his team, Solu isn't going to be the solution to that problem.
Follow Dave Lee on Twitter @DaveLeeBBCSen. Ted Cruz refuses to disavow the endorsement of Sen. Lindsey Graham, Congress’ most zealous advocate for wage-cutting mass migration, foreign military interventionism, and donor-driven attacks on GOP voters.
As the “Never Trump” movement continues to battle against the Republican electorate who has voted for Donald Trump, Sen. Graham has come out in support of Cruz, the newly-annointed choice of many party insiders.
“I think the best alternative to Donald Trump to stop him from getting to 1,237 is Ted Cruz, and I’m going to help Ted in every way I can,” Graham told CNN.
On Monday, Graham—who had previously endorsed Jeb Bush for president and midwifed the Gang of Eight bill with amnesty-partner Marco Rubio— will headline a fundraiser in support of the Canadian-born Senator.
“Anyone who refuses to follow our current existing immigration laws puts Americans at risk. That’s treason. The founders of his country and the framers of our constitution would agree,” said Cruz constituent Dan Golvach when asked about Lindsey Graham. A Texas voter who supports Trump, Golvach lost his 25 year-old son when “an illegal alien randomly chose my son’s head for target practice.”
Trump surged as the Republican Party’s frontrunner on his campaign platform of deporting illegal aliens, promoting trade deals that prioritize the interests of American workers, and rejecting the party elites’ desire for increased military adventurism.
Ted Cruz, by contrast, wrote an op-ed urging Congress to fast track Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). No fast-tracked trade agreement has ever been defeated.
Sen. Graham’s energetic endorsement of Cruz – and Cruz’s refusal to disavow the endorsement of a man who many believe betrayed the American people with his unyielding push for mass migration – will no doubt raise questions as to whether Cruz still supports his 2013 amendments to radically expand immigration.
Graham, as a backer of the 2013 Rubio-Schumer amnesty plan and the 2007 McCain-Kennedy amnesty plan before that, is perhaps the Republican Party’s most outspoken proponent of open borders immigration policies.
Perhaps more than anyone, Sen. Graham has attacked GOP voters, lawmakers, and thinkers for opposing mass migration policies.
Indeed, one of the most extreme declarations in support of dissolving America’s borders was articulated in a 2007 address Lindsey Graham gave to La Raza. In his remarks, Graham argued that being American “is an idea” and that “no group owns being an American.”
In his address to La Raza, Graham assures his audience he will tell the “bigots” who oppose amnesty—presumably many of whom are his own Republican constituents in South Carolina— to “shut up.”
The answer to me in solving the immigration problem is just focusing on what it means to be an American. That’s the key to this problem An American is an idea. No group owns being an American. Nobody owns this. It’s an idea that’s unique to the planet and one of the center pieces of this idea is that you come here trying it knock it out of the park as a person… and the reason that I have gotten involved in this is because Sen. McCain started talking to me about it from an Arizona perspective and I want to than Sen. John McCain for being a leader [applause from La Raza group]. And I don’t do this much, but I want to thank Ted Kennedy because those two gentlemen got this thing started… Our immigration system is broken and we need to find a way to get people right with the law…we are going to solve this problem, we’re not going to run people down, we’re not going to scare them, we’re going to tell the bigots to shut up and we’re going to get this right.
In a back-and-forth email thread with Cruz’s campaign, Breitbart News asked several times whether Sen. Cruz disavowed Lindsey Graham’s endorsement, but the campaign refused to answer on multiple occasions.For a very small group, the Westboro Baptist Church attracts a lot of attention.
The extreme Christian organisation is known in the US for its "hate speech" protests, where some of its roughly 40 members turn up at funerals or other events with placards.
But when they arrived at a Foo Fighters gig in Kanasas with homophobic banners, they met their match in the band.
Dave Grohl turned up on the back of a van and "Rickrolled" the group.
Dancing to Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up, Foo Fighters held up their own placards reading, "keep it clean" and "you got Rickroll'd again".
Since then the Westboro Baptist Church has tweeted that the Foo Fighters' slogans are "totes lame and unhelpful".
They've also shared a Vine, in which they say they Rickroll the world. So far it's got three retweets and one favourite.
Foo Fighters have had run-ins before with the Westboro Baptist Church. Back in 2011 they sang one of their tracks, Keep It Clean, which features lyrics about same-sex relationships.
Foo Fighters are set to play Milton Keynes Bowl on Saturday 5 and Sunday 6 September and announced on Friday that more tickets had been released.
Follow @BBCNewsbeat on Twitter, BBCNewsbeat on Instagram |
to every 1000 litres of the mixture.
The European Union agreed in February 2013 to the mutual procedures for the complete denaturing of alcohol:[10]
Per hectolitre (100 L) of absolute ethanol: 3 litres of isopropyl alcohol, 3 litres of methyl ethyl ketone and 1 gram denatonium benzoate.
Specially denatured alcohol [ edit ]
A specially denatured alcohol (SDA) is one of many types of denatured alcohol specified under the US Code of Federal Regulations Title 27 Section 21.151.[11] A specially denatured alcohol is a combination of ethanol and another chemical, e.g. ethyl acetate in SDA 29, 35, and 35A, added to render the mixture unsuitable for drinking. [12] Often an SDA is used in cosmetic products but can also be used in chemical manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, and solvents.[13] Another example is SDA 40-B, which contains tert-butyl alcohol and denatonium benzoate, N.F.. The use of denatured non-beverage suitable alcohol in the United States avoids excise taxes on alcohol.[14]
See also [ edit ]Former MP credits cannabis oil for helping him through cancer treatment
Posted
A former New South Wales Labor backbencher has spoken out about his battle with pancreatic cancer and how cannabis oil has become a vital part of his ongoing treatment.
Bryce Gaudry was the Labor MP for the state seat of Newcastle from 1991 to 2007 but he is now speaking out for the first time about being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer less than a year ago.
Pancreatic cancer is the ninth most common cancer in men and 10th most common cancer in women in Australia.
But survival rates are very low, as it is most often diagnosed at an advanced stage and pancreatic cancer is the fifth most common cause of cancer deaths in Australia.
After being diagnosed in March 2016, Bryce Gaudry said he was lucky to be offered the chance to undergo major surgery known as a Whipple procedure.
"Pancreatic cancer has got one of the poorest rates of survival, I think it's between five and seven per cent of people survive to a five year period," he said.
"In fact the Cancer Council says about 30 per cent of people die within about two months of the diagnosis, so it's a fairly late diagnosed cancer.
"For many people, they don't have the opportunity of having this Whipple operation.
Major surgery takes toll
"The operation is a fairly massive one, it removes your gall bladder, it takes the majority of the pancreas.
"In my case it took my duodenum, and the bottom section of my stomach including the pyloric valve and they're all stitched back together and you've got a much simplified digestive system after that."
He then underwent seven months of chemotherapy, but in the meantime turned to cannabis oil to manage what he describes as appalling nausea symptoms.
"One of my surprises has been there hasn't been any great increase in the survival rates for pancreatic cancer in the last 30 years.
"Despite oncology, despite research, there's obviously still a very low survival rate.
"My belief is that I should use every possible means I can to increase any chance that I might have of survival and we were lucky that a friend of ours was kind enough to give us some cannabis oil.
"When I came home from hospital I was in a very sick state for some time. I was vomiting constantly, projectile vomiting, it was really driving me down.
"Within three days (of taking cannabis oil) my nausea and vomiting went away, so I decided at that stage that I would continue to use it."
Support group and family vital in coping with cancer diagnosis
Mr Gaudry said the support of his family as well as a Cancer Council telephone support group specifically for pancreatic cancer sufferers, has enabled him to get through the past year of treatment.
"We hook up every fortnight by phone, people from Adelaide, people from Melbourne, people from Sydney, all on the same pathway through cancer.
"That's a very beneficial thing for people suffering from cancer to join a support group."
He said his major hope now was for more research into diagnosing pancreatic cancer early, as he waited to find out his own prognosis after months of treatment.
"I think it's important that we get as much research as possible on pancreatic cancer to try to find a way to get an early diagnosis so people don't have that very much lowered survival rate of a late diagnosis.
Topics: cancer, cannabis, political-parties, newcastle-2300Hey Mike – How do you deal with rejection? I’ve been on several interviews over the last few months with no luck at all. I’m starting to take it personally.
Tara J.
Hi Tara
Hundreds of experts have written thousands of books on how to handle rejection. I’ve read a few, and from what I can tell, they all say the same thing – rejection is a necessary stop on the road to happiness and success. Personally, I believe this is true. But I know for a fact that rejection is also a necessary stop on the road to failure and despair. Seems to me that rejection is a reality in everyone’s life, but it’s a reality with no inherent power beyond the power we give it.
For me, the trick to handling rejection is to see if for what it is – the most likely result of “trying.” From 1984 to 1990, I auditioned for at least 500 jobs. I booked less than a dozen. That’s one “yes” for every fifty “no’s.” In 1993, after losing my steady job at QVC, (deservedly,) I returned to the freelance life. For the next eight years, I lived in New York and Hollywood, and auditioned for no less than two thousand gigs. I booked roughly three-hundred of those. In other words, I did very well. But along the way, I was rejected two or three times a week. That’s every week, for the better part of a decade. That’s a lot of rejection.
I’m not gonna tell you I never let it bother me. Unless you’re a robot or a psychopath, it’s very hard to not take a personal rejection personally. The hardest one for me to accept is explained in this letter, which I received 17 years ago from a very decent Executive Producer at The Daily Show. It’s one of the nicest rejection letters I’ve ever received, but it was nevertheless devastating, because I knew then with certainty that this was my “dream job.”
When The Daily Show was first conceived, Comedy Central spent a year looking for the right host. The audition process was extensive, and when the dust settled, it came down to two – Craig Kilborn and me. The job went to Craig, and I was crushed.
A year later, Craig split, and the network called me back. I went in for another audition. This time, I wasn’t going to let it get away. I did the very best job I could, and all modesty aside, I killed it. Afterwards, I was told by the producers and writers that I was about to become the new host of The Daily Show, unless – by some miracle – Comedy Central were to suddenly cough up the kind of money that could entice a proven entity like Dennis Miller or Jon Stewart. Of course, we all now which way the mop flopped, and I was once again, devastated.
Last week, watching Jon’s final show, I thought about how shitty I felt when I received this letter 17 years ago. (If you look closely, you’ll see the tracks of my tears, long since dried.) Reading it today though, I can’t believe how lucky I was to have been rejected. It was a critical step in a long series of failures that got me to the sewer, where my redemption awaited, and a new level of job satisfaction that I frankly, never imagined.
Point is Tara, you can’t separate your successes from your failures until you look back, and even then, there’s not much point in putting each into a separate column. It’s all a part of whatever path your on.
But don’t misunderstand me – that path is not laid out in advance – at least not in my opinion. I don’t believe that, “everything happens for a reason.” I think we make our own luck, and the only real failure is the failure to try. Since you asked, I suggest using the rejection in your own life to propel you to whatever’s next. Do that, and it’s entirely possible you’ll look back in seventeen years and thank your lucky stars for the many failures that got you there.
Good Luck –
Mike
Mike’s Facebook PageMichael Sheen and David Tennant have been cast in the lead roles in the Amazon series adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s “Good Omens,” Variety has learned.
The show is set in 2018 on the brink of an apocalypse as humanity prepares for a final judgment. But Aziraphale, a somewhat fussy angel, and Crowley, a demon, aren’t enthusiastic about the end of the world, and can’t seem to find the Antichrist. Sheen will play the role of Aziraphale, while Tennant will play Crowley. It will consist of six one-hour episodes.
Amazon declined to comment.
Sheen recently starred in the Showtime drama “Masters of Sex,” which ended its run on the premium cabler in November after four seasons. He has primarily worked in film during his career, having starred in “Frost/Nixon,” “Passengers,” both “Underworld” and “Underworld: Rise of the Lycans,” and “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn” among many others. He is repped by ICM, Sanders/Armstrong/Caserta Management, and the U.K.’s Roxane Vacca Management.
“I first read ‘Good Omens’ as a teenager and it’s been one of my favourite stories ever since,” Sheen said in a statement to Variety. “To be part of the team entrusted with bringing it alive on screen is a bit of a dream come true to be honest. To work alongside Neil, who I think is one of the greatest storytellers of all time, is incredibly exciting. And, just like the rest of the world, I’m a huge fan of David’s so I relish trying to save it with him.”
Related Neil Gaiman on ‘Good Omens’ Series and Honoring Terry Pratchett’s Legacy Rainn Wilson Joins Amazon Series 'Utopia'
Tennant is well known for playing the title role in “Doctor Who” for three seasons and nine specials. Among his other notable roles, he played the villainous Kilgrave in Season 1 of the Marvel-Netflix series “Jessica Jones,” Alec Hardy in the critically-acclaimed series “Broadchurch,” and Barty Crouch Jr. in the film “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.” He is repped by UTA and the U.K.’s Independent Talent Group.
“Good Omens” was Gaiman’s first novel, written in collaboration with Pratchett, who died in 2015. Terry Gilliam was attached at one point to direct a film adaptation. It is the latest Gaiman television project in recent years. Fox premiered “Lucifer,” inspired by the character created in Gaiman’s Vertigo comics series “The Sandman” and subsequent solo series, in 2015. Earlier this year, Starz debuted Season 1 of “American Gods,” based on Gaiman’s book of the same name.
“Good Omens” is co-produced by BBC Studios with Narrativia, the production company of Pratchett’s daughter Rhianna, and the Blank Corporation and in association with BBC Worldwide for Amazon Prime Video and the BBC. Gaiman and Chris Sussman are executive producing for BBC Studios, and Rob Wilkins and Rod Brown will executive produce for Narrativia. Gaiman adapted all six episodes of the series and will also serve as showrunner.
Following its exclusive launch on Amazon Prime Video, the series will also be broadcast on BBC in the U.K. BBC Worldwide has the second-run rights internationally.Das haben Sie vielleicht mitbekommen, es war ja überall zu lesen; bei „Focus Online“, stern.de, web.de, news.de, berliner-kurier.de, welt.de, rtl.de, heute.at und vielen anderen.
Gestreut wurde die Story hierzulande von der Nachrichtenagentur AFP, die sie im Portal „Emirates 24/7“ gefunden hatte.
Eine junge Frau ist laut Medienberichten in Dubai ertrunken, weil ihr Vater die Rettungsschwimmer zurückhielt, damit diese nicht seine Tochter anfassen und so ihre Ehre „beschmutzen“. Der asiatische Mann, dessen Identität nicht bekanntgegeben wurde, wurde von der Polizei festgenommen, wie das Internet-Nachrichtenportal Emirates 24/7 am Montag berichtete.
Wann das Ganze passiert sein soll, schreiben weder AFP noch die deutschen Medien, und wenn sie sich (wie etwa der „Guardian“) die Mühe gemacht hätten, den Zeitpunkt des Vorfalls zu recherchieren, hätten sie die Geschichte wohl gar nicht erst angepackt. Denn die Sache liegt nicht bloß ein paar Tage zurück — sondern 19 Jahre.
Das hat die Polizei in Dubai am Mittwoch bestätigt:
@WissamKeyrouz نعم ، الحادث قديم ويعود لسنة 1996. — Dubai Policeشرطة دبي (@DubaiPoliceHQ) 12. August 2015
Unter dem „Emirates 24/7“-Artikel, den die AFP abgeschrieben hatte, steht inzwischen:
The incident happened many years ago.
Auch die AFP stellte am Mittwoch klar:
Polizei von Dubai: Fall von Ertrinkenlassen der Tochter ist alt „Das ist eine alte Geschichte“, teilte am Mittwoch die Polizei des Emirats über den Kurznachrichtendienst Twitter auf Anfrage mit. Das Internet-Portal Emirates 24/7 hatte am Montag über den Fall berichtet. Die Meldung wurde von verschiedenen Medien aufgegriffen, auch von AFP. In den sozialen Netzwerken sorgte der Fall für scharfe Kritik.
„Scharfe Kritik“.
Wie hier auf „buzz.at“:
Oder auf „Focus Online“:
Wobei das mit dem „umfassend“ ja auch im Internet so eine Sache ist. Bisher hat es nur eine Handvoll Medien geschafft, die Sache klarzustellen. Krone.at, Blick.ch und n24.de haben ihre Artikel ganz gelöscht.
Alle anderen, darunter stern.de, „Focus Online“ und der „Berliner Kurier“, haben gar nichts geändert und sorgen damit weiterhin für „scharfe Kritik“ von besorgten Bürgern. Dabei könnten gerade die ein bisschen Aufklärung doch wirklich gut gebrauchen.
Mit Dank an Eva R.!
Nachtrag, 17. August: stern.de und berliner-kurier.de weisen jetzt darauf hin, dass der Vorfall lange her ist. „Focus Online“ und web.de haben ihre Artikel gelöscht.For decades, John Carmack and id Software have gone hand in hand. Today, the studio confirmed that the game industry luminary is leaving id completely."John Carmack, who has become interested in focusing on things other than game development at id, has resigned from the studio," said id studio director Tim Willits in a statement to Gamasutra.Best known for his programming skills in video games, Carmack has also been involved in engineering rockets at his own Armadillo Aerospace, and recently became CTO of hot VR company Oculus. Carmack was most recently tech director at id.Originally, when Carmack announced in August that he joined Oculus, he said he was splitting his time up between the VR company, id and Armadillo."John�s work on id Tech 5 and the technology for the current development work at id is complete, and his departure will not affect any current projects," said Willits. "We are fortunate to have a brilliant group of programmers at id who worked with John and will carry on id�s tradition of making great games with cutting-edge technology. As colleagues of John for many years, we wish him well."Carmack co-founded id Software in the early 90s. His work at the studio led to the creation of theandfranchises, which helped shape the industry as we know it today.In two separate tweets, Carmack ( @ID_AA_Carmack ) said, "I wanted to remain a technical adviser for Id, but it just didn't work out. Probably for the best, as the divided focus was challenging."If they don't want me to talk on stage at Quakecon next year, we'll just have to fill up the lobby like the old days. :-)"The Vikings have also taken in hundreds of thousands of dollars from similar contracts, with the Lynx getting a smaller piece of the action, the report said.
The report, authored by U.S. Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake, both Republicans from Arizona, blasted what they termed "paid patriotism" events, saying the practice "betrays the sentiment and trust of fans" and sullies genuine displays of appreciation.
A Minnesota National Guard spokesman said that the deals -- which some teams and leagues are re-examining -- are part of comprehensive recruitment efforts and that teams have also showed strong unpaid support for military members apart from their contracts.
The practice came to light earlier this year. The Pentagon said sports marketing was an important recruiting tool but nixed paid tributes, saying they sent the wrong message.
McCain and Flake's report covered contracts involving paid tributes over the past four years. The lion's share went to the NFL -- the Atlanta Falcons led the way with $879,000, and nine of the top 10 recipients were football teams.
The lone exception: the Wild, to whom the report attributed the fourth-highest total for any individual team listed.
The team has received $570,000 in Minnesota Army National Guard contracts in recent years, the report said -- inclu$235,000 in 2012 and 2013, and another $100,000 in 2015.
Not all of that money necessarily went to paid tributes, the report acknowledged. Many teams are also paid by the military for things like traditional advertising and booth space. The report did not include a more detailed breakdown.
But the paid contracts included provisions for an on-ice appreciation ceremony for soldiers, recognition of a "soldier of the game" on the video board during every home game and the opportunity for a soldier to rappel from the arena catwalk to deliver the game puck, the report said.
In a statement, the Wild said the team has long supported military members and their families. Its current contracts with the National Guard "may not have clearly distinguished the promotion of recruiting efforts from moments of recognition."
The team "will clarify this point in the current contract with the National Guard, and look to continue our proud tradition of honoring and supporting our troops," the statement said.
Col. Kevin Olson, a Minnesota National Guard spokesman, said in a statement that the Guard's paid relationship with the Wild "has always been part of a coordinated, multi-faceted and deliberate effort" to ensure a well-staffed and prepared military.
He said that the Guard "also has a strong unpaid community relations association" with the team and that all of Minnesota's professional teams "have demonstrated that they are sincere in their support of our state's service members" and veterans.
Elsewhere in Minnesota, the Vikings got $375,000 -- $225,000 in 2012 and $150,000 in 2013 -- in recruitment deals with the National Guard that included solider recognition events and in-game exposure, according to the report.
The Vikings said that the Guard also paid for traditional advertising and that the team supports troops in myriad ways that go beyond the contracts. The team pointed to on-field tributes over the past few years when no contract was in place.
The NFL told teams in July to halt paid tributes, and Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a letter to McCain and Flake -- dated Tuesday and included in the report -- that the league is auditing its contracts with the military.
If it finds inappropriate payments, "they will be refunded in full," he said.
The Lynx also appeared in the report, which said the team had a $27,000 deal in 2014 that included a military night in which a number of soldiers were featured.
The report did not mention paid tributes during Twins and Timberwolves games.CNN reporter Jim Acosta took heat Thursday from conservatives on Twitter after the combative correspondent accused President Trump of holding a “fake news conference” -- and later spewed some "fake news" of his own when he claimed Trump misstated the number of intelligence agencies that concluded Russia meddled in the presidential election.
During a joint news conference with President Andrzej Duda in Poland, Trump took questions from reporters from The Daily Mail and MSNBC. But that apparently wasn’t good enough for Acosta, who’s no stranger to sparring with Trump and White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer.
“Trump finally held a news conference overseas. But he took a question from a friendly reporter and then attacked CNN as ‘fake news,’” Acosta tweeted, adding: “Isn’t it a ‘fake news conference’ to take a question from a reporter who is essentially an ally of the White House?”
Acosta apparently was referring to The Daily Mail's U.S. political editor David Martosko, who was considered last month for a gig in Trump’s communications department but pulled out of consideration.
But right-leaning social media watchers quickly blasted Acosta’s snarky messages, noting the Obama administration enjoyed no shortage of reporter-aide crossovers and suggesting former President Barack Obama and his team routinely called on friendly journalists.
“So by that logic, was every news conference for the last 8 years #fakenews Jim?” Donald Trump Jr. wrote.
Ex-Bush White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer added: “Jim – care to guess how many questions I took from reporters who went on to join the Obama WH??”
Conservative radio host Steve Deace picked up on the thread: “Jim, over two dozen ‘journalists’ went to work in the Obama WH, including the former WH spokesman.”
An Atlantic article from 2013 noted Time managing editor Rick Stengel was “at least the 24th journalist to work for the Obama Administration.” Former Obama White House Press Secretary Jay Carney also had worked for Time as its Washington Bureau Chief, which Deace alluded to. Others defected from outlets such as Politico, The Washington Post, National Journal and the Chicago Tribune to take roles under Obama.
Aside from the Twitter battles, Acosta also ran into some trouble on air Thursday.
While on CNN’s “New Day” after Trump’s joint press conference, Acosta repeated the “fake news” line – a phrase Trump often uses when he refers to CNN, including on Thursday – to describe an answer Trump gave to a question about Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election.
“The other thing that was ‘fake news’ coming from President Trump is when he said, ‘Well, I keep hearing it's 17 intelligence agencies that say Russia meddled in the election, I think it's only three or four,’” Acosta said. “Where does that number come from? Where does this ‘three or four’ number come from? My suspicion…is that if we go to the administration and ask them for this question, I'm not so sure we're going to get an answer.”
However, there is an answer.
The New York Times – and other outlets – had reported for months that “17 American intelligence agencies” agreed Russia orchestrated cyber-attacks before the election.
But The Times on June 28 issued a correction, noting “the assessment was made by four intelligence agencies – the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency.” The Times bluntly concluded: “The assessment was not approved by all 17 organizers in the American intelligence community.”UPDATE: The Arizona Wildcats defeated San Diego State Thursday night, 70-64, and advanced to the Elite Eight. Tarczewski scored 7 points. He also had two blocks, one rebound and one assist.
Arizona now plays Wisconsin Saturday. The game starts at 8:49 p.m on TBS.
There have been some sleepy basketball fans in New Hampshire the past week, but it's the price one pays to watch a familiar face in the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament.
Kaleb Tarczewski, the 7-foot center for the University of Arizona, is a native of Claremont, and has been a key component in his school's run to the Sweet 16. Tonight he will lead the Wildcats onto the floor in Anaheim, Calif., to play San Diego State in the West Region semifinals. Tipoff is scheduled for after 10 p.m. New Hampshire time, which means another late night for Bill McIver, Tarczewski's former coach at Stevens High School in Claremont.
"It's been a lot of fun to watch him," McIver said. "Although playing on the west coast, there are some late night games. But it's worth it. It's been fun watching him succeed."
The sophomore center played his first two years of high-school basketball at Stevens, where he helped the 2009 team to the best regular-season record in Division III and a berth in the state semifinals.
"We always knew he was really physically gifted," said Cody Nichols, Tarczewski's teammate on the 2009 Stevens team. "He could always run the floor. He grew a lot in a short time. He was a little gangly and it took him a while to adjust, but we knew he'd have a chance to play in college. He's a lot physically stronger now than he was in high school."
Nichols has probably been a little sleep deprived this week as well. He's been playing close attention to Arizona's tournament run, and it's brought back fond memories of the 2009 Stevens team.
"We were all such good friends on and off the court," Nichols said. "It was easy for us to translate that on to the court. We all still stay in touch."
So far this season, Tarczewski has averaged 10 points a game for Arizona, which is the No. 1 seed in the West Region, and is searching for its first berth in the Final Four since 2001. The Wildcats won the NCAA championship in 1997.
It took some time for Tarczewski to fill out his 7-foot frame. He stood at around 6-foot-10 when he played at Stevens, then experienced a growth spurt after he transferred to St. Mark's School in Southborough, Mass., a private boarding school. Now he is regarded as an especially athletic center at the D-I college level.
"He runs like a 6-footer," McIver said. "He's not a prototypical 7-footer who lumbers down the court. He has a great long stride that makes him athletic. He's developed into a 'back-to-the-basket' center, but he can shoot too. He beats most of the other centers down the floor."
Tarczewski took his game to St. Mark's after his sophomore year at Stevens. He helped St. Mark's to four consecutive NEPSAC championship games, including a victory in the 2012 Class AA title game. He received a scholarship offer from Arizona, and enrolled in the fall of 2012
"Kaleb’s been one of our hardest workers from the day he stepped on campus," Arizona coach Sean Miller told the Arizona Daily Star in February. "That quality doesn’t always transcend to a 7-footer. (Kaleb) puts his time in."
In many ways, Tarczewski is still finding his way in big-time college basketball.
"I just think in general he’s getting better," Miller told the Arizona Republic in February. "You watch him very day, and he’s one of the hardest working kids I’ve ever been around. He deserves success."Part of the King of Prussia Mall was evacuated after a device that appeared to be a grenade was found, but police now say there it was merely a replica and there is no danger.
Upper Merion Police and firefighters were called to The Court at King of Prussia around 1:45 p.m. Wednesday after a mall worker discovered the device inside a planter or flower pot by the Eddie Bauer store.
Police say about one quarter of The Court was evacuated as a precaution.
Investigators soon discovered the replica grenade was not an explosive device and posed no danger.
However, police are still searching the rest of The Court to see if there are any other devices. They also want to know who left the original device behind.
Police say the situation is now under control and there have been no injuries.
Customers have been allowed back inside the mall.Greens co-leader Metiria Turei has put herself forward for selection as the party's candidate for the Māori seat of Te Tai Tonga.
Photo: RNZ / Demelza Leslie
Ms Turei said she would only be campaigning for the party vote if she was selected.
"It's only the party vote I'm interested in, it's only the party vote that gets me back into Parliament, and it also gets my party back in Parliament."
She said the Green Party stood in as many seats as it could, as it was easier to talk about the party vote.
"I have the advantage that I'm likely to be high on the Green Party list and therefore it will be the party vote that can guarantee me a seat back in Parliament in 2017."
In the last election, Mrs Turei stood in North Dunedin.
She said the final selection for Te Tai Tonga was still some months away.
The seat is currently held by Labour's Rino Tirikatene.
He has spoken to Mrs Turei about her potential candidacy, and said he would welcome her into the contest.
Meanwhile, Mrs Turei said talks were still being held with Labour about doing electorate deals in some seats, which may include Ōhāriu - held by United Future leader Peter Dunne - but no final decisions have been made.Freud had it at least partly right: there's something in humans that rebels against conformity, and civilization often requires the restriction of individual desires for the common good. In that sense, attempts to quantify, define, and order the craft beer world often seems like an attack on those who believe that world is characterized by its individuality, uniqueness, and creativity. The committed craft beer...enthusiast, shall we say, rails against attempts to "civilize" beer, while others see it as a sign of sophistication and maturity. On the other hand, those who are attempting the "civilizing" often overplay their hand and come off not as benevolent devotees but as killjoys and martinets.
So which is it? Freud and the need for order, even at the expense of individuality? Or Papazian and "Relax, Don't Worry, Have a Homebrew"?
Both sides have a point. But at the end of the day, I tend to think that we need order more than ever, lest we lose control of the beer train.
"The Death of Craft Beer"
There has been no shortage of commentary lately on the "death" of craft beer. Whether it's because of the encroachment of "big beer" into craft beer circles via "crafty" labels or buyouts, the growth of craft beer pioneers into almost-big-beer-sized producers, or just a dying notion that "beer" connotes tasteless, fizzy, yellow lager and something else demands another name. Whatever the cause, the notion that the term "craft" means anything is going away.
But if craft beer isn't going to be a distinct "thing" anymore, then we need a new paradigm. While some in the laissez-faire camp would argue that all that matters is whether beer tastes good or not, that's not going to satisfy the very people that fostered, promoted, and grew the craft beer movement for the rest of us. Why? Because something about "craft" beer went beyond flavor: yes, it tasted better than "big" beer, but that was just a manifestation of the larger defining feature.
"Craft" means a lot of different things to people, but most would probably agree that it indicates a degree of care and commitment to the final product, not just to the bottom line that it serves. Yes, even craft brewers want to make money, but they're not willing to sacrifice the quality of the product to do it. And they're willing to bet that we'll all pay a little more to drink something worth drinking.
If the term "craft" goes away, then we need something to define our choices. As much as it pains me to write it (for reasons I'll get into in a second), I think we need to start talking in terms of "independent" beer.
For a long time, I've been a big proponent of what one might call the "drink what you like" mentality. If Michelob Light floats your boat, then fine. If you want nothing but Cantillon, then God bless you (and your bank account). But I also recognize that there is a substantial amount of validity to the idea that "craft beer" was much more about the value of community, principled business, and devotion to ideals than it was about just making something that tasted better than mass-production light lagers. For that reason, as high (or at least higher) quality beer is now coming out of those same profit-motivated big brewing corporate behemoths, we can't just rely on notions of quality or craft anymore: we need to stake out definitions.
Many beer people want to base their purchasing decisions on who/what that purchase is supporting. Even if a bought-out brewery is still producing high-quality beer, a share of that purchase price is going to support an organization that the purchaser might find distasteful. So for that reason, a change of banners is in order. I want people talking about "independent" brewing - even if "craft" has outlived its usefulness as a defining characteristic, we shouldn't abandon the idea that not all breweries have the same motives, even if they're producing similar products. "Independent" captures the idea that some breweries support a community of beer people (or just people, when those breweries are active community supporters!), not just a bottom line or stock price.
It's a distinction with a difference - and it doesn't require you to disparage the taste or quality of other beers as a price of admission. Let quality speak for itself, but let's acknowledge that quality alone isn't why we bought craft beer in the first place.
A Question of Style
Likewise, we have some who consider the idea of defining beer styles to be revolting. I won't rehash it too much (since I just wrote about this), but it deserves a mention here. There's a lot of beer out there today. I recognize that, being in Philadelphia, I live in a blessed beer market with an astonishing array of local, regional, and international options. But even in places that are less fortunate and don't regularly end up with exotic and esoteric beers, the options are still plentiful and growing.
For that reason, we need beer styles. Otherwise, we'd go insane.
As I wrote about two weeks ago, no one is saying that beer style definitions need to constrain and constrict brewers (and if those definitions are trying to, then they're doing a piss-poor job of it - it's plenty unconstrained out there!). But brewers: give us a starting point. A reference. A discriminating factor. Otherwise, it's going to be a mass of confusion, and that's not going to help you (or us) at all.
Look: I'm a trained taster. A BJCP Grand Master, Certified Cicerone, culinary fanatic. I once wrote on a judging score sheet that a beer's aroma reminded me of Captain Crunch on a beach at sunset sitting next to a topless Polynesian lass (or words to that effect - pretentious as hell, I know, but I always advise judges to write the first thing that comes to mind, and I was wrapping up a 12-mead flight and was probably a little tipsy). And I'm telling you something: WE ALL NEED A POINT OF REFERENCE when we're tasting.
If you gathered together a group of trained palates and asked them to identify beer styles from random samples with no knowledge, they'd still struggle to get them right, and I'd go so far as to say they'd get more incorrect than correct. Giving us a style reference means that we're primed to look for and detect certain flavors, and thus can do so more effectively. Does that create a risk of bias? Of course it does. If you tell me a beer used Grape Nuts in the mash, I might be tricking myself into detecting a "cereal" quality. But it's a small price to pay to avoid the thought-bubble filled with question marks that you'd get if you don't give people that jumping off point.
And if we're going to have style names, then we need definitions. They don't need to be all that specific: but we still need them.
To the uber-free spirits out there, all I can say is this: deal with it. Maybe you're not in need of them, but a whole lot of other people are. Take one for the team. The friction between the freedom of beer as a creative culinary endeavor and the necessity for order is one that has to be tolerated if we're going to let everyone get the most out of what they're drinking.
A Place for Beauty
Despite all of this, there's one area where I'm going to err on the side of the fancy-free: the almost unbearable creativity of brewers.
Beers - even within style definitions - are increasingly a kaleidoscope of unusual ingredients, processes, fermenting agents, and presentations. They run the range from super-light (try Great Divide Samurai Rice Ale) to the astonishingly intense and specialized (consider Neshaminy Creek Brewing Company's Leon - a Russian Imperial Stout with graham crackers, marshmallow, and baker's chocolate). And that's fine.
Will it confuse the hell out of some people? Yes. Will some hanker for the days when the tap lists had a great collection of flavorful and simple beers? Yes (including this blogger). Will some say that beer has gotten too esoteric, weird, and affected? Yes.
But that's fine. Music, cinema, literature, and every other art form has its avant-garde elements, too, and are all the richer for it. Why not us?
Ironically, we can turn back to Freud for a defense of this view. As |
’s leadership on the issue of traffic safety on Outer Division and throughout East Portland,” said PBOT Director Leah Treat. “The need for this action is clear. A person walking struck by a person driving 40 mph is twice as likely to die as a person struck by someone driving at 30 mph. What is more, people walking in East Portland are 2.5 times more likely to be killed in traffic crashes than in the rest of the city. It’s time to put aside the desire to get somewhere quickly because doing so can mean the difference between life and death.” Over 10 years, SE Division has had more crashes that caused fatalities or serious injuries to people driving than any other corridor in the city with a total of 13 deaths and 117 serious injuries. It had the fourth highest total for people walking, and the second highest total for people riding bicycles. Outer SE Division is on the designated High Crash Network due to the high rate of crashes on the street. The traffic deaths and injuries on Outer Division greatly affect the diverse communities in the Jade District, Division Midway Alliance and other communities in East Portland… Thanks for reading BikePortland. Please consider a $10/month subscription or a one-time payment
to help maintain and expand this vital community resource. The changes are the first step in the Portland Bureau of Transportation’s Outer SE Division Near-Term Safety Strategy. The strategy was developed as part of a previous ordinance passed by City Council on December 21st, 2016 in response to the deaths of two pedestrians who were killed in Outer Division traffic crashes within hours of each other on December 7, 2016. Each step in the plan implements an action identified in Portland’s Vision Zero Action Plan while also upholding PBOT and the City of Portland’s commitment to racial equity. The steps include: increasing multilingual and multi-cultural traffic safety education; decreasing speed through automated enforcement; decreasing speed through speed reader boards; decreasing speed through lowering posted speed; and decreasing speed through street design. In addition to the speed change, the city has also accelerated the installation of speed safety cameras on SE Division at SE 151st and on SE 122nd at SE Steele and SE Reedway. Safety cameras are proven safety tools that can reduce dangerous speeding and save lives. The cameras are mounted along High Crash Corridors and when people driving past them exceed the posted speed limit, they capture photos and video for review by Portland Police. The speed safety cameras on SE Division and SE 122nd will be activated on Monday, March 6, 2017. The cameras will issue warnings for the first 30 days. Thereafter, people can avoid citations by traveling the posted speed limit. Any money received from the tickets pays for the program and safety improvements on the corridor.
— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org
BikePortland is supported by the community (that means you!). Please become a subscriber or make a donation today.
Front Page, Safety
dan saltzman, outer division multimodal safety project, se division, speed, speed limitsBuy Photo Lead levels in the blood of Flint children are expected to rise this summer, even as the drinking water improves. (Photo: Ryan Garza/Detroit Free Press)Buy Photo
EAST LANSING — The level of lead in the blood of children in Flint likely will rise over the next few months, not because of continued problems with the city's drinking water supply, but because of high levels of lead in the soil — especially in the city's oldest and densest areas — that gets inhaled into their bodies during the summer, according to a Michigan State University researcher.
Richard Sadler, an assistant professor in MSU's department of family medicine, said the yearly seasonal cyclical pattern — which is not unique to Flint, but is common to most big cities — is expected to recur, even as state officials expect the lead levels in Flint's drinking water to diminish. Sadler is coauthor of a study published this week in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health related to lead poisoning in Flint.
The pattern existed before the Flint water crisis, and is one of the reasons officials in the Department of Health and Human Services say they didn't immediately recognize that something unusual was happening when blood lead levels in Flint children began to spike following the April 2014 switch to the Flint River as the city's drinking water source. In fact, the spike in the summer of 2014 was significantly higher than the spike experienced in Flint in previous recent summers, as Hurley Medical Center pediatrician Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha eventually demonstrated to resistant state officials, around Oct. 1 of last year.
Just as it confused state officials, the cyclical pattern could lead to public confusion if, as expected, tests show lead levels are rising in Flint children while officials are declaring Flint's water again safe to drink, said Sadler. He worked with Hanna-Attisha on a recent article in the American Journal of Public Health about the spike in blood lead levels caused by Flint's switch to the Flint River as its source of drinking water.
"It's easy to draw that relationship to water being the culprit," when the issue this summer could be lead in the soil, Sadler told the Free Press Wednesday. Officials should find that the increase in blood lead levels this summer is lower than it was in the summers of 2014 and 2015, when residents were drinking Flint River water that was not properly treated with corrosion-control chemicals, he said.
Richard Sadler (Photo: G.L. Kohuth)
State health officials are aware of the issue, said Jennifer Eisner, a spokeswoman for DHHS.
"Blood lead levels do not tell us the source of the exposure, which may pose certain challenges in Flint as we work to rebuild trust in the water system," Eisner said in an e-mail to the Free Press. "It’s important that we communicate clearly about all potential lead exposures — including water, soil, and paint — to promote public health statewide."
Sadler's soil-related study found that from 2010 to 2015, lead levels in the blood of Flint children "display consistent peaks in the third quarter of each year," and it demonstrated the problem is worse in the metropolitan center of Flint than the outskirts of the city.
Based in part on other studies, the researchers "infer that resuspension to the air in the form of dust from lead-contaminated soils in Flint appears to be a persistent contribution to lead exposure of Flint children even before the change in the water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River."
Sadler said Flint and other cities need to examine strategies to remove lead-contaminated soil or reduce its risks though the use of plants that remove lead from soil.
The emphasis on improved nutrition that is a by-product of the Flint water crisis will help minimize the impact of elevated levels of lead from any source, he said.
Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @paulegan4.
Read or Share this story: http://on.freep.com/1MULobtThe TTC says 13 vehicles serving persons with disabilities have been ticketed by Toronto Parking Enforcement since the city began its zero tolerance crackdown on downtown rush hour routes.
It’s enough of an issue that Toronto’s Disability Issues Committee is calling on police to use discretion when issuing parking tickets to Wheel-Trans vehicles and accessible taxis when they’re picking up or dropping off a person with a disability.
Ward 29 Councillor Mary Fragedakis has written a letter to the Executive Committee acknowledging that it “is very important to address the chronic congestion issues facing the city” but notes several bus or taxi drivers have either received tickets, “or are feeling prohibited from providing the proper level of service (i.e. posting their “missed pick-up” notices) due to the threat of impoundment.”
George Johnstone is the Operations Supervisor for the Toronto Police Parking Enforcement Unit. He says there were a number of Wheel-Trans and accessible taxis ticketed when the zero tolerance policy was first adopted in January. He says police responded by initiating training suggesting officers need to use discretion. He’s not aware of any recent cases where the vehicles have been ticketed.
TTC spokesperson Jessica Martin explained by email that Wheel-Trans vehicles aren’t ticketed when serving a customer. “In the off-chance it is (ticketed), a TTC representative will attend court on behalf of the operator and present a “run sheet” which would prove the vehicle was serving a customer at that time. The TTC does not provide representation for contracted vehicles, but will provide run sheets as requested.”
Vehicles displaying accessible parking permits are exempt from parking restrictions outside of the morning and afternoon rush hours. But parking regulations allow for taxis, limos and buses to stop for pick-ups and drop-offs no matter where or when.
So what if the driver has to leave the vehicle on a downtown route during rush hour to give assistance to a customer with a disability waiting inside a building? Does the exemption still stand?
The vehicle is unattended and may effectively be stopped or standing but nonetheless still providing a pick-up or drop-off service.
Johnstone says that’s where the officer’s discretion comes in. They have to understand that a Wheel-Trans bus or an accessible taxi “isn’t just parked” when the driver is in the building assisting a customer.
But Fragedakis says we can’t leave it up to the discretion of police. The lack of clarity and understanding on both sides has meant some people have been left waiting for vehicles that have already come and gone for fear of being ticketed.
She says the answer is “to rework the protocol rather than asking police to look the other way. In the rush to address congestion, we haven’t crossed all the ‘T’s’ and dotted the ‘I’s’. The result is unintended but it needs to be addressed.”
The matter goes to Toronto’s Executive Committee on March 25th.President Obama speaks before both houses of Congress in January, 2011. (White House via Flickr)
Obama’s exercise of prerogative power is not progressive — it’s a throwback to the British Monarchy.
Editor’s Note: The following piece is adapted from a review of Philip Hamburger’s Is Administrative Law Unlawful? that appeared in the August 11, 2014, issue of National Review.
Every day the headlines bring news of the Obama administration’s rule by executive edict. From the regularization of illegal-immigrant DREAMers, to the rewriting of Obamacare and of federal drug laws, to the imposition of onerous environmental laws by agency regulation, the administration exercises or threatens to exercise executive power to write and rewrite and waive the duly enacted law of the land. Now Obama threatens to regularize the immigration status of millions more illegal immigrants by decree as well.
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The practice of rule by decree is of dubious constitutionality, to say the least, and Obama is extending it to the breaking point. While of dubious constitutionality, the practice is not without precedent. The precedent, however, is the prerogative power claimed in the past by the British king. It is the power against which the British revolted in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and against which we revolted in 1776.
Now comes Professor Philip Hamburger with a serious work of legal scholarship on the return of the prerogative power to our government. The power returns in the dry-as-dust form of “administrative law,” reflecting the agency form of government. Administrative law has not been a matter of substantial intellectual controversy for a long time. Professor Hamburger comes not to bring peace, but rather a sword of understanding and ultimately of action. He means for us to understand what we have lost or are losing.
To adapt the adage misattributed to Trotsky that is achieving the status of a cliché, you may not be interested in administrative law, but administrative law is interested in you. Hamburger declares that although administrative law is unrecognized by the Constitution, it “has become the government’s primary mode of controlling Americans.” He observes that “administrative law has avoided much rancor because its burdens have been felt mostly by corporations.” This is where you come in: “Increasingly, however, administrative law has extended its reach to individuals. The entire society therefore now has opportunities to feel its hard edge.”
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Hamburger’s assessment of the proliferation of administrative law may be an understatement. Formal administrative law — the regulations promulgated by the alphabet soup of federal agencies — dwarfs the laws enacted by Congress. To take one vivid example from the front pages of the news in the Age of Obama, the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) runs for 2,800 pages. Democratic House majority leader Nancy Pelosi famously predicted that we would have to pass the bill to find out what was in it. Pelosi was right in more ways than one. By one count published last year, the regulations implementing the act have consumed 10,000 closely printed pages of the Federal Register, at 30 times the length (in words) of the law passed by Congress.
Beginning roughly with the New Deal, but ever more since then, we have been ruled by agency government. In this form of government, Congress delegates its legislative authority to an administrative agency in the executive branch. The agency promulgates regulations with the binding force of law. It prosecutes citizens for violating the regulations. It also acts as the judge and jury in prosecutions it brings. The agencies therefore combine legislative, executive, and judicial functions in the same body.
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The Interstate Commerce Commission, established in 1887, is recognized as the first administrative agency established by federal law. The agency form of government, however, came into its own in the Progressive era and the New Deal. It purported to be something new under the sun, an adaptation of republican government to the modern age. The Administrative Procedure Act, passed in 1946, formalized the triumph of the agency form of government.
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It is Hamburger’s contention that agency government is in essence not new at all, but rather something antique and retrograde, dating back to the early Middle Ages. According to Hamburger, agency government represents a return to the prerogative power of the English monarchy before the reforms of Magna Carta (1215) and the acts of Parliament and decisions of the law courts in the 16th and 17th centuries.
As Hamburger says repeatedly in this book, administrative law establishes a regime of the kind the United States Constitution was carefully designed to prevent. By his reckoning, we have returned to “the preconstitutional world” of the inglorious reign of James I: Royal edicts are in style, the Star Chamber is in session, and the king is working the outer limits of absolute royal power.
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It is a form of government that is, in Hamburger’s view, fundamentally unconstitutional, unlawful, and illegitimate. He has some impressive authority on his side. James Madison famously proclaimed “a political truth of the highest intrinsic value” in Federalist 47: “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” Hamburger concurs, arguing that it may also justly be pronounced the very definition of agency government.
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Well, who is Philip Hamburger and why is he saying these things? Hamburger is not some rabble-rouser with thoughts of fame or fortune in mind looking to make a name or attract an audience. Rather, he holds an endowed chair at Columbia Law School. He is a distinguished scholar specializing in legal history. He is the epitome of respectability. His book bears the imprint of an elite academic publisher and it draws on a deep well of original scholarship to address what he characterizes as a leading danger to the future of limited constitutional government.
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The book is in substantial part devoted to English legal history. Hamburger recounts how British monarchs claimed a right to issue edicts with the binding force of law and even to impose taxes under their prerogative power. They also established their own courts — the Star Chamber being the most notable example — to enforce their will.
#page#This prerogative power was reformed over time, with legislative power restricted to Parliament and judicial power to the law courts. The courts rejected edicts promulgated by the king with the binding force of law; in 1641, Parliament abolished the Star Chamber and other prerogative tribunals.
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Against this backdrop of legal history, the vesting by the U.S. Constitution of “all legislative Powers” in Congress (emphasis added), of “the executive Power” in a president, and of “the judicial Power” in the Supreme Court and the inferior courts established by Congress sparkles with a new eloquence, at least to me. This tripartite division of power among the branches of the government profoundly reflects the Founders’ understanding of the legal history recounted by Hamburger. They meant to lay out in our fundamental law the painful lessons learned in the long development of the English constitution.
Hamburger focuses on prerogative power, or absolute power, as he also calls it, in three aspects that recur in administrative law. His somewhat awkward terminology summarizes his critique. First, like the edicts issued under the prerogative power claimed by kings, administrative pronouncements are outside the law, or extralegal. The power to enact law is delegated by the people to Congress. Edicts promulgated by administrative agencies are, so Hamburger argues, outside the law.
Second, administrative pronouncements are above the law, or supralegal. The regulations and adjudications of administrative agencies demand and receive deference from Article III courts. Hamburger contends that such deference places administrative law and proceedings above the law.
Third, administrative law represents power that is consolidated. What the Constitution carefully puts asunder into three branches, administrative law has come to join in unholy union. As it was meant to do by its progressive advocates, it defeats the separation of powers.
Hamburger seeks to revive arguments about the legitimacy of agency government that, but for the exertions of a few hardy legal scholars, have long been interred. In this book and in his hands, old or forgotten arguments take on new life.
One such argument has to do with Congress’s delegation (or, as Hamburger emphasizes, subdelegation) of its lawmaking authority to agencies of the executive branch. The regime of administrative law depends to a great extent on Congress’s delegation of its lawmaking authority to these administrative agencies. The Supreme Court has purported to limit Congress’s authority to delegate its lawmaking power under an extremely lenient nondelegation doctrine (Congress’s lawmaking delegation must articulate an “intelligible principle”). The last time it enforced the doctrine to strike down a statute was in 1935. Reports of the death of the nondelegation doctrine are not greatly exaggerated.
The Court’s history to the contrary notwithstanding, Hamburger argues in a key chapter that Congress’s delegation of lawmaking authority is flatly unconstitutional; this argument is central to his indictment of administrative law. Among other things, Hamburger argues that delegation is expressly prohibited by the text of the Constitution. Hamburger dryly observes: “In a republic, it is not too much to expect that law will be made by a legislature composed of representatives of the people.” He cites John Locke (“The legislative can have no power to transfer their authority of making laws, and place it in other hands”) and other authorities in support of his argument that legislative power may not be delegated (or subdelegated), yet the Supreme Court has rejected such a flat prohibition, and Hamburger lacks much support among critics of administrative law in making this argument. Hamburger persuades me completely on this important point, but he is a voice crying in the wilderness.
How is the perverse genie of administrative law to be put back into the bottle? Unlike many books devoted to the analysis of a dire problem, Hamburger’s does not propose a solution to the problem of administrative law. Toward the end of the book, he briefly implores federal judges to revisit the doctrine of nondelegation and suggests how they might usefully do so. He alludes to the right of revolution (“when the English Crown justified its absolute power as constitutional, the English and eventually the Americans engaged in revolutions against it”). Mostly, however, he provides the intellectual wherewithal for us to think through the problem on our own.
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This is not a perfect book. One would not wish it a page longer than it is; one would wish it to be shorter. It is not elegantly written and it is not easy reading. It makes few concessions to the general reader, pursuing its arguments in both footnotes and endnotes; indeed, Hamburger frequently continues the footnotes in the endnotes.
Yet this is a book that rewards the reader willing to make the necessary effort with a deepened understanding of the Constitution and the challenges that confront us in the task of restoration. Though it was not written to be the book of a season, the news of the day repeatedly buttresses the powerful case Hamburger makes against the legitimacy of the vast administrative apparatus that does so much to dictate the way we live now. It is a book not only of this season but of many seasons to come.
— Scott W. Johnson is a Minneapolis attorney and a contributor to the website Power Line. This review is adapted from one that appeared in the August 11, 2014, issue of NR.Irrespective of whether Surat Sukha’s departure from Melbourne Victory yesterday was due to the stated compassionate reasons or the need to free up funds for other signings, there should be no doubt that the Victory or any other club should be looking for better quality imports from Asia.
That’s not to say the 28 year old Thai, who was released to join Bangkok based Buriram PEA, wasn’t a handy squad player in his two seasons in the A-League.
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Whether as a fullback or holding midfielder, he played almost 20 games each season. By all accounts he was extremely popular among the players, and Victory fans rarely had a bad thing to say about him.
But the reality is that any club wishing to utilise the spot available to a player from the Asian confederation should be looking for one that adds some serious first team value.
This, to my mind, doesn’t necessarily mean that the player has to be a front third hit, but he should be a key member of the team, among its major contributors on a weekly basis.
Some clubs might be looking for a marauding full-back, others an experienced central defender, or a ball-playing holding midfielder, or a tricky winger, while some might need a key striker or an influential number 10.
Others might even be after a keeper.
This would depend largely on the current gaps in the squad and the utilisation of the other key positions, such at the marquee, or local marquee.
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The Victory, for example, have a plethora of attacking options next season. These include Jean Carlos Solorzano, Archie Thompson, Danny Allsopp, Marco Rojas, and Isaka Cernak.
Add Carlos Hernandez and Harry Kewell, either of whom may or may not be involved by the time the competition starts in October, and it’s clear that the Victory may decide to use an Asian spot elsewhere.
Two or three areas that stick out, where a quality Asian player would no doubt help, include in central defence, in one of the fullback spots or in the holding midfield, where Melbourne really need a ball-playing enabler who allows the front men to flourish.
Of course, if either Hernandez or Kewell aren’t on board, then the need for a gun Asian striker or playmaker might become more pressing.
Either way, the club must be ready to pounce, making the decision to release Sukha a good one.
In football, things change very quickly, and the key for any club is to plan, have contingencies and be adaptable.
While the lack of genuine quality signings from Asia, be they from the east or west, has been a bugbear of mine over the first six seasons of this fledgling domestic competition, there have been a few examples of clubs getting it right.
The first was in the opening season, with Adelaide United’s use of Shenqing Qu. In a team that was notorious for playing with a physical edge, in a physical first season of the competition, Qu was a hit, both as a provider and creator of goals.
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This is how I described Qu’s contribution in my team of the first A-League season:
“What a success story this bloke has been. A former Chinese international, he has been a vital ingredient in United’s minor premiership run, scoring six, most of them quality strikes, as well as five assists in only 16 games. But it is not just his impressive work in front of goal that has impressed. Qu has a fantastic appetite to be involved in a game, working as hard as any midfielder to pressurise opposition defences from the front. A manager’s dream.”
Another notable Asian import in the inaugural season was the Queensland Roar’s Hyuk-Su Seo, or Harold as he became affectionately known, who also featured in my abovementioned team of the season, as well as my team of season three.
Also from South Korea, the other great success was the Newcastle Jets’ attacking midfielder Jin-Hyun Song, the technically proficient youngster who took over from Nick Carle in a key position and made a valuable contribution in the run-in to the club’s championship in season three.
For Song, the A-League was only ever a stepping stone to Europe, a fit that suited the Jets at the time.
Another developing his game well at the same club is Ali Abbas.
While competing financially with clubs across Asia remains a significant challenge for the domestic game, and there are more Australian players heading in the opposite direction, clubs should continue to strive for quality.
Like any players that come from overseas, Asian imports should be major contributors, significantly better than the players available locally.
AdvertisementGoal Setting, Academic Reminders, and College Success: A Large-Scale Field Experiment
NBER Working Paper No. 23738
Issued in August 2017
NBER Program(s):Children, Economics of Education, Labor Studies
This paper presents an independent large-scale experimental evaluation of two online goal-setting interventions. Both interventions are based on promising findings from the field of social psychology. Approximately 1,400 first-year undergraduate students at a large Canadian university were randomly assigned to complete one of two online goal-setting treatments or a control task. Additionally, half of treated participants also were offered the opportunity to receive follow-up goal-oriented reminders through e-mail or text messages in an attempt to test a cost-effective method for increasing the saliency of treatment. Across all treatment groups, we observe no evidence of an effect on GPA, course credits, or second year persistence. Our estimates are precise enough to discern a seven percent standardized performance effect at a five percent significance level. Our results hold by subsample, for various outcome variables, and across a number of specifications.
Supplementary materials for this paper:
Acknowledgments
Machine-readable bibliographic record - MARC, RIS, BibTeX
Document Object Identifier (DOI): 10.3386/w23738
Users who downloaded this paper also downloaded* these:Nokia will introduce its latest Lumia 820 handset at a special event with Microsoft on Wednesday September 5th, we have learned. Images of the Lumia 820 leaked last week and we have been able to confirm them with multiple sources. The 4.3-inch Lumia 820 will be Nokia's new mid- to high-end Windows Phone and will feature some of the same impressive hardware specifications that its big brother (Lumia 920) also includes.
Like the 920, wireless charging on the Lumia 820 will be available too — allowing users to charge the device on a specially designed pad without cables. However, we undertand that owners will need to purchase an additional cover to enable the functionality. One unique aspect to the Lumia 820 is the ability to change the rear covers of the device. We understand that, like the 710, owners of the 820 will be able to purchase additional colors for the device.
Nokia's Lumia 820 will also include 8GB of storage, but the company is including support for a microSD slot to expand this further. A 1.5GHz dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM will help power the Lumia 820 — identical to that of the Lumia 920. We understand that the Lumia 820's camera will be similar to its Lumia 920 counterpart, but we're unable to confirm whether the company will be branding it as PureView.
We're expecting Nokia to announce the device on Wednesday, with a launch date expected in late October or early November.President Trump on Tuesday blamed Democrats for any premium spikes for ObamaCare plans, even as key senators announced a bipartisan deal aimed at saving the insurance markets from actions taken by the administration.
“Any increase in ObamaCare premiums is the fault of the Democrats for giving us a ‘product’ that never had a chance of working,” Trump wrote on Twitter.
Any increase in ObamaCare premiums is the fault of the Democrats for giving us a "product" that never had a chance of working. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 17, 2017
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The Trump administration last week decided to cut off key payments to insurers, known as cost-sharing reductions. The payments help insurers provide low-income people with lower co-pays and deductibles.
Insurers across the country were already raising rates because of uncertainty surrounding the health-care law, and cutting off the insurer payments was estimated to contribute to the hike.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in August that about 1 million additional people would be uninsured in 2018 and insurance companies would raise premium prices by about 20 percent for ObamaCare plans if the payments were cut off.
For example, Pennsylvania announced insurance premiums for plans sold on the state’s ObamaCare exchange will increase by an average of 30.6 percent for 2018, primarily because of Trump’s decision to stop paying the subsidies.
Trump's tweet came hours after Senate Health Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander Andrew (Lamar) Lamar AlexanderPence meeting with Senate GOP ahead of vote to block emergency declaration Addressing repair backlog at national parks can give Congress a big win The Hill's Morning Report — Emergency declaration to test GOP loyalty to Trump MORE (R-Tenn.) announced that he and Sen. Patty Murray Patricia (Patty) Lynn MurrayThis week: Congress, Trump set for showdown on emergency declaration Senate reignites blue slip war over Trump court picks Johnson & Johnson subpoenaed by DOJ and SEC, company says MORE (Wash.), the ranking Democrat, reached a tentative bipartisan deal that would extend the payments for two years and give states more flexibility to change ObamaCare rules.
The negotiations had been aimed at stabilizing insurance markets. An internal GOP memo obtained by The Hill on Tuesday noted there would be “chaos” in the markets without the subsidies.Drxy/Thinkstock.
In 2005, Panda Software reported that a new strain of malware was discovered every 12 minutes. In 2016, the cybersecurity company McAfee says it found four every second.
And those were just the strains the companies could detect. For malware—the umbrella term for parasitic software like viruses, worms, and Trojans that infiltrate and interfere with computer functions—hasn’t only proliferated: It’s evolved to better evade detection.
Faced with this tsunami of sophisticated malware, antivirus software like McAfee, once practically synonymous with personal cybersecurity, has struggled to keep pace. In 2014, a senior vice president at Symantec (the company that created McAfee competitor Norton Antivirus) went so far as to publicly say he thought that antivirus software was “dead.” At the time, he estimated that the technology only caught about 45 percent of cyberattacks.
Antivirus software is struggling to keep up because the primary strategy on which it relies—signature detection—is based on the outdated assumption that the malware you saw yesterday will look the same today. Generally speaking, when a cybersecurity company sees a new type of malware, it will analyze and create a detection signature for that specific strain. Like the immune system recognizing a pathogen it has seen before, antivirus software uses these signatures to scan files for known threats. This strategy worked reasonably well when viruses were mostly made by amateur hackers. But in 2003, according to McAfee, we saw the first real for-profit malware and since then, the growth of organized cybercrime has brought forth a series of innovations that allow malware to rapidly change its appearance. If the viruses of the early 2000s were the common cold, sophisticated malware of today is like HIV, able to change its protein coatings to avoid detection.
One of these innovations is a process called “crypting,” which allows a developer to transform the appearance of a piece of malicious code using encryption tools and test it against antivirus software until it is undetectable. Similarly, developers can also use polymorphic code to turn malware into a chameleon, capable of changing its appearance every time it runs. One 2013 analysis found that 82 percent of malware disappears after an hour, and 70 percent of malware only exists once. This short lifespan means just a small percentage of antivirus detection signatures—0.34 percent in one analysis—catch active threats. The rest just hunt ghosts. Though some companies have introduced new strategies to combat these adaptations, they haven’t been enough to fully keep up with fast-moving threats.
Despite its diminishing effectiveness, a startling number of users still use antivirus software as their first, or only, line of defense. According to a 2015 Google study comparing digital practices of security experts and nonexperts, 42 percent of nonexperts said antivirus software was among the most important steps they took protect themselves online. The response topped the list of measures taken by nonexperts, even ahead of “using strong passwords.” But, tellingly, it didn’t even crack the top five among those who work in the cybersecurity field.
This knowledge gap is significant and worrying, because modern malware attacks can be devastating. One type of attack that has grown dramatically in recent years is ransomware, which encrypts one’s files and holds them for ransom. In 2016 alone there were 4,000 ransomware attacks a day, according to IBM. As we store more and more personal information on our computers—home videos, photos, financial information—the cost of infection only grows. So how can the typical user keep up their cyberhealth in a post-antivirus age?
While the staggering progress of malware is frightening, comparing digital threats to infectious diseases provides some context to the risk internet users face. Each day, we all encounter millions of germs. Yet most of us stay healthy most of the time thanks to a combination of our immune system and preventive health measures such as washing our hands, exercising, and getting plenty of sleep. To preserve your cyberhealth, you must similarly strengthen your defenses by supplementing antivirus software (think of it as your imperfect cyber immune system) with a diversity of preventive digital tools and habits that can help keep malware and hackers from reaching you in the first place.
First, antivirus software can still play an important role. No matter how much you wash your hands, some infection will inevitably get through. While other security practices can help you avoid malware and prevent hackers from breaching your online accounts, no other consumer tool will recognize malware in downloads and emails. In 2013, Microsoft said that unprotected computers are 5.5 times more likely to be infected than those that run real-time antivirus protection. Most well-known brands provide both real-time monitoring and malware removal.
Premium products like Norton Security Deluxe, McAfee Total Protection, and Kaspersky Total Security may provide a higher level of customer service, but free products from brands like AVG and Avira provide a similar level of overall protection. While Windows users can use Microsoft’s native antivirus software, Mac users will need to find a third-party product (although Macs are generally at lower risk of infection due to Apple’s smaller market share). Whatever solution you choose, it is essential to turn on automatic updates. According to a 2014 study by Microsoft, having expired or out-of-date antivirus software is nearly as bad as having none at all.
With all its flaws, however, people need to take other steps to ensure a robust digital defense. This is the wash your hands, eat nutritious foods, and get enough sleep part that, like a parent, cybersecurity experts (and Future Tensers) like to nag users about. Among them: Install updates for all of your software—not just antivirus programs. In 2016, a Sophos researcher reported that nearly half of malware attacks involving Microsoft Office target a vulnerability Microsoft patched in 2012. Get a password manager. (If you are on a budget, it is better to use your limited funds on a password manager than on premium antivirus software.) Set up two-factor authentication, use unique passwords for each account, encrypt your computers and phones, and please, please create backups of your devices. Though these tools alone won’t keep you safe from malware, they will help protect your personal data should a virus breach your defenses.
Healthy digital habits also make a big difference for individual protection. The simplest advice for online safety comes via cybersecurity journalist Brian Krebs: First, if you didn’t go looking for it, don’t install it. Second, if you installed it, update it. Third, if you no longer need it, get rid of it! Mostly, use common sense: You wouldn’t eat a piece of candy off the ground. Yet in 2008, a U.S. soldier sparked one of the largest data breaches in military history by using a USB stick he found in the parking lot outside his base.
Antivirus may not be dead yet, but it’s probably time to call hospice. While this calls to mind the old joke that the best way to secure a computer is to pull the plug, giving up is not an option for most of us. If you haven’t previously taken your cybersecurity seriously, now is a great time to start. For the quantity and intimate quality of the information we trust to our devices is transforming our relationship to data. In some important ways, we no longer simply own our information. We are our information.
This article is part of the cybersecurity self-defense installment of Futurography, a series in which Future Tense introduces readers to the technologies that will define tomorrow. Each month, we’ll choose a new technology and break it down. Future Tense is a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate.The police identified the other students under arrest as Adam Klein, the fencing team member; Stephan Vincenzo, the scholar-poet; and Michael Wymbs, the student council member. All are 20, and each was charged with a variety of drug offenses. New York City’s special narcotics prosecutor, Bridget G. Brennan, and Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly announced the charges.
Ms. Brennan’s office said Mr. David, the salutatorian of his high school class, was the main target of the investigation, which began after law enforcement authorities received anonymous tips about the drug sales. The authorities accused him of dealing with the group’s alleged off-campus suppliers, who were also charged, and he was the only student charged with selling cocaine: 20 grams, for $880, the authorities said. |
of boys with hypospadias than those who began menstruating when aged 12–14 years, but this was not statistically significant. Table 1. Categorical factors studied in relation to hypospadias cases Factor (population distribution, %) Cases, % (n) χ 2 (P) OR (95% CI) Previous obstetric history Previous miscarriages (n = 6692) Yes (21.7) 0.4 (6) 1.00 Ref No (78.3) 0.8 (40) 2.05 (0.152) 1.86 (0.79, 4.38) Previous stillbirths (n = 6672) Yes (1.0) 1.5 (1) 2.28(0.31, 16.78) No (99.0) 0.7 (45) 0.69 (0.406) 1.00 Ref Boy first born (n = 6610) Yes (42.8) 0.8 (22) 1.23 (0.69, 2.20) No (57.2) 0.6 (24) 0.49 (0.485) 1.00 Ref Age at menarche, years (n = 5714) 8–11 (20.2) 0.6 (7) 1.58 (0.41, 6.13) 12–14 (66.2) 0.8 (30) 2.07 (0.63, 6.80) 15 (13.6) 0.4 (3) 1.73 (0.420) 1.00 Ref Possible use of the pill during pregnancy (n = 6358) Yes (5.4) 0.6 (2) 1.00 Ref No (94.6) 0.7 (43) 0.08 (0.780) 1.22 (0.30, 5.07) Seen doctor for possible infertility (n = 6333) Yes (12.8) 0.2 (2) 1.00 Ref No (87.2) 0.8 (43) 2.85 (0.091) 3.18 (0.77, 13.12) Duration of trying for pregnancy (years, planned pregnancies only) (n = 4660) < 0.5 (73.7) 0.9 (31) 1.00 Ref 0.5–1 (13.8) 0.5 (3) 1.53 (0.21, 11.25) 1–2 (8.8) 0.2 (1) 0.81 (0.08, 7.82) 3 (3.7) 0.6 (1) 2.89 (0.410) 0.43 (0.03, 6.82) Total duration of pill use, years (n = 6184) < 1 (9.2) 1.1 (6) 2.01 (0.79, 5.08) 1–2 (13.3) 0.9 (7) 1.61 (0.67, 3.86) 3–4 (22.5) 1.0 (14) 1.91 (0.95, 3.85) 5 (55.0) 0.6 (18) 4.35 (0.226) 1.00 Ref Maternal nutritional factors Taken iron tablets in first 18 weeks of gestation (n = 6228) Yes (22.8) 1.0 (16) 1.87 (1.02, 3.46) No (77.2) 0.6 (29) 4.17 (0.041) 1.00 Ref Vegetarian during pregnancy (n = 6296) Yes (5.1) 2.2 (7) 3.53 (1.56, 7.98) No (94.9) 0.6 (37) 10.45 (0.001) 1.00 Ref Drank soya milk during pregnancy (n = 6263) Yes (1.4) 2.2 (2) 3.67 (0.87, 15.44) No (98.6) 0.6 (38) 3.61 (0.058) 1.00 Ref Ate pulses during pregnancy (n = 6251) Never (76.7) 0.6 (30) 1.00 Ref Once in 2 weeks (14.3) 0.4 (4) 0.72 (0.25, 2.04) 1–3 times/week (8.0) 0.8 (4) 1.28 (0.45, 3.64) 4 + times/week (1.1) 4.5 (3) 16.13 (0.001) 7.56 (2.25, 25.42) Ate soya ‘meat’ during pregnancy (n = 6189) Never (92.3) 0.6 (36) 1.00 Ref Once in 2 weeks (5.1) 0.6 (2) 1.01 (0.24, 4.22) 1 + times/week (2.7) 1.8 (3) 3.51 (0.173) 2.95 (0.90, 9.68) Vegetarianism and iron supplementation (n = 6071) Omnivore, no iron (74.3) 0.5 (22) 1.00 Ref Vegetarian, no iron (3.6) 2.3 (5) 4.81 (1.81, 12.84) Omnivore, with iron (20.5) 1.1 (14) 2.32 (1.19, 4.55) Vegetarian, with iron (1.6) 2.1 (2) 16.59 (0.001) 4.30 (0.99, 18.54) Vegetarianism and iron supplementation (n = 6071) Omnivore, no iron (74.3) 0.5 (22) 1.00 Ref Omnivore, with iron (20.5) 1.1 (14) 2.32 (1.19, 4.55) Vegetarian (5.2) 2.2 (7) 16.54 (< 0.001) 4.65 (1.97, 10.98) Maternal health and medications taken Mother had influenza in first trimester (n = 6196) Yes (8.2) 1.8 (9) 3.08 (1.46, 6.48) No (91.8) 0.6 (33) 9.78 (0.002) 1.00 Ref Mother took ‘codeine/Anadin™’ in first trimester (n = 6154) Yes (3.2) 2.3 (5) 3.76 (1.47, 9.62) No (96.8) 0.6 (41) 8.84 (0.003) 1.00 Ref Supplementing the diet with iron tablets in the first 3 months of pregnancy was associated with a significantly higher risk for hypospadias (Table 1); 1% of mothers who took iron tablets had boys born with hypospadias, compared with 0.6% of those who did not (P = 0.041). The most notable effect was with vegetarianism; 2.2% of mothers who stated that they were a vegetarian in pregnancy gave birth to hypospadiacs, which compared with 0.6% of omnivores (P = 0.001). The incidence of hypospadias in boys of omnivorous mothers who had previously been vegetarian (i.e. before pregnancy) was not significantly different from that in those who had never been (data not shown). The proportion of boys born with hypospadias was higher among mothers who drank soya milk (2.2%) and who regularly consumed soya products (1.8%), although not statistically significantly so. In addition, the consumption of pulses (e.g. dried peas, beans, lentils and chick‐peas) four or more times a week resulted in a significantly larger proportion of cases (4.5%, P = 0.001). The consumption of any other types of foods had no significant effects. Only 163 mothers declared that they always bought organically grown vegetables. There were no cases of hypospadias among this group (1.07 cases would have been expected). As iron supplementation is closely associated with vegetarianism (almost twice as many of the ALSPAC vegetarian mothers took extra iron tablets than did omnivores) this interrelationship was investigated. A new variable was created, initially categorized as (i) not vegetarian, no iron supplements; (ii) vegetarian, no iron supplements; (iii) not vegetarian, with iron supplements and (iv) vegetarian, with iron supplements. For univariate logistic regression, the largest group was used as the baseline (not vegetarian, no iron supplements). Compared with this group, vegetarian mothers who did not take iron were significantly more likely to give birth to boys with hypospadias, while omnivores who took iron were also more likely bear boys with hypospadias. The size of the effect for vegetarians who took iron was also large but was not significant. However, this was a particularly small group (only 1.6% of the sample). The incidence of hypospadias in vegetarians who sup‐plemented their diet with iron did not differ significantly from that in vegetarians that did not do so, suggesting that the effect of iron supplementation was only significant among omnivores. The two vegetarian groups were therefore combined. The OR for the vegetarian group was then 4.65 (95% CI 1.97–10.98), using omnivores not taking iron as the baseline. This difference was also significant when using the other omnivorous group (taking iron supplements) as the baseline. This variable combination was used in the adjusted analysis. A variety of possible medications taken in the first 3 months of pregnancy were investigated. Only one resulted in a significant effect; 2.3% of mothers who took codeine/‘Anadin™’ in pregnancy gave birth to a hypospadiac, compared with 0.5% of those who did not (P = 0.003). Similarly, only one aspect of health had a significant effect; three times as many mothers who reported influenza in the first 3 months of pregnancy (1.8%) had a boy with hypospadias compared with those who did not (0.6%). To assess independent associations, two separate multivariate logistic regression models were built, the first using vegetarianism and iron supplementation as two separate variables, and the second combining these as previously described. All significant factors associated with hypospadias were entered. If mothers were vegeta‐rian during pregnancy (model 1, Table 2), the risk for hypospadias remained significant after adjustment. Influenza was also independently associated with hypospadias. The effect of iron supplementation was no longer significant when influenza was added to the model. In the second model (Table 2) vegetarianism remained significant compared with omnivores who did not take iron; omnivores who took iron supplements were also statistically significant, but only just. Influenza was still significantly associated with hypospadias. Table 2. Adjusted odds ratios for independent factors associated with hypospadias (considering iron supplementation and vegetarianism separately and combining iron supplementation with vegetarianism or not) Factor (%) OR (95% CI) P Model 1 Vegetarian during pregnancy Yes (5.1) 3.88 (1.69, 8.92) No (94.9) 1.00 Ref 0.0014 Taken iron tablets during pregnancy Yes (43.0) 1.81 (0.92, 3.55) No (57.0) 1.00 Ref 0.0848 Mother had influenza in first trimester Yes (8.2) 3.24 (1.52, 6.88) No (91.8) 1.00 Ref 0.0020 Model 2 Vegetarianism and iron supplementation Omnivore, no iron (74.3) 1.00 Ref Omnivore, with iron (20.5) 2.07 (1.00, 4.32) Vegetarian (5.2) 4.99 (2.10, 11.88) 0.0009 Mother had influenza in first trimester Yes (8.2) 3.19 (1.50, 6.78) No (91.8) 1.00 Ref 0.0026
Discussion Jensen et al.[16] hypothesized that the detrimental changes in male reproductive health that are becoming more apparent may be caused by the developing fetus having an altered exposure to endocrine‐disrupting chemicals with oestrogenic effects. Testosterone is responsible for the masculinization of the male reproductive tract and the external genitalia. It is thought that oestrogen may inhibit the production of testosterone and thus play a part in the development of urethral abnormalities such as hypospadias. Phytoestrogens have either oestrogenic or anti‐oestrogenic activity depending on the biological environment and their individual chemical structures. The anti‐oestrogenic effects have recently received wide coverage. As Bingham et al.[20] discussed, there are experimental findings suggesting that increased dietary intakes of phytoestrogens have a protective effect on the risk of various hormone‐related diseases, particularly breast cancer, and therefore have an anti‐oestrogenic effect. The consumption of soya as a substitute for meat is increasing in the UK, partly as a result of the recent problems with beef and partly from concepts of ‘healthy eating’. It is now widely used in the food industry, with the advent of vegetarian‐style meals, and it provides the highest concentrations of phytoestrogens (particularly isoflavones) of all edible plant matter [18,21]. However, the estimated daily exposure to exogenous oestrogens by consumers of soya is minimal compared to, e.g. that from oral contraceptives. Such low levels of exposure would perhaps indicate small risks (or benefits), as the biological activity of phytoestrogens is considered to be low. Nevertheless, extended prolonged exposure may cause phytoestrogens in the body to reach biologically significant levels. The possible effects on humans should not be dismissed until more experimental data are available. MacLusky [22] discussed the more indirect role of phytoestrogens; rather than having a direct oestrogenic effect, they may interact with other factors in the diet and lead to an interference with ‘normal oestrogen biosyn‐thesis and action’. The reported prevalence of hypospadias has varied among countries and with time. Czeizel et al.[8] reported a prevalence of 44 per 10000 live male births in Hungary in 1978, while in Latin America a prevalence of only 7.6 per 10000 live births was reported in 1981 [13]. More recently, Stoll et al.[7] reported a prevalence of 29 per 10000 in French male newborns in 1990. The incidence of 64 per 10000 (51 of 7928) boys in the present study is relatively high, supporting concerns about an increase. Several previous studies used specific classifications, but the present population‐based study is unlikely to have included less severe cases, as the condition was only identified by investigations that were part of normal clinical care. Thus the high prevalence may even be an underestimate. The ALSPAC study provided an ideal setting to test the effects of most factors that have previously been significant. However, none of those results was replicated here; indeed, at the time of analysis, the factors that had a statistically significant effect (vegetarianism, iron sup‐plementation and influenza) had not been considered in previous investigations. The present study has the advantage over many previous assessments of having collected the information prospectively, and is thus not influenced by biased recall. Information about events in early pregnancy, e.g. influenza, was elicited at 18 weeks’ gestation and are likely to reflect accurately an infection in early pregnancy. However the dietary questions were asked at 32 weeks’ gestation and concerned dietary habits at that time. These may not have reflected accurately the diet in the early stages of pregnancy. Vegetarianism is an exception; 92% of mothers who reported they were vegetarian at 32 weeks’ gestation had been vegetarian from conception. The remaining 8% were recorded as having been vegetarian for ‘less than one year’, and it is likely that most of these had also been vegetarian since conception. The association of hypospadias with a vegetarian diet was not obviously explicable by the components of a vegetarian diet. There were differences in the proportion of hypospadias cases born to mothers consuming soya milk or other products, but they were not significant, possibly because there were too few mothers who reported consuming such foods; only 1.4% regularly drank soya milk and 2.7% reported consuming soya ‘meat’ weekly. These interesting but statistically insignificant results warrant further investigation. One possible route would be to measure more accurately the amount of soya consumed in the diet. The present questionnaire did not explore other forms of soya in the diet, e.g. soya beans. However, the significant effect of vegetarianism could provide an indirect link to the increased consumption of soya and soya products compared with omnivores. An alternative explanation for the association of hypospadias with vegetarianism might be related to the ‘unnatural’ chemicals (used as fertilizers and pesticides, and which act as endocrine disrupters) present in many fruits and vegetables. A way of assessing this might be to determine the association of hypospadias with the consumption of organic foods, where such chemicals are purportedly absent. Unfortunately, only 163 mothers ‘always’ bought organic vegetables; that none of these mothers had a son with hypospadias is of some interest, but only one case would have been expected. No reduction in risk was evident among those who ‘sometimes’ bought organic vegetables (0.8% had hypos‐padiacs, compared with 0.6% who never bought organically grown vegetables). It is not possible to directly measure the amount of phytoestrogens consumed. Present tables of food contents provide inadequate information about phyto‐estrogen content and hence it is not possible to make substantive comments on their effects on hypospadias. It would therefore be beneficial to determine more precise levels of phytoestrogens, not only in soya and its products, but in other food substances commonly consumed in the UK. Presently, urinary levels of isoflavones are widely used as a surrogate estimate for the actual levels of consumption. Kelly et al.[23] found that the mean levels of isoflavones excreted increased from 2.5 mg to 17.4 mg after the diet was supplemented with soyabean. Among females, Aldercreutz et al.[24] found that the mean urinary excretion in American omnivores was 0.11 mg, which compared with 0.37 mg in lactovegetarians and 1.73 mg among the Japanese [25], where soybean products are a major component of the traditional diet. A further aspect of the vegetarian diet which warrants investigation is a possible deficiency in one or more essential nutrients. The ALSPAC team obtained samples of maternal blood taken during pregnancy and intends to measure levels of these nutrients, phytoestrogens and pesticide residues, which can then be used in analyses of the hypospadias cases. In conclusion, there was a higher proportion of boys with hypospadias born to mothers who were vegetarian during pregnancy (P = 0.001) and to those who had an episode of influenza in the first trimester of pregnancy (P = 0.002). Neither association appears to have been considered previously and these associations need to be tested elsewhere before they can be treated as causal. Nevertheless, it is important to note that there is biological evidence that vegetarians have a greater exposure to phytoestrogens [21] and thus a causal link is biologically feasible.
Acknowledgements We are extremely grateful to all the mothers who took part in this study over several years and who continue to do so; also to the midwives for their cooperation and help in recruiting the mothers during pregnancy. The full ALSPAC study team, comprising interviewers, computer technicians, clerical workers, research scientists, volunteers and managers, continue to make the study possible. The ALSPAC study could not have been undertaken without the financial support of the Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, the Department of Health, the Department of the Environment, MAFF, Nutricia, Nestle and other companies. Funds for this particular analysis were provided by the BBC. The ALSPAC study is part of the WHO initiated European Longitudinal Study of Pregnancy and Childhood.
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Czeizel A, Toth J, Erodi E. ; : 166–71 9 Sweet RA, Schrott HG, Kurland R, Culp OS. Study of the incidence in Rochester, Minnesota. 1940–70, and a case‐control comparison of possible etiologic factors. Mayo Clin Proc 1974 ; 49 : 52–8
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Aldercreutz H, Fotsis T, Bannwart C ; : 791–7 25 Aldercreutz H, Honjo H, Higashi A et al. Urinary excretion of lignans and isoflavonoid phytoestrogens in Japanese men and women consuming a traditional Japanese diet. Am J Clin Nutr 1991 ; 54 : 1093–100There are so very many ways the Apple Watch is a major disappointment and on Monday, writing for the New York Times, Brian X. Chen brought us yet another.
(The “X” is for “I’m not the New York Times technology reporter who said the Apple Watch would give you wrist cancer, that was the other one.”)
“Apple Waits as App Developers Study Who’s Buying Its Watch” (tip o’ the antlers to Lacy Negligence)
In the months surrounding the much-ballyhooed release of the Apple Watch, Apple managers courted Facebook in the hopes that the social networking giant would make a software application for the new gadget.
Begging the question: Do Apple managers hate us? What did we ever do to Apple managers?
Facebook was not persuaded.
Yay, the system works! In a backwards kind of way, but still…
Three months after the watch’s release, there is no Facebook app tailored for it.
Thus explaining the Apple Watch’s 97 percent customer satisfaction rating (disclaimer: these results were from about 800 people on an opt-in panel).
“I don’t know if we could get it all in there in a way that feels good and works well,” [Adam Mosseri, who oversees Facebook’s news feed,] said in a recent interview. “You’d just want to get your phone out at that point.”
We not understand watch. How make Flash games and ads for watch? How skim health data for target marketing? Uhnnnn. Urrr.
That puts the watch, Apple’s first new product since the iPad in 2010, in something of a Catch-22: The companies whose apps would most likely prompt more people to buy the device are waiting to see who is buying it and how they use it.
Just like the iPhone and iPad failed because they didn’t have Microsoft Office on them. (It is rather ironic that most of the iPad’s sales slide came after Office was released for iOS.)
…only five of the 20 most popular free iPhone apps in the United States have versions for the Apple Watch, according to data from App Annie, an analytics firm.
And it’s been out for three whole months! What’s taking so long?! Certainly all 20 of these top free apps are perfectly suited to the Apple Watch. People are literally chafing at their watch straps to watch YouTube and Netflix videos, play Solitaire and somehow magically use Find My iPhone without an Internet connection on their Apple Watches!
The Macalope has seen a lot of dumb bars for success in his time, but this one doesn’t understand how pudding works. One of the top 20 free apps, Instagram, is owned by the aforementioned highly watch-skeptical Facebook, a fact that Chen gets around to mentioning in paragraph 21.
And the number of apps for the watch, which now stands at about 7,400, is growing at a slower rate than the explosive uptick of apps that were produced for iPhones and iPads in their early days.
There can be no other explanation than skepticism about the watch. It has nothing to do with trying to figure out a new form factor or the fact that developers have to wait the fall release of watchOS 2.0 to ship native apps. Nope.
Other software companies Chen mentions whose apps are missing from the Apple Watch include Google, which mysteriously doesn’t yet make a Gmail client for the watch and merely serves to compound the high level of watch skepticism, which is already very high, astoundingly high, really, so high. It is certainly shocking that a company with a competing platform would not jump on the Apple Watch and devastating that there’s no other way to read Gmail on the watch. Failure and shameful spankings all the way around at the Apple team working on the Watch.
Personally, the horny one thinks email is a lousy use case for the Apple Watch and serves to underline the reasons why developers should rightly be loathe to just shrinking their app down and slapping it on the watch. Thoughtless, rampant software development may be the hallmark of a quickly growing platform, but it’s still not necessarily something to aspire to.It’s been a bit all-quiet for the Cold War-set X-COM reimagining Xenonauts for the last few months, but creators Goldhawk have finally broken cover to show how the major element – the ground combat – looks in action. The answer, you may not be terribly surprised to hear is “quite a bit like X-COM”, but clearly that’s exactly what we want. Higher res and detail is a fine thing, but it’s especially pleasing to see that destructible scenery, something so bafflingly absent from many of the commercial X-COM remakes, is present and correct.
[Click the screenies for larger versions.]
The ground combat reveals comes via a dev diary posted on PCG, which talks through exactly what you’re seeing in the various screenshots. New features of note (i.e. stuff not in X-COM) are a directional cover system and an exclusion zone around your landing craft which means you won’t suffer half your guys getting immediately slain in the first turn.
Information on stuff like the air combat and inventory, meanwhile, can be found free from an ‘Exclusive’ tag over on the Xenonauts website. Again, it’s in the familiar-but-different vein, clearly trying to create a bespoke look and world despite being definably X-COMy.
We’ll hopefully have some hands-on Xenonauts thoughts for you in the not too distant future, but in the meantime you can preorder the game for $30, which as well as helping to fund the game’s development gets you access to early builds and features as the team comes up with ’em. All being well, Xenonauts will launch later this year. Now, what the hell’s going on with XCOM?Copyright by WATE - All rights reserved
WKRN Staff - NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – Tuesday night's State of the Union address is expected, in some part, to be inspired by the state of Tennessee.
Two things that are really important to President Barack Obama are already happening here.
One is technology. The president wants Internet access treated like a public utility. Chattanooga already does this through their publically-run, high-speed Internet
Another focus Obama will have is higher education. He announced a free community college program on Jan. 9 that was modeled after Governor Bill Haslam's Tennessee Promise, a program that provides two years tuition-free education at a community college or technical school in Tennessee.
He called it an "aggressive new plan to bring down the cost of community college in America."
A very special guest from Tennessee will also be in attendance Tuesday.
Chelsey Davis met the president when he visited Pellissippi State Community College in Knoxville to make the education announcement.
It was Obama's third visit to the state in 12 months. In December, he stopped at Casa Azafran to highlight the community center's outreach to immigrants. In January of last year, he spoke at McGavock High School and praised Metro's focus on educational programs.If there’s a day of the year to notice the paradox of organized labor, Labor Day is it.
The paradox is this: even as private sector unionism has declined, public sector unionism is in some ways more influential than ever.
The numbers tell the story. Among private sector employees — the ones who work for for-profit companies or non-profit organizations that are not part of the government — the percentage who belong to labor unions plummeted to a mere 7.5 percent last year, from 23.3 percent in 1977, according to UnionStats.com. By the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics’ more restrictive accounting, a mere 6.7 percent of private sector workers were in unions in 2013.
Among government workers, it’s a whole different story: 40.8 percent of local government workers — teachers, police, firefighters, librarians — belong to unions, according to the BLS numbers. The public sector rate drops to 35.3 percent (38.7 percent by the UnionStats.com numbers) if you include state and federal employees — postal workers, corrections officers. That’s so much higher than the private sector that it’s almost a tale of two labor movements — one, in the private sector, that is diminishing to irrelevance, and another, in the public sector, that retains substantial clout.
Public sector unions are so important that it’s impossible to tell the story of the big city and state governments without accounting for their influence. It’d be impossible to understand public education in America, for example, without knowing about the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association and the roles they play in electing local government officials and in negotiating contracts with detailed work rules and protections for teachers. Likewise, one can’t understand the California state budget without understanding the enormous power of the union that represents that state’s prison guards. The power of public sector unions also explains why retired city bus drivers and teachers have generous, guaranteed, taxpayer-funded defined-benefit pensions, while private sector workers and entrepreneurs must save for their own retirements.
Private sector unions, meanwhile, have been reduced from their past role of collecting union dues from workers and negotiating contracts for them to a new and less significant role as |
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Epik Explains Why Bitcoin:
Bitcoin is the digital currency loved by geeks that is steadily gaining mainstream adoption as an alternative method of payment. Due to its breakthrough Blockchain technology, it serves as borderless digital cash, which can be typically transmitted without fees to sender or receiver. For some, it has become a preferred payment method. Technology progress and brand acceptance has made Bitcoin a practical method of payment warranting inclusion in a modern shopping cart.
Bitcoin, also known as the “frictionless currency”, allows instantaneous payments globally without payment processing fees. It eliminates intermediaries such as banks, which charge a fee on every transaction, and makes it easy to send funds in any denomination. All you need is a digital wallet and the cryptographic payment address. There are no forms to fill, no sharing of sensitive data, and no risk of unauthorized charges through a saved payment method. For the merchant, there is the added assurance of no chargebacks, e.g. due to a purchase being made using a stolen credit card.
“In the last seven years Bitcoin has evolved from a geek experiment to a reliable alternative to traditional systems. As the world changes, Epik must stay up to date with new trends to satisfy its highly demanding customer base. Epik is a bank for digital names. And now we have a digital coin,” elaborated Matheus Leite, Director of Product Management, who led and managed the implementation.Prison life made adorable.
Published March 9, 2015 2:07 PM PST By Liana Kerzner @redlianak
Pixel art is one of those glorious things that can make the most horrible things seem soft and safe. The retro prison break RPG game The Escapists is a poster child for this phenomenon. In The Escapists, you control a prison inmate who is roughed up by guards, and attacked by other inmates in the shower. You fashion rudimentary shiv weapons, and mount daring escape attempts that often lead to solitary confinement. But it's all just... really adorable.
It's clear, however, that a lot of thought went into the design of The Escapists. The goal is to escape, but the experience of playing is one of the more rewarding classic role-playing experiences I've had in a while. While you're trying to figure out your path to freedom, you make friends and enemies in prison, find work and do favours for money, and even decorate your cell, if you're like me and want to maximize the space in my storage inventory. The character system is simple -- a three-stat combination of strength, speed and intellect -- and the game rewards exploration and experimentation... although sometimes that reward comes in the form of "tough love" slaps on the wrist that discourage the player from being too reckless.
The Escapists can get downright frustrating at times, and even the easiest prison level is challenging. But the experience of playing the game is so damned enjoyable that it works. The Escapists is the sort of game I know I'd spend far too time with if I was playing it for fun as opposed to the purposes of review. If you need big impressive graphics to enjoy a game there isn't much here for you, but if you're the type of gamer who prioritizes a really solid gameplay experience over whiz-bang graphics and you have a modicum of patience, I can't recommend The Escapists enough!
You start with a brief tutorial that gives you the basics. Play close attention, because I didn't find the button mapping on the Xbox One version terribly intuitive. There are also some hiccups regarding question completion. I've tried to overcome those in the play tips section.
Play Tips
In order to complete a fetch quest, you have to talk to the recipient character while they have the yellow symbol over their head. Then you must navigate to the "Give" tab, then give him the item in your inventory.
Limit the number of illegal (red font) items that you're stashing in your room. The room inspections are random and you need to be able to grab the items before the guards get them.
In order to replace a wall block that you've removed, you need to toggle away from the item in your inventory, then back onto it to get the locator prompt.
Always cover your tracks! Guards find missing vents, missing chunks of wall, and holes in the ground really quickly.
A cool element of The Escapists is that you have the option of customizing every inmate in the prison. It can be pretty funny to use the names of people you know when you start rumbling during prison riots. You're going to be spending a lot of time with the characters you create, so it's worth the chuckles to take some time off the top to make the game your own.
Once in the prison, The Escapists is a game of slow progress and trial and error. There are numerous ways to escape each prison, each with its own pros and cons. Patience and cunning are rewarded. The game is elegantly designed to give you subtle hints without spoon-feeding you solutions, especially regarding crafting. For instance, after getting busted removing a vent cover, the game recommended I craft a fake vent cover using two units of paper mache. It didn't tell me how to make paper mache, but that was a simple process of elimination. (It's made by combining glue and toilet paper.) Hints regarding crafting can be purchased from payphones, much like old mystery games. That throwback feature was something I greatly appreciated. If you want to "cheat," there's also an Escapists wiki.
There is a rhythm to daily prison life and it's important to keep track of that. If you're not where you're supposed to be, the guards are much more hostile. Sometimes they'll even shoot at you. Certain doors are locked at certain times of day as well, but those are the times that the fences in those areas can be slipped through.
One of the many areas you'll roam around through.
While all this is going on, you also have to manage health and energy meters. Your health determines how much damage you can take before getting knocked out. Energy is needed to do most in-game tasks. Certain activities, like meals and exercise, recharge or increase your health. Exercise, however, decreases your energy. Taking a shower or resting will replenish that energy. Of course, fighting depletes health. But fighting is fun!
What's not fun is getting caught for tiny little transgressions, like accidentally standing on your desk in your cell in view of a guard. So act deliberately. The game rewards caution. Some things that I at first thought were design errors seemed more and more like deliberate design choices to add difficulty.
It took me a bit to really get the hang of it, in part because I kept getting distracted by the sheer fun of causing prison riots. But the game clicked for me as soon as I earned my first escape, and it rapidly became so addictive I couldn't put it down. The Escapists is a game that's much bigger than it first appears, and provides undeniable value for money if you're a retro pixel art fan.
This game was reviewed with a copy of the Xbox One version provided by the publisher's PR.
Images courtesy of Team17.FEN
[Event "Rated Rapid game"] [Site "https://lichess.org/KYsbiSS8"] [Date "2015.08.20"] [Round "-"] [White "edmario"] [Black "Huevon"] [Result "0-1"] [UTCDate "2015.08.20"] [UTCTime "22:31:01"] [WhiteElo "1824"] [BlackElo "2103"] [WhiteRatingDiff "-3"] [BlackRatingDiff "+4"] [Variant "Standard"] [TimeControl "480+0"] [ECO "C00"] [Opening "French Defense: Two Knights Variation"] [Termination "Normal"] [Annotator "lichess.org"] 1. Nf3 e6 2. e4 d5 3. Nc3 { C00 French Defense: Two Knights Variation } dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nd7 5. Bd3 Nc5 6. Nxc5 Bxc5 7. Qe2 Nf6 8. c4?! { (0.44 → -0.28) Inaccuracy. Best move was c3. } (8. c3 O-O 9. Bc2 Be7 10. d4 b6 11. O-O Bb7 12. Bf4 c5 13. dxc5 bxc5 14. Rfd1 Qb6 15. Rab1 Rad8 16. Rxd8 Rxd8 17. Ne5) 8... O-O 9. b3? { (-0.34 → -1.68) Mistake. Best move was O-O. } (9. O-O b6 10. b3 Bb7 11. Bb2 Bxf3 12. Qxf3 Bd4 13. Bc3 Qd6 14. Rfe1 Rad8 15. Rad1 Qa3 16. Bb1 c5 17. Qg3 h6 18. Rf1 Rfe8) 9... e5 10. Bb2?! { (-1.59 → -2.28) Inaccuracy. Best move was O-O. } (10. O-O Re8 11. Be4 Nxe4 12. Qxe4 f5 13. Qc2 e4 14. Ne1 f4 15. Bb2 f3 16. d3 fxg2 17. Kxg2 Bf5 18. Qc3 Qg5+ 19. Kh1 exd3) 10... e4 11. Bxf6? { (-2.20 → -3.76) Mistake. Best move was Bxe4. } (11. Bxe4 Nxe4 12. Qxe4 Re8 13. Be5 f6 14. O-O fxe5 15. Rfe1 Re7 16. Re2 a5 17. Rd1 c6 18. Nxe5 Bd4 19. Qf4 Qd6 20. Rde1 Be6) 11... Qxf6 12. Qxe4 Bf5? { (-3.74 → -2.03) Mistake. Best move was Qxa1+. } (12... Qxa1+ 13. Ke2 Bf5 14. Rxa1 Bxe4 15. Bxe4 Rfe8 16. d3 f5 17. Nd2 Bd6 18. g3 fxe4 19. Nxe4 Kf7 20. Kf3 Be5 21. Rd1 Rad8 22. b4) 13. Qxf5 Qxa1+ 14. Ke2?? { (-2.29 → -5.50) Blunder. Best move was Bb1. } (14. Bb1 g6 15. Qc2 Rfe8+ 16. Kf1 Re7 17. b4 Bxb4 18. g3 Bc5 19. Kg2 Rd8 20. Qc1 f5 21. Re1 Rxe1 22. Qxe1 Qf6 23. Kg1 Qb2) 14... Rfe8+ 15. Be4 Rxe4+ 16. Qxe4 Qxh1 17. Ng5 Qxh2 { White resigns. } 0-1The offseason hype for the Baltimore Ravens' defense rolls on.
This spring, new safety Tony Jefferson said Baltimore's defense has an opportunity to be legendary. Defensive tackle Brandon Williams said this summer the unit could reach levels of the 2000 Ravens D.
Corner Jimmy Smith added to the chorus this week.
"This year it is a special unit," Smith said, via ESPN.com's Jamison Hensley. "We feel it. I think the defense as a whole feels it. We know it, and like I said over and over, you have to prove it now."
The Ravens' defense has leaped off the film during their two preseason appearances. It's a unit that's younger and faster than last season. Defensive coordinator Dean Pees has brought heat this preseason and swarmed quarterbacks.
The Ravens boast the No. 1 defense in the preseason through two games. It's a meaningless stat, but the method in which they've attained the ranking can translate to the regular season. They held the Washington Redskins' first-team offense to minus-1 yard on two drives two weeks ago. Against Miami last week, the starting Ravens defense allowed just 44 yards.
As Hensley points out, owning the No. 1 defense in the preseason doesn't necessarily translate to the regular season, with only one team in the past five years finishing in the top five for the season.
Pees, however, views it as a positive.
"To say it doesn't mean anything, I think coaches tell you that," Pees said. "I think that is crap. You want to go out there and you want to play well every day and every week no matter who is on the field. If it is the first team, the second team, the third team -- whoever the heck that is -- you want to play well. If you don't want that, I don't know why you are coaching, and I do not know why you are playing. Yes, I am pleased with it so far, but we just have to keep it going."
Regardless of whether they keep that ranking through the end of the preseason -- facing a ramshackle Buffalo Bills offense this week gives them a good chance -- the traits shown by Baltimore have meshed with the offseason hype. It's a unit that has speed at every level and players that hawk the ball. They boast the top safety duo in the NFL in Jefferson and Eric Weddle, which provides extreme flexibility.
If Pees keeps bringing the heat when the regular season begins, the Ravens' defense will be one of the most entertaining units to watch in 2017.Ever since our research was first published, people who hear about it for the first time just can't help laughing. Well, the fact is that most sane people would not dream of trying to turn cheap tequila into diamonds. In fact, at most of the scientific conferences I have attended, the first response to the reading of any paper on the topic is laughter, and a lot of it. But then the audience quietens down. There is no doubt that this research makes people laugh … and then think.
I had never heard of the Ig Nobel prizes until I was called and informed that I, together with the two other authors of the research, had been nominated. At the beginning of the conversation, I thought it was just an ingenious prank, but after hanging up, I checked the internet.
On the Ig Nobel prize site, I read the phrase "Research that first makes people laugh, and then makes them think" and realised that the call was probably legit … sort of. As it turned out, the prize has given me an even greater opportunity to deliver a message to students. I usually tell them: "Whoever thinks that science is a dry subject (pardon the pun) is wrong: science can be fun." I go on to explain how Mexico's favourite alcoholic drink can be subjected to different pressures and heat treatments making it turn from liquid to gas, and finally to a solid, in the form of diamond micro-crystals.
I began experimenting about 14 years ago with synthetic diamonds (made by a technological process, as opposed to natural diamonds, produced by a geological process) from hydrocarbon gases such as methane as prime material. Hydrocarbon gases are formed basically by carbon and hydrogen atoms. Then, three years ago, we produced diamonds from liquid organic compounds like acetone, methanol and ethanol. Working with ethanol, I noticed that the ideal compound is about 40% ethanol and 60% water, and this composition is very similar to the proportion used in most tequilas.
So, one day I went to an off-licence off the campus and bought a bottle of cheap tequila. I used it under the same experimental conditions as for a test with ethanol and water, and obtained positive results.
Turning tequila into diamonds may sound funny, and inspire jokes about alchemists in modern labs, but the discovery could yield interesting results. The team is currently focused on improving the quality of the diamonds. Tequila contains about 150 different substances, most of which are formed during fermentation and distillation. These substances give the drink its typical flavour, aroma and taste.
As a result, the diamonds are almost unavoidably contaminated. To carry our investigation to a happy end, the deposited tequila diamonds must be free of any chemical contaminant that could obstruct its performance during specific applications. At the same time, one must not dismiss the possibility that some contaminant might just help to improve the diamond's performance for some application. But applications will only suggest themselves when the process yields a high-quality diamond film.
We can, however, anticipate that the first applications might appear in the electronic industry, where our tequila diamonds could be used as semiconductors, in, for example, the fabrication of high-power semiconductor devices, computer chips and optical devices.
If I hadn't bought that cheap tequila bottle to probe its performance as prime material in the production of synthetic diamonds, we probably would not know that tequila naturally has the perfect mix of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms to form diamonds.
Some members of the scientific community in Mexico and elsewhere believe that the kind of recognition afforded by the Ig Nobel prizes should not be bestowed on serious scientists, but my belief is that any important discovery or scientific achievement, whether it's funny or not, deserves recognition. The nine genuine Nobel laureates who presented the prize to us – such as Martin Chalfie, winner of the 2008 Nobel prize for chemistry, who doubled as the prize in the "Win a Date With a Nobel Laureate" contest – seemed to think so, too.
I've been asked many times whether I am going to be able to make enough diamonds to turn myself into a billionaire. Unfortunately, the answer is no, because the diamonds are so small – on average, a millionth of a millimetre – that they can be observed only by using an electronic microscope. That's not very practical for engagement rings, necklaces or tiaras.
But I have no doubt that, for years to come, these tequila-based diamonds will still be generating laughs, since, after all, tequila diamonds are forever, too.
• Dr Miguel Apátiga is a physicist at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México's Thin Film Laboratory for Applied Physics and Advanced Technology, in Juriquilla, Querétaro, México
This year's Ig Nobel prizes will take place at Harvard University on Thursday. The ceremony will be broadcast live at 12.30am GMT on Friday at http://www.youtube.com/improbableresearchAbout the Webcast
One of the greatest challenges our society faces is how to provide sustainable energy to the 9 billion people who will be alive on the planet in 2050. The new energy mix needed to solve this global challenge will require imaginative thinking as well as openness and collaboration between organizations, academic institutions, and government entities. How can leaders in the oil and gas industry encourage purpose-driven innovation and act as responsible stewards for the next generation’s energy needs? How do we engage and empower future energy leaders?
MIT Technology Review’s Jason Pontin and Statoil’s Jonathan Matthews discuss how today’s energy companies stay competitive not just through technological innovation, but also by engaging in education and sponsoring programs like the Svalex Arctic Expedition. The expedition, a multidisciplinary program organized on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, offers a unique learning environment for students in petroleum-related fields. After the interview you can watch a documentary for an exclusive look at what a student’s life on the expedition is like.SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) - The pregnant woman at the centre of an abortion controversy in El Salvador had her malformed foetus delivered on Monday by Caesarean section to save her life and avoid breaking the law, although the baby did not survive.
El Salvador’s Health Ministry said doctors attending the woman, who uses the name “Beatriz” to protect her identity, performed a Caesarean to remove the foetus, thereby avoiding an abortion, which is illegal in the country.
The Central American country banned all types of abortion in 1999, but Beatriz’s foetus had a serious condition known as anencephaly, which results in only partial brain development. Such a foetus has little or no chance of surviving after birth.
Health Minister Maria Isabel Rodriguez said the operation took place about 2 p.m. (2000 GMT) and that Beatriz, who had been 27 weeks pregnant, was in stable condition.
“She’s in good hands, being looked after well,” she told Reuters. “I expect things to go well over the next few hours.”
Shortly afterward, Rodriguez said that Beatriz’s baby daughter died about five hours after the operation.
Beatriz, 22, suffers from lupus and kidney problems, which posed a serious threat to her own health.
The operation followed a non-binding resolution on Thursday by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that called on El Salvador to take action to save Beatriz’s life after the country’s courts had denied her an abortion.
El Salvador’s Supreme Court rejected Beatriz’s request for an abortion on the grounds it breached the constitution, which it said protects life from the moment of conception.
The Caesarean delivery provided El Salvador with a way out of the legal wrangle.
Morena Herrera, a spokeswoman for the abortion rights group Colectivo Feminista, said that although Beatriz could have been spared unnecessary suffering, her life had been saved.
Claudia Handal, a spokeswoman for the anti-abortion group Red Familia, said the rights of all had been respected.
“We’re very happy because as we said from the beginning, it wasn’t necessary to perform an abortion, the point was to respect the baby’s life and to give Beatriz the care and the right to health that she deserved,” Handal told Reuters.
The case has drawn attention to abortion in El Salvador and attitudes toward the procedure in predominantly Roman Catholic Latin America. Some countries such as Colombia are relaxing their rules in order to permit abortions in cases of rape.A HOMEOWNER had a lucky escape after a car clipped a tram, causing it to derail and plough into his home in a dramatic crash overnight.
Paul Wilson had just gone to bed when the C-class tram came crashing through the front wall of his Kew home.
“I had just gone to bed and next thing I notice the tram its here, its jolted the bed. I’ve virtually just rolled out and plaster starts coming down off the roof,” he told Sky News.
“I thought there was an accident out the front and I thought, oh yeah, another car smash and then there was a second bang and a third bang... the fence came through smashed into the car that was the second bang, and the third bang was the wall.”
The 58-year-old female driver of the car was trapped in her vehicle after the crash and taken to hospital with minor injuries.
The tram’s two passengers and driver were not injured.
Metropolitan Fire Brigade Commander Bob Lanigan said the car and tram collided head-on near the High and Childers streets intersection about 11.15pm.
He said Mr Wilson was lucky to escape injury.
“He was awoken by some loud bangs and heard something coming through his front yard,” he told ABC News.
“It actually impacted his bedroom but he’s OK, just a bit shaken as you’d imagine.”
media_camera A woman was trapped in her car after it collided with a tram in Melbourne overnight. Picture: Nicole Garmston
Commander Lanigan said the driver of the car suffered minor injuries.
“She seems to be okay, no doubt in some shock and knocked about a bit,” he said.
Gas and electricity isolated their services to the area after the tram ran over a gas meter on a residential property and came to rest touching overhead wires.
Chaotic scenes at Kew where a tram came off the tracks and ploughed into the front of a house. #9News https://t.co/Btm019AyI5 — Nine News Melbourne (@9NewsMelb) May 16, 2016
Police are investigating the cause of the crash but believe the car went onto wrong side of road, clipping the tram and causing it to come off the rails.
Saade Melki, a neighbour of Mr Wilson’s, said he was lucky to escape without injury.
“We were amazed when we came out and saw the actual tram and how close it was to our place,” he told Channel 9.
“More so how close it was to the guy’s front living room, he’s very lucky.”
Originally published as Next thing I noticed a tram in my houseCHILDREN will be banned from playing the world's most popular computer games, including Grand Theft Auto and Call Of Duty, after the Gillard Government approved classifying them R18+.
The federal Cabinet has approved an adult rating for computer games after finding that many classified as suitable for 15-year-olds in Australia had been ruled suitable for adults only overseas.
As many as 50 games are now available to children as young as 15 but should rightly be played by over-18s only.
Some of the world's top-selling titles, including Grand Theft Auto and Call Of Duty, will fall under the new rating.
Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor will take the Government's new position to a meeting of state and territory attorneys-general this week to seek their approval in changing the games classification system.
"Children and teenagers shouldn't be exposed to the gratuitous sex, violence and adult themes that are contained in some computer games," Mr O'Connor said.
"Over time, we've allowed games to get into the hands of 15-year-olds that would not have been available in comparable countries; that should not have happened." And Mr O'Connor also gave a guarantee he would not allow games that had been banned in Australia to be approved for release under the new R18+ classification, if it is approved.
A change to Australia's classification system requires the agreement of the states and territories as well as the federal government. Many controversial games have been approved for sale to over-15s after being modified slightly to avoid being banned.
One game, Left 4 Dead 2, is a first-person shoot-em-up, as they are known in the gaming world, that was initially banned, then changed to MA 15+ with a warning of "strong bloody violence". Following the reclassification, the Classification Board received 17 complaints that the game was no different to the original.
Other games classified MA 15+ that attracted a large number of complaints included Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin.
Mr O'Connor said it was relatively simple for gamers to find ways of restoring the games to their original versions using special codes easily available on the internet.
If the Government gets the agreement of the states and territories, it would need to embark on consultations with the gaming industry, gaming advocates, the Christian lobby and various children's groups to sort out how the new classification level would work in practical terms.
Mr O'Connor said he was not sure why it had taken so long for the Government to act on concerns that Australia did not have R18+ rated games.
He said the increasing convergence of films and games, including violent movie adaptations of games such as Resident Evil, had forced their hand to have comparable classification systems.Crown Point police responded to a frantic 9-1-1 call from a resident yesterday that ended up in two beloved pets being shot. Deputy Chief Janda confirmed to the Northwest Indiana Gazette via telephone that a frantic woman called and stated “there are wolves or coyotes killing my cat.” The woman further reported that her husband tried to save the cat and was now being attacked. Officers responded and found the cat being attacked by two animals which they did not immediately recognize as dogs. The dogs had no collars or tags. The officers pepper sprayed the dogs in an attempt to get them to flee. When that did not work, at least one officer fired on the animals killing them.
The Gazette is still attempting to reach the owners of the dogs for comment.
AdvertisementsAs I noted the other day, various data points suggest Republicans now know their position on Obamacare — pushing endlessly to destroy the law while offering no meaningful alternative — is untenable, and they are grappling with it at the highest levels. Politico has also quoted multiple Republicans worrying aloud that the drive to shut down the government over Obamacare has brought this untenable position into even sharper relief.
Today, Byron York, who is well connected among top Republicans, brings us still more evidence of this:
A new poll done for Republican members of Congress has found huge public opposition, and solid opposition among Republicans, to the idea of shutting down the government over the issue of funding Obamacare. In a national survey of 1,000 registered voters done July 31 and August 1, the question, from pollster David Winston, said, “Some members of Congress have proposed shutting down the government as a way to defund the president’s health care law” and asked respondents whether they favored or opposed that plan. Overall, 71 percent of those surveyed opposed a shutdown, while 23 percent favored a shutdown. Among Republicans, 53 percent opposed, versus 37 percent who favored.
What’s important here is who did this poll: David Winston, a longtime pollster for the GOP leadership. Remember, Winston is one of the Republicans who the other day went public with his pointed observation that a shutdown was folly, arguing:
“The electorate expects Congress to govern. House Republicans are going to offer their health-care alternatives within that process.”
Now that same pollster has actually conducted a poll designed to warn Republicans off their shutdown crusade, by pointing out widespread public opposition to a shutdown, even among Republicans. There has been some discussion of whether the poll’s wording is unfair. The wording doesn’t seem that off to me, but even if there is something to the criticism, the point is that the GOP leadership’s allies are desperate to put a stop to the shutdown madness — to the point of conducting polls to bolster the argument against it — because they fear it will tar the GOP irrevocably as no longer capable of governing.
And along those lines, you really have to read the Associated Press’s amazing report (link fixed) documenting what House Republicans are saying back in their districts about all this stuff. The report says House Republicans are struggling to justify Washington gridlock to their constituents. For instance, behold this quote from GOP Rep. Aaron Schock, talking to constituents in Illinois:
GOP Rep. Aaron Schock told an audience at a coffee shop that the Democratic-controlled Senate had “sat on their hands” while the House sought to repeal Obama’s health care law. “The president right now is doing a very good job of trying to make it look like the House is dysfunctional,” Schock said. “Really what we’re trying to do is carry out the wishes of the people.”
Yes, House Republicans look dysfunctional not because of their Quixotic and endless crusade to repeal a law that has been upheld in Congress, at the ballot box, and before the Supreme Court — even as it has yet to offer a meaningful alternative 30 months after promising one — but because Obama is not cooperating with their efforts to repeal his signature domestic achievement.
Surely this argument — which has echoes of the Republican claim that if the government shuts down, it will be the fault of Obama for insisting on funding his health law — will resonate with the GOP base. But with moderates and independents? Seems doubtful. The difficulty making this case to those voters (presuming they matter to House Republicans in safe districts) illustrates Winston’s argument — and the broader predicament he has identified — pretty well.
**********************************************************
UPDATE: The link to the AP story is here, and it’s fixed above. Apologies for the error.The future of Pat Buchanan at MSNBC is hanging in the balance, after a controversial book in which the conservative commentator made statements that were considered discriminatory by several groups. Over the weekend, MSNBC President Phil Griffin said that Buchanan was not allowed on the air indefinitely after the release of his latest book, and has not decided whether to allow the commentator to return.
Deadline‘s Ray Richmond first reported that Griffin was unhappy with Buchanan’s book, and had not made a final decision on whether he would be back on MSNBC:
Griffin told me after the panel, “I don’t think the ideas that [Buchanan] put forth [in the book] are appropriate for national dialogue on MSNBC. He won’t be coming back during the book tour.” Will Buchanan be back at all? “I have not made my decision,” replied Griffin, who did say he will be tinkering with the network’s format as the year goes on. Pat’s a good guy. He didn’t like [being removed from the air], but he understood.”
The New York Times reported similar comments from Griffin, who added there that “Pat and I are going to meet soon and discuss it” and that “Pat is a good guy. Some of his ideas are alarming.”
The book, Suicide of a Superpower, brought to MSNBC calls from several civil rights groups and the Anti-Defamation League to drop Buchanan for its incendiary racial and anti-Semitic remarks, among which are, according to the Times, claims that America is being damaged “ethnically, culturally, morally, politically” by the rise in minority populations and the lament that the “European and Christian core of our country is shrinking.” Griffin described the ideas in the book as not being “really appropriate for national dialogue, much less the dialogue on MSNBC.”
So the official position is that Buchanan’s future is unclear. But its hard to imagine a scenario whereby Griffin, who runs the leading progressive news channel, would covertly take someone like Buchanan off the air, then question him publicly and then welcome him back. But who knows.
Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.comUPDATE: Dec. 13, 2014
AIKEN COUNTY, S.C. (WRDW) -- Concerned citizens have written a letter to the city leaders asking for Deputy Warchol's resignation.
The author, who wishes to stay anonymous out of fear of possible retaliation.
The author of the letter and other concerned citizens are expected to be at the monthly Burnettown meeting on Monday in order to discuss the matter.
UPDATE: News 12 at 6 o' clock/ Dec. 9, 2014
AIKEN COUNTY, S.C.--Dash cam video showing excessive force cost an Aiken County Deputy his job. The video showed former deputy Mark Warchol punching two suspects during a call. News 12 has uncovered video that shows another deputy on the scene using force against the suspect with a Taser. The video raises the question, how much force are deputies allowed to use?
As Aiken County policy requires, Deputy Mark Warchol submitted a use of force report after he punched a drunken suspect. However, he failed to mention in his report that he also punched a second suspect in the head on the same call.
"When we have to use force, we complete a use of force form whether it's use of hands or any type of weapon used," said Sgt. Jason Feemster with the Aiken County Sheriff's Office.
The form goes up through the ranks and is checked by several people, including the deputy's direct supervisor. In this case, that was Sgt. John Downs who was on scene too.
"He[Sgt. Downs] and his lieutenant reviewed that paperwork, is a fair way to say that, because they work hand-in-hand, and they signed the paperwork off together," Sgt. Feemster said.
Both supervisors agreed Deputy Warchol was within policy guidelines, but a higher ranking deputy disagreed. After reviewing the video, Warchol was fired for using excessive force. But, Sgt. Downs also had to explain why he used force after tasing one of the suspects.
Video shows the female suspect handcuffed, legs shackled in the back of the police car. She appears not to be cooperating as deputies try to get her legs in the car. That's when Sgt. Downs announced he is going to use his Taser, and then tases the suspect.
He is then heard saying, "I shouldn't have done that."
A report from another officer on scene says "Sgt. Downs went to drive stun her, but instead, deployed the probes..."
"For this incident, the Taser was used within the guidelines of the policy," Sgt. Feemster said.
Aiken County policy says deputies can tase you, even when handcuffed, if you're a threat.
After she's tased, Deputy Warchol punches the suspect in the head. The video then shows his supervisor, Sgt. Downs reach across the back of the cop car and put his hands on the suspect.
"At that time, Sgt. Downs placed his hand high on her chest just to kind of hold her still," Sgt. Feemster said.
Aiken County says even though the subject was cuffed and leg shackled in the car, Sgt. Downs had been spit on and kicked, and his actions did not violate policy.
"Clearly, when you watch the video, there was no show she was being choked. She was communicating to Sgt. Downs. She said 'officer.' You could tell she was fine at that time," Sgt. Feemster said.
Aiken county says they allow deputies to use force, like their Tasers even if a suspect is handcuffed to protect their officers. They say that policy will not be changing at this time.
News 12 at 6 o' clock/ Dec. 5, 2014
AIKEN COUNTY, S.C. (WRDW) -- News 12 is continuing its investigation into a deputy caught on camera using excessive force. Earlier this week, we showed you video of a now former Aiken County deputy punching a cuffed-man and a cuffed-woman.
Many of you asked why he's still in law enforcement in Burnettown? We're on your side with how the answer all stems back to one person.
After the Aiken County Sheriff's Office fired Deputy Mark Warchol for excessive force, the solicitor declined to prosecute the case. But, only 'barely' as he wrote in a letter to South Carolina's Law Enforcement Division, which investigated the deputy's actions.
"I have tremendous respect for police officers, and they have very hard jobs, but there's also a privilege associated with wearing that uniform," said Solicitor Strom Thurmond, Jr. "I didn't like his demeanor. I didn't like his attitude, and criminal investigation aside, I simply did not like how he treated both Mr. Jesse and Ms. Taylor."
But, even so, the solicitor says, while 'troublesome,' the acts did not rise to the level of |
Rd. It already has a tilapia farm. That’s already more than most high schools have, but Green Street is aiming for bigger.
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The new location will include outdoor classrooms, hanging gardens in the atrium, a chicken coop and a closed loop system to link aquaculture and aquaponics. The new school sits on 8.75 acres. It also backs up to Gwynns Falls, which leaders also envision being woven into class time.
That’s just the outside.
The building itself is 145,000 square feet, nearly doubling the current size. That will provide for 875 students, compared to the current 475. Inside, plans call for breakout rooms with white board walls, and 50,000 square feet of STEM learning space like science labs and technology areas.
The school’s curriculum already includes daily “critical questions” and built-in time for hands-on learning. Students choose from six focus areas, including advanced technology, energy, construction, agriculture/conservation, healthcare and entrepreneurship. In the new building, the vision includes makerspaces and other labs.
“We want our children to see the school as a place of excitement, as a space of innovation,” said Principal Crystal Harden-Lindsey. “And see themselves as part of a movement — the green movement.”
The curriculum is also grounded in a desire to prepare students for jobs. At a groundbreaking ceremony last week, speakers from cofounder David Warnock to a grandparent of two students commented on the need to prepare kids for the “21st century workforce.”
Leaders undoubtedly hope some of those jobs will be in Baltimore. Bank of America Merrill Lynch Senior Vice President Brian Tracey got evidence that the skills students were learning are already being put to use locally. While visiting the school’s current site, he asked students what they did the fish that were grown. He was told the fish are given to Woodberry Kitchen, which is also in a building that the bank helped finance. Tracey described it as a “full circle” moment that allowed him to realize the school’s place in community development.
School leaders are also looking to the community. Leaders plan to invite the community in to use the technology when students aren’t in class. One idea involves sending the kids out as teachers.
Recently, Green Street Academy Executive Director Daniel Schochor applied for a student innovation grant that will train students in Microsoft programs. After they’re trained, they’ll be tasked with going home and teaching members of the community what they’ve learned. The idea plays off the presumption that kids know best about technology.
“We think it’s going to increase community buy-in,” Schochor said.
Instead of just a school, leaders envision Green Street Academy as an “anchor institution in West Baltimore.” The renovation is slated to be completed in time for next school year.
-30-An expanded skilled trades program at Breton Education Centre in New Waterford is providing more learning opportunities for students and preparing them for good jobs.
As part of Kids and Learning First, Deputy Premier Frank Corbett today, Feb. 20, launched the school's Transportation Trades 11 course.
"Our plan is about getting the best results for every student by preparing them to create and compete for good jobs in the province," said Mr. Corbett.
"This program is allowing students to explore the trades in a hands-on, minds-on way and that is what good learning is all about."
The course, which introduces students to career options such as an automotive service technician and motorcycle mechanic, is available this month. The school also offers Skilled Trades 10 and Construction Trades 11 courses.
"The skilled trades at BEC is one of the best courses I have taken," said Grade 11 student Breanne Barry.
"It is a useful course for anyone, especially if you are looking at a career in trades or want to build a home. The Skilled Trades 10 and Construction 11 courses are amazing and all students should try it out."
By the end of the school year, 263 Breton students will have considered the skilled trades as a career option since the courses were introduced in 2009.
Under the education plan, the number of schools offering skilled trades will double over the next four years from nine to 18 and a new manufacturing course linked to shipbuilding will be introduced in September 2013.
"Teaching the program has been one of the most satisfying experiences of my career, both as a teacher and as a trades person," said Skilled Trades instructor Mike Morrison.
"Every day I get to watch students develop valuable and practical skills in a setting that mimics the real world work environment. The excitement and pride students feel when they put their newly developed skills into practice on hands-on, functional projects is truly inspiring."
Transportation Trades 11 was designed by industry professionals and allows students to work on the same cars' engines and equipment, with the same tools, used by professional automotive service technicians.
The province has funded extensive renovations at skilled trade schools, fully equipped with tools and materials. Students are also provided appropriate personal protective equipment such as hard hats, safety glasses and safety shoes.
"BEC has been the heart of the community since it opened in 1970 and, under this plan, the school will continue to provide students with the education and values to make life better for them and their families," said Mr. Corbett.
The multi-year education plan includes a $6.7-million investment in areas dealing with students first, effective teaching, preparation for good jobs and citizenship, and links between the school and community.
For more information on Kids and Learning First, visit novascotia.ca/kidsandlearning.Chicago reached “a tragic number” today, according to Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy: Its homicide total for the year hit 500, the highest annual total since 2008.
The city's latest homicide occurred around 9 p.m. Thursday when Nathaniel T. Jackson, 40, an alleged gang member with a lengthy arrest record, was gunned down outside a store in the Austin neighborhood.
As of Thursday night, homicides were up 17 percent over last year in Chicago and shootings had increased by 11 percent, according to police statistics. Earlier this fall, Chicago already exceeded the number of homicides that occurred last year, but this is the first time the city has had 500 or more murders since the 512 in 2008.
Largely contributing to the spike was the unusual number of homicides that occurred during the early part of the year, when the city experienced unseasonable warmth. In the first three months of the year, homicides ran about 60 percent ahead of the 2011 rate.
The police department went back and forth for much of Friday over whether Jackson was the 500th murder so far this year, at first confirming it, and then denying it, saying a murder last week had been reclassified as a death investigation, therefore making Jackson the 499th homicide. But by late afternoon, the department once again confirmed there had been 500 murders.
McCarthy issued a statement declaring: “The city has seen its 500th homicide for 2012, a tragic number that is reflective of the gang violence and proliferation of illegal guns that have plagued some of our neighborhoods.”
While saying every homicide is unacceptable, he went on to laud the department’s overall crime reduction.
He also said that gang violence reduction strategies the department adopted this year have slowed the increase in violence.
Jackson was shot in the head outside Noah Foods at Augusta Boulevard and Lavergne Avenue, police said. Afterward, police tapped on apartment windows and knocked on doors looking for witnesses.
A few bullet casings, which police believed were from a.45-caliber handgun, were found near the blood-stained sidewalk in front of the store. Police had no motive, and no one was in custody.
Jackson's family sat for three hours in a waiting room at Stroger Hospital when staff members finally walked in and told them Jackson had died. Relatives stood up and exchanged tight embraces.
Jackson grew up on the West Side, a few miles from where he was gunned down, and had been released from prison this past summer after serving a sentence for robbery. He had been shot several years ago, after an earlier stint in jail, and a cousin said she constantly warned him to be careful on the street.
"The last time he was out, someone had shot him several times, in the back," Gave Bates said as she stood outside Stroger Hospital, where Jackson was pronounced dead shortly after midnight. "He was a fighter, he was a survivor."
Bates smiled through tears as she swiped her hand across her phone, flipping through pictures of her cousin playing around and striking goofy poses.
"He was a lot of fun, very good at imitating people," Bates said. "He just had so much fun all the time. And we all grew up together in the same house."
gorner@tribune.com
pnickeas@tribune.com
Twitter: @peternickeasWilliam Polster of Sheboygan Falls is seen in one of his YouTube videos about his efforts to educate people on open-carry gun laws.
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A Sheboygan Falls man caused a stir last weekend in Germantown when he openly carried two firearms, prompting residents to call police and the police chief to post an update on the department's Facebook page — which led to another open-carry advocate traveling to Germantown.
William Polster of Sheboygan Falls has spent the last year openly carrying his firearms throughout Wisconsin and recording his interactions with the public and police.
"So many people just call the cops on it," he said Monday. "If you feel threatened, that's one thing. If it's properly carried in a non-threatening manner, it should not be a problem at all."
Several residents in Germantown called police over the weekend when they saw Polster with a handgun holstered on his hip and a long gun slung over his back.
He was walking in the area of Mequon Road and Squire Drive on Saturday, and officers briefly made contact with Polster when he approached a police squad car, according to a post on the Germantown police Facebook page.
Polster declined to give officers his name and walked on the sidewalk to his car. He was recording the incident, and officers activated their cameras to record the incident as well, since it "was apparent that this was some type of open-carry test case that the subject was engaging in," according to a police update.
Polster was not violating any law or local ordinance and was respectful with officers, police said.
Germantown Police Chief Peter Hoell posted updates about the incident on the department's Facebook page questioning the purpose of such actions.
"I understand some of you may disagree with me, but this type of insensitive behavior to cause alarm with so many people just because it is your right to do so is senseless," he wrote, adding that he is an avid hunter and owns various weapons, which he carries concealed while off-duty.
"What is the purpose of slinging a long gun over your shoulder and walking down Mequon Road? The purpose is to test and record a police response, post it on YouTube, to get attention, and to cause fear with those who are not comfortable with guns," Hoell wrote.
The social media postings attracted comments from across the country, Hoell said, and inspired an open-carry advocate, Charles Branstrom, to drive from Appleton to Germantown late Saturday and openly carry two of his firearms.
The comments on the Police Department's Facebook page prompted the chief to take down the initial message.
"There was all kinds of name-calling, bullying and threats and I took it down for a while because people were getting out of control," Hoell said Monday. "I put it back up with a disclaimer to keep things civil. It's a good discussion and a good debate."
Polster said his interactions with police while he openly carries a firearm all have been positive, including Saturday's interaction with Germantown police.
"The actual interaction where they stopped me was appropriate," Polster said. "It was a brief encounter and I was on my way. After that, they sat around and waited until I entered my vehicle. They had two squads there, and it didn't seem like an appropriate use of police resources."
Branstrom also described the Germantown officers as "very professional," though he said officers followed his car after he openly carried in town.
"It felt like we were getting ran out of town, and that's why I think it was kind of inappropriate," he said.
Germantown officers are trained to handle open-carry situations and are fully aware of an individual's rights, the chief said.
"It doesn't come to a shock to us," Hoell said. "But is this really the best way to prove that point and exercise your rights? (Polster) said this is an educational component. Well, if you're scaring and shocking people, I'm not sure how well people will learn from that. It actually might put up walls."
Testing public and law enforcement reaction to openly carried handguns became somewhat common in Wisconsin in 2011, the year a law passed that allowed state residents to get permits to carry concealed weapons.
There was a resurgence of such demonstrations last fall, when Branstrom and another man were handcuffed at gunpoint for walking in downtown Appleton with AR-15 rifles on their shoulders. Polster joined in the ensuing protest at Appleton's farmers market.
The Appleton incident occurred just a few months after Somerset police arrested Mark James Hoffman as he was walking with a holstered handgun and an AR-15 rifle near a school. He was ticketed for loitering and obstructing. His trial is set to begin April 2 in Somerset municipal court.
The demonstrations and recordings of interactions between open-carry holders and the public and police have been effective, said Kevin Michalowski, executive editor of Concealed Carry Magazine, based in West Bend.
"First, I believe the strategy of recording the interactions between citizens and law enforcement is always a good one, and 95% of the time you find out that law enforcement is doing the right thing," he said.
Michalowski, who is a police officer, said he personally views open-carry as a double-edged sword because it can give away a "tactical advantage."
Still, it's up to an individual to determine if open or concealed carry is best for him or her, and police cannot cite someone for disorderly conduct simply because a gun is openly carried, he said.
"I think we always need to remind not only police officers but everyone else that carrying a gun in and of itself is not a problem," he said.
Bruce Vielmetti of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.Q&A with Planet of Cities author Shlomo Angel.
Angel’s latest book was released in
August. Building more resilient and prosperous cities is perhaps the grandest of the grand challenges facing the world today. By now, virtually all urbanists know that half the world's population lives in urban areas, a figure than will likely rise to 75 percent by 2100, when 7.5 to 8.8 billion people will live in cities. In his just-released Planet of Cities, Shlomo Angel argues that urban policy-makers and planners must do more to meet the challenge of urbanization. Angel, who is a member of the Urbanization Project at New York University and who conducted his research as a visiting fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, provides a detailed, data-driven analysis filled with maps of world urbanization patterns, as well as charts and tables documenting the challenges facing global cities. He took time out from his busy schedule to talk to Atlantic Cities about the key challenges facing our increasingly urban world.
RF: You open the book by saying we need a better "science of cities" to guide our policies for global urban problems. What would this look like, and what would cities gain from it? SA: There are some 4,000 cities in the world today with populations of 100,000 or more. Simply studying some U.S. cities and finding that they all possess a certain trait does not mean that all cities in the world, or in the U.S. for that matter, have that feature. [W]hat I hope that a science of cities can bring forth are truths about the norms — what is expected, but not necessarily ideal — in the universe of cities as a whole, not just a subset of cities that may be special and unique in one way or another.... The value for city officials or citizens of a particular city is obvious: they can take these global norms more seriously if they apply to the universe of cities as a whole rather than to a subset of cities that may be entirely different than their city. Author Shlomo Angel RF: We live in an expanding urban world. How much and what kind of expansion can we anticipate? What parts of the world will see the most of it, and how can we best cope? SA: In the coming decades, say between 2010 and 2050, cities in industrialized countries will add 170 million to their populations while developing countries will add 2.5 billion, or 15 times that. The largest shares of this growth, 25 percent each, will be in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian subcontinent, and an additional 15 percent will be in China.
[W]e must make minimal preparations for it, preparations that involve, at the very least, correct projections of the amount of land cities will need for their expansion, enshrining new city limits that can accommodate this expansion in law, the aggressive protection of a hierarchy of open spaces from occupation by formal and informal developers, and the acquisition of the right-of-way for an arterial infrastructure grid now — before lands on the urban fringe is subdivided and land prices there become exorbitant. Cities are changing fast. Keep up with the CityLab Daily newsletter. The best way to follow issues you care about. Subscribe Loading... RF: You highlight three great ages of urbanization and economic development. Where we are today and where we are headed? SA: We now know that the movement of people to cities everywhere is accompanied by increased life expectancy and lower fertility — people live longer and have fewer children. Urbanization goes hand-in-hand with lower rates of population growth. By 2100, the world population growth rate will be close to 0, the world will have 75 to 80 percent of its 9 to 11 billion people living in cities, and that percentage is likely to be quite stable — most people that want to live in cities will have moved there.... By that time, the urbanization project will largely be over. RF: Based on your research, do you think our global system today will be dominated by bigger and more powerful cities? SA: We are only at the beginning of studying the global system of cities...It is quite clear already that cities come in all sizes; that the shares of cities of every size are rather stable; and that cities of different size tend to grow at approximately the same average rates. This means that megacities, for example, are not growing any faster than intermediate-size cities or smaller cities. It may also mean that, all in all, there may be no inherent advantage to city size. Map of the 3,646 cities with populations of 100,000 or more in 2000. (Courtesy of Planet of Cities) RF: You write that our cities have not only expanded faster than their growth in population, but that they are also quite fragmented. How is this playing out?
SA: [W]hen we measure the amount of open spaces within the built-up areas of cities, we find that, on average, cities are half-empty, namely that they contain open spaces that are equivalent in area to their built-up area. This is quite surprising because we tend to think of cities as fully built-up. They are not, especially at their fringes, and they are not likely to be. We do find that fragmentation the world over is on the decline, a sow but perceptible decline, but that need not mean that we can expect cities to fill in their open spaces any time soon. As open spaces close to their centers fill in, new open spaces are created along their fringes. This realization should moderate our expectation that future urban growth can simply fill in the existing open spaces, eliminating the need to plan for urban expansion. Urban expansion in Bangkok, Thailand. (Courtesy of
Planet of Cities) RF: I am intrigued by your "sustainable densities proposition," which states that the density of some cities is too high and should decrease, some are sustainable, and some are too low and should increase. Thus, a denser city is not necessarily better. Can you explain how this proposition works? SA: Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, is an example... It is overcrowded and there is not enough living and working space per person. It needs to expand and suburbanize so that its densities can be reduced. Cities in most developing countries (and in some European countries) are in the sustainable range. They allow for adequate living and working space, and yet are dense enough to support public transport, so as to limit energy use and carbon emissions.
A large number of cities in the U.S., Australia, and Canada contain vast areas where densities are too low to support public transport... These densities can be said to be unsustainable: they use more than a fair share of energy and they generate more than a fair share of carbon emissions. I use the expression ‘fair share’ here in the sense that if everyone used that much energy and generated that much carbon, the planet would not be sustainable. RF: Another intriguing idea, your "decent housing proposition," provided the main motivation for writing the book. SA: [T]he housing problem in the cities of developing countries is fundamentally a land problem. Namely, when the poor can get access to an affordable plot of land, they can build their own houses by themselves using their savings and their sweat equity, with financial help from family, employers and acquaintances... [T]he density of development accumulates only slowly as communities get built up, and that in most cities in developing countries — with the exception of China where capital is now available — you cannot expect high-rise apartment blocks to sprout out from day one. My conclusion in both cases, however, is essentially the same: housing will remain affordable — both in the formal and informal housing sectors — as long as land on the urban fringe is plentiful and affordable. When land use regulations, administrative delays, or the absence of trunk infrastructure create land supply bottlenecks, land prices rise, and housing becomes unaffordable both for the poor and for the not so poor.A group of German judges have just dealt a serious blow to the European Commission’s desperate TTIP ‘compromise’. They’ve issued a damning indictment on the proposal for an ‘international investment court’, which the EU Commission hoped would get them out of the deep mess that the TTIP negotiations are in.
To recap: millions of people across Europe have expressed outrage at the proposal in the US-EU trade deal – known as TTIP – for a corporate court system which allows foreign corporations to sue governments in secret arbitration panels. Formally known as ISDS, the corporate courts are already being used in countless other treaties to sue governments for anything from raising the minimum wage to protecting the environment.
So the EU trade commissioner Malmström came up with a ‘compromise’. Rather than operating an ad hoc corporate court system, she wants to set up a proper, permanent international court for investors, with proper judges and more transparency. The problem, of course, is that this simply lends a whiff of legitimacy to a system which puts the profits of corporations ahead of the rights of ordinary people.
But the #noTTIP campaigners feared the compromise might win a few important votes over in the European Parliament. Thank heavens, therefore, for the Germany’s biggest association of judges, who’ve injected some sense into the discussion. Their statement “rejects the proposal of the European Commission to establish an investment court” saying “neither is there a legal basis nor the necessity” for such a court.
A primary concern of the judges, and one shared by campaigners, is that,“the creation of special courts for certain groups of litigants is the wrong way forward.” Creating special legal privileges for big business and other investors (who can already afford more access to the law than ordinary people), is clearly the path to further inequality in our already deeply unequal society.
In fact, the judges question whether “the European Union has the competence to institute an investment court” given that it would force member states to submit to that court, and therefore undermine their sovereignty. The court “would not only limit the legislative powers of the Union and the Member States; it would also alter the established court system within the Member States and the European Union.”
The judges are really clear on this point: the court would be "outside the institutional and judicial framework of the Union" and would “deprive courts of Member States of their powers in relation to the interpretation and application of European Union law and the Court of its powers to reply.” Anyone who says they are concerned about our soverighty in the upcoming debate on the EU, surely has no choice but to oppose TTIP.
The judges also criticise the independence of ‘judges’ foreseen under the investor court proposal, saying “The pool of judges will be limited to the circle of persons already professionally predominantly engaged in international arbitration”. In other words, the investment court merely becomes a permanent version of the ISDS system that is proving to be so unpopular. Which is exactly what campaigner are worried about.
This is a really important opinion. The judges show that the assumptions behind the corporate courts –that investors aren’t properly protected – lacks a “factual basis”. What’s more, even if it was the case, such concerns “should be taken up with the national legislature”.
Of course, this hasn’t happened. That’s because the whole point of TTIP is not to redress a genunie problem, but to rewrite the rules of the global economy in favour of big business. Today, a group of German judges made that a little bit harder to do.In February of the 2009-10 season, John Buccigross of ESPN was spurred by a mailbag question to do a quick thought experiment: does he think Ovechkin could set the all-time goals mark? Gabe Desjardins voiced skepticism of Bucci’s optimistic projection but didn’t offer a counter-projection, presumably because, as he wrote:
Basically, careers are incredibly unpredictable – nobody plays 82 games a year from age 20 to age 40. And players who play at a very high level at a young age tend to not sustain that level of play until they’re 40…So, to answer the reader’s question: I believe that there is presently no significant likelihood that Alex Ovechkin finishes his career with 894 goals. He needs to display an uncommon level of durability for the next decade, and not just lead the league in goal-scoring, but do so by such a wide margin that he scores as much as Gretzky, Hull or Lemieux did in an era with vastly higher offensive levels.
That said, I thought it would be fun, with five full years gone, to see how Bucci did, and try to build a prediction model with the same data he had available. It stands to be said, first off, that Bucci’s projection was very arbitray, including a 71-season (because “He’s got to have one monster season”…nevermind that he had already had a 65-goal season and a separate 528-shot season). The bulk of the projection relied on loose historical comparisons, with most of the season projections justified by previous performances of great players like Steve Yzerman, Wayne Gretzky, and Phil Esposito. Focusing first on the subsequent five seasons, he projected Ovechkin to score (starting in 2010-11) 71, 66, 60 (pro-rated to 35 for a 48-game schedule), 51, and 55 goals. Overall, he predicted 278 goals for those years, while Ovechkin scored 206 — an accuracy of 74%.
Instead of cherry-picking — which can be problematic if you’re working with counting totals — I decided to take Ovechkin’s three seasons leading up to 2010-11 and carry over the average and variance in goal-scoring and ice-time per 60 minutes, as well as games played. I adjusted the underlying average to match Eric Tulsky’s aging curve, wherein scorers gradually dip down to 90% of their peak scoring by age 29. Then, I randomly generated the variance over five seasons and applied the adjustments to the curve. I did this for 5v5 even-strength, powerplay, and shorthanded situations…the residual goals and ice-time were so random I simply did the same random generation for residual goals, rather than break it down to the infrequent ice-time situations.
Season Age proj ESG proj PPG proj SHG Residual G Tot proj G Bucci Actual 2010-11 25 29.4 16.3 0 7 53 71 32 2011-12 26 26.0 17.3 0 4 47 66 38 2012-13 27 17.9 10.4 1 3 32 35 32 2013-14 28 24.8 15.1 0 10 50 51 51 2014-15 29 30.7 15.4 0 10 56 55 53
Note: The “age” for the season is by Buccigross’s definition; most sites would have 2010-11 and onward as 24, 25, 26, etc.
So how’d we do?
proj Total G Bucci Total G Actual Total G 238 278 206 87% 74%
Both approaches were overly optimistic, but while the statistical projections were tempered by averages and variance, Bucci just had to believe Ovechkin could do something incredible — even though Ovechkin already did — and his projection suffered for it. For our part, it is pretty impressive to capture 87% of five years of goal-scoring in a projection, considering how fickle shooting percentage can be. The astute observer will note that our projection misses a season’s worth of goals (32)…though it’s not nearly as bad as Bucci winging it and missing 72. It’s worth noting our very random residual goals add up to roughly make the 32-goal difference…but I don’t think excluding them would’ve been fair to the method. All things considered: without a serious injury, and even in the case of an identifiably great player, we’re getting a good idea of our ability and limitation in projecting greatness into the future.
For fun, I want to do the same exercise to compare our projections to Bucci’s for the remainder of Ovechkin’s career. We already know Bucci suggested Ovechkin could surpass Gretzky — assuming Ovechkin makes it to age 40 in the NHL, does our projection suggest the same? Well, first of all, I can’t just apply the same projection I did above; I need to consider more aggressive decay rates for even-strength and powerplay time on-ice through Ovechkin’s 30s. To do this, I used the same progression I developed for this GIF of the evolution of a typical forward’s ice-time, with one caveat: I applied the same curve for even-strength time and powerplay time for Ovechkin. Unlike the rest of the forward population, powerplay specialists tend to retain their powerplay time into advanced age, so I’d rather apply the fatigue-and-overall-skill influenced even-strength deployment curve in this case.
The second thing to throw in there is an adjustment that Bucci arbitarily figures into his totals: injury and age-related fatigue. We can model for this by developing a projection for games played going off the games played trend for forwards similar to Ovechkin. Taking a group of top-line forwards who played 750+ games in the years 1992-93 to the present and recorded 0.859 points per game or greater (typical scoring for a top-line forward in this span):
Among this group (n=48), you can see they generally dropped quite starkly to 85% of their peak after age 30, and 80% of peak after age 37 – and their variance increases markedly by their mid-30s. Thus, in addition to time on-ice, overall games played becomes a pretty important element to consider. All told, we end up with this projection, presented alongside Bucci’s:
Season Age proj ESG proj PPG proj SHG Residual G Tot proj G Bucci Actual 2010-11 25 29.4 16.3 0 7 53 71 32 2011-12 26 26.0 17.3 0 4 47 66 38 2012-13 27 17.9 10.4 1 3 32 35 32 2013-14 28 24.8 15.1 0 10 50 51 51 2014-15 29 30.7 15.4 0 10 56 55 53 2015-16 30 27.4 15.1 1 7 50 48? 2016-17 31 24.6 14.6 0 5 44 52? 2017-18 32 23.0 12.3 0 6 41 45? 2018-19 33 21.5 12.1 0 7 41 55? 2019-20 34 25.0 12.2 0 8 45 40? 2020-21 35 23.8 12.1 0 2 38 37? 2021-22 36 20.9 15.2 0 5 41 32? 2022-23 37 19.2 12.5 0 6 38 40? 2023-24 38 22.1 11.6 0 0 34 32? 2024-25 39 21.8 10.4 0 2 34 28? 2025-26 40 17.4 9.8 0 2 29 27?
From that initial starting point, Buccigross projected 714 goals for Ovechkin, while our (admittedly optimistic) model returns 674. Keeping in mind the target Bucci and the NHL would set for Gretzky’s record (894), his projection has Ovechkin ending with 983 goals. Our model would put him at 943 goals…though if our model continues to be optimistic at the rate it was for the first 5 years in the projection, we might be smart to shave the 6.4 goals per year error off the subsequent 11 years — putting Ovechkin at 873 goals. In all those scenarios, presuming he makes it to 40, he has a pretty good shot.
Finally, though, the “making it to 40” part…should a player take the advanced NHL training regimens seriously, we know that they have the potential to play some pretty impressive hockey through their 30s. But consider that group of top-line forwards again:
This is the percentage of those players still playing at each age. 15% of the players in this model make it to age 40; even worse for Ovechkin, only 40% of that group entered the league at his age or younger. That puts Ovechkin’s odds at less than 6% likelihood of realizing any of our career-goals projections above. So, despite the enthusiasm we’ve seen from some more-recent posts, projecting Ovechkin to have a full, proficient NHL career to age 40 should be taken with a boulder of salt.
That said, I would like to see him reach it. Objectively considering his performance and league difficulty, he is the most talented player in NHL history, and I think there are some traditionalists who would unfairly deny him for these numbers. Topping Wayne Gretzky in goal-scoring would remove a lot of doubt.The Steelers are coming off a.500 season, and for Steeler Nation – that’s a letdown. While the defense has some questions, as does the running game, there’s plenty of excitement for the upcoming season.
For the Steelers to be successful, some things have to fall in place, and today we take a look at five things that have to go right for the team to go from.500 to having a good to great 2013.
1. Injuries – The Steelers last season lost two of their best players late, and it really hurt them in their push for the postseason. Once Ben Roethlisberger went down on a Monday night vs the Chiefs, and then their best CB Ike Taylor went down as well, the season never seemed to get back on track. Every team has injuries, but at the same time, the club needs to avoid the big injuries that have hurt them the last few seasons.
2. Haley’s Second Season Improvement – I didn’t think Todd Haley was the reason the Steelers missed the postseason last year, but at the same time, the Steelers OC made mistakes, and needs to get better and should with a year under his belt. Haley has already said that he wants to be more aggressive in the run game to try and protect Ben from the beatings he’s gotten, and that leads us to key number three.
3. Find a Run Game – The run game will be an open competition for the Steelers in 2013 training camp, and it will be fun to see if Issac Redmen, Jonathan Dwyer, and rookie Le’Veon Bell can make this run game into a force once again. There was moment in 2012 when the run game got on track (the first Bengals game comes to mind), but overall when this team needed a yard or two, it simply wasn’t there. The O-line is to blame as well, but these three will have the focus of if the run game will be good or not in 2013.
4. Finish on Defense – The Steelers needed seven weeks to win their first road game, and that’s in part due to the fact they lost a very winnable game in Oakland, and then lost an awful game they had in the bag in Tennessee. This team had leads in both those games, yet vs Carson Palmer and Matt Hasselbeck, two QB’s past their prime, the defense gave up leads first, and then field goals to lose those games. Win those two games, your 10-6, and in the post season. Let’s hope the lesson is learned.
5. Youth Needs To Step Up – There’s a number of high draft picks on this team that have been waiting around, watching as others in front of them, and much older, have made plays. Time for that to stop. James Harrison is gone, leaving an open spot for rookie Jarvis Jones at the |
out of five stars, writing that "in one song after another on this album, you get the feeling that he started out playing some familiar song in a specific genre and eventually extrapolated upon it enough to call it an original."[1] In his review for Rolling Stone magazine, David Wild gave the album three and a half out of five stars, writing that the album is "a welcome flashback" to Knopfler's earlier work with Dire Straits.[3] Wild continued:
Knopfler duets with James Taylor on the title track, which deftly explores the relationship between Mason and Dixon; Van Morrison trades lines on the soulful "The Last Laugh." With Sailing to Philadelphia, Knopfler has taken a break from the rootsy side projects and soundtrack work that have occupied him for the last seventeen years, and has evoked some of the grandeur of prime Dire Straits.[3]
By 2002, the album had sold more than 3.5 million copies worldwide.[4][5] In some territories—Western Europe for example—the album was released as an HDCD and a 5.1 Surround Sound DVD-A.
Touring [ edit ]
In 2001, Knopfler supported the release of the album with his Sailing to Philadelphia Tour, which started on 27 March 2001 in Mexico City, Mexico, included 80 concerts in 68 cities, and ended on 31 July 2001 in Moscow, Russia. The tour consisted of three legs: Mexico and South America, North America, and Europe and Russia. The tour lineup included Mark Knopfler (guitar, vocals), Guy Fletcher (keyboards), Richard Bennett (guitar), Glenn Worf (bass), Chad Cromwell (drums), Geraint Watkins (piano, accordion), and Mike Henderson (guitar, mandolin, violin, harmonica).[6]
The Madrid concert on 2 July 2001 was filmed but never released. The Toronto concert at Massey Hall on 3 May 2001 was also recorded, but only four tracks were officially released: "Speedway At Nazareth" (the B-side of "Why Aye Man"), "Who's Your Baby Now" (the B-side of "Boom, Like That"), "Sailing to Philadelphia" and "Brothers in Arms" (both available on a limited edition version of the album The Ragpicker's Dream).[6]
Track listing [ edit ]
All songs were written by Mark Knopfler.
United States version
No. Title Length 1. "What It Is" 4:57 2. "Sailing to Philadelphia" (featuring James Taylor) 5:29 3. "Who's Your Baby Now" 3:05 4. "Baloney Again" 5:09 5. "The Last Laugh" (featuring Van Morrison) 3:22 6. "Do America" 4:11 7. "El Macho" 5:29 8. "Prairie Wedding" 4:26 9. "Wanderlust" 3:52 10. "Speedway at Nazareth" 6:23 11. "Junkie Doll" 4:34 12. "Silvertown Blues" 5:32 13. "Sands of Nevada" 3:56 Total length: 60:25
Personnel [ edit ]
Production
Mark Knopfler – producer
Chuck Ainlay – producer, engineer, mixing
Chubba Petocz – engineer
Jon Bailey – assistant engineer
Graham Lewis – assistant
Mark Ralston – assistant
Aaron Swihart – assistant
Denny Purcell – mastering
Jonathan Russell – mastering assistant
Andrew Williams – portrait photography
Eric Conn – editing
Sandy Choron – art direction
Harry Choron – design
Jose Molina – photography (front cover)
James Gritz – photography (back cover)
Andrew Williams – photography (portrait)
Ben Mikaelsen – photography (additional)[7]
Charts [ edit ]
Year-end charts [ edit ]
Chart (2000) Position German Albums Chart[26] 26
Certifications [ edit ]
Singles [ edit ]
What It Is [ edit ]
"What It Is" was the first single from the album. An extended version of the song released in Mexico contains an additional verse:
And the highwayman stands blowing on his fingers by the green I've walked inside his shoes before so I always buy his magazine He's with a local mystery with blood stains on her hands I like the way she winks at me but I leave her with the highwayman
The instrumental portion of the song serves as the theme music for the CBC Radio One radio show, Dispatches.
Track listing
All songs were written by Mark Knopfler.
No. Title Length 1. "What It Is" (Radio edit) 3:33 2. "The Long Highway" 3:46 3. "Let's See You" 4:21 4. "Camerado" 2:58 Total length: 14:38
Sailing to Philadelphia [ edit ]
"Sailing to Philadelphia" was the second single from the album. The song is a duet between Knopfler and American singer-songwriter James Taylor. The song is written in an autobiographical style, and is the story of Jeremiah Dixon and Charlie Mason, a "Geordie boy" and an astronomer, respectively, who sailed to America from the United Kingdom. Dixon (Mark Knopfler) predicted that there was a "land of opportunity" to the west, which Mason (James Taylor), the "stargazer" does not believe. Towards the end of the song, the lyrics suggest that Dixon was correct.
Track listing
All songs were written by Mark Knopfler.
No. Title Length 1. "Sailing to Philadelphia" (Radio edit) 3:59 2. "Going Home" (live) 3:46 3. "Baloney Again" (live, Maxi CD single only) 4. "El Macho" (live, Maxi CD single only) Total length: 7:45
Silvertown Blues [ edit ]
"Silvertown Blues" was the third and final single from the album. It was released as a commercial single in the Netherlands and Belgium only, but it received radio airplay in several European countries, notably in France. The song was not performed live during the Sailing to Philadelphia Tour.
Silvertown is an industrial district on the north bank of the River Thames in London, and the song partially deals with the construction of the financially unsuccessful Millennium Dome. It was constructed on a site contaminated by toxic sludge from East Greenwich Gas Works that operated from 1889 to 1985.
From the poisonous drains a vision appears New circle of cranes, a new reason to be here A big silver dome rising up into the dawn Above the church and the homes where all the silver is gone
Track listing
All songs were written by Mark Knopfler.
No. Title Length 1. "Silvertown Blues" (Radio edit) 3:39 2. "Do America" 4:11 Total length: 7:50
References [ edit ]
Notes
^ [1] The standard Mercury international release has thirteen tracks as shown. The Mercury/Universal Distribution release has fourteen tracks and includes the bonus song "Do America" as track 6.
CitationsIn this post, I list and elaborate a few points that I have learnt (from my - and others' - mistakes and experiences) trading altcoins
Firstly, how does one reduce mistakes in our trades? How to be mostly on the "green side"?
It is important to note that to trade right requires your full focus. Trading is not for everyone. The following suggestions are easy to follow because they are intuitive. However, it may still be difficult to apply them to practical situations, like many things in life.
1. Have a reason before entering each trade: Start a trade only when you know why you’re starting and have a sound strategy for afterwards. Not all traders make gains from trading, yep, nothing in the universe is a free lunch, for everyone who benefits someone else loses on the other side (a zero sum game). The Altcoins market is driven by large whales. They are patiently waiting for noobs (or just dumb money in the market) to make mistakes. Even if you are committed and available to trade on a daily basis, sometimes it is just better to hodl on some days than to trade. From my experience, there are days when you keep your profits simply by not trading at all.
2. Target and stop when starting a trade: For each trade you must have a desired profit at which point you sell no matter what, Dollar cost averaging may significantly reduce your risks. Also, a stop-loss level for cutting losses. A Stop-loss is setting the level of loss where the trade will get closed. Some traders may fail when they have biases with a trade or the coin itself. They may be thinking, “Here it will turn around, and I will get out of this trade with a minimum loss, I’m sure”. They’re letting their emotions take charge and unlike the traditional stock exchange where extreme daily movements are considered 2-3% in value, trading alt coins can be a lot more risky: only in my short period as a trader I’ve seen massive (over 50%) pumps and dumps in few hours. If you were following the price movements, you would've noticed the ridiculous price swings bitcoin had last week, with FUD (fear-uncertainty-doubt) around news from china, JP Morgan CEO trash talking bitcoin and the normal market correction after BTC hit $5000 coming at once. Although it recovered $700 within 5-6 hours, I'd guess that many, many small traders lost a ton by panic selling, to the whales, manipulators and a few lucky ones who managed to pick up BTC at $2900 (I'm jealous).
3. FOMO (fear of missing out). It really isn’t fun to see some situations from the outside – such as when a certain coin is being pumped up like crazy with double digit % gains in minutes.
That big green candle is telling you, “you are the only one not holding me”. Usually at this point you will notice shills and trolls flooding forums, subs and the exchanges’ Troll boxes to talk about this pump. Simply ignore them and go about your usual strategy.
True, it’s possible that many may have got on the boat ahead of the wave and it can continue rising, but keep in mind that the whales are just waiting for small buyers on the way up to sell them the coins they bought at cheaper prices. Prices are now high and the current holders may decide they are up by enough %. The next step is usually the bright big red candle selling through the whole order book.
If you happen to be holding something that's pumping rapidly, and if it's up by too much in a 24 hour span (usually 25-30% or more, for cryptos) you get out of it ASAP. Take your profits and get outside, do something else. Hodling for too long because you think it will pump higher (greed) due to some news or simply because you're biased, is one of the most common reasons the average trader loses out to someone with a bit more experience. It will almost always come back down if it balloons in a single day, there's no reason to keep holding at this point. If you love the coin, you can usually buy in more once the pump is done. Keep an eye on the retracement levels, some traders like to use fibonacci ratios to predict trend reversal points (this may sound kooky, but it has more probability of success than blind guessing), figure out the support lines and buy back more. This is usually a consolidation period after the big red candles show up.
4. Risk Management. Little pig eats a lot, big pig gets eaten. This statement tells you the story of profits from our perspective. To be a profitable trader, you never fall for the hype or try to hit a homerun with one trade. You look for the small profits that will compound as you reinvest them.
Even small profit like 1% daily (I get it, this is unreasonably high, but for crypto - 1% daily is very much achievable if your portfolio is diversified within the top few coins) can help you accumulate significant profits over months.
The math is simple :
Let's say you start with a $1000 and make 1% daily* for 90 days
1000*(101/100)^90 = 2448.63
That's a 2348% profit in just 90 days!
Another important strategy is to use USD Tethers to hold some of your profits, as it is pegged to the USD and remains stable at all times. In cryptos, usually in a bear trend, everything in the market is going down including bitcoin, so having some tethers at this point can be really useful. You can buy up a lot of coins at cheap prices during these times. Withdrawing to fiat incurs significant losses in fees. Also, putting in fiat into the markets takes time and the high volatility means that prices are usually back up when you have some fiat ready to buy with.
Evaluate risk wisely across your portfolio. For example, it's never a great idea to invest significant percentage of your portfolio in a low volume (your funds can get locked up if you don't find buyers at the right time) or low marketcap coins (price manipulation is easier for low marketcap coins).
5. An important point to consider is the fact that most altcoins are bought and sold in terms of BTC, and not directly tied to fiat. So even if you made profit from a trade in terms of dollars, it may be a losing trade if you've lost value relative to BTC. Unless you are directly using USDT to trade, you have to monitor the altcoin's price in satoshis and not in dollars.
When Bitcoin is very volatile (like the last week), the conditions for trading are kind of foggy. So it may be better to have close targets for your trades or not trade at all.
6. Most Altcoins lose their value over time. They simply bleed out slowly (sometimes rapidly).
Take this into account when you have decided to hold alts for the medium to long term, do so only if you have done your research about the project and really have confidence in the Devs and the idea. The projects/coins that have a higher daily trading volume, which have an active community behind them, with continuous development, and satisfies a market need, are here to stay. If I had to guess, most of the ones in top 10 will be around for quite a while.
Some of my personal favourite alts are - Bitcoin Cash (I don't even consider it an alt since it is the REAL bitcoin, visit r/btc if you want to ask why), Ethereum, Monero, Litecoin and OmiseGo. These are the more established ones, you could look into the lesser market cap ones (100 - 250 million - high risk/high reward), there are definitely some decent ones in there but you'd really need to do your due diligence if you plan to invest a sizable amount.
You should follow the coin’s chart history and identify low and stable periods. Such periods are likely to be a consolidation period by the whales, and when the right time comes, accompanied by a good press release of the project, the pump will start and they will sell in profit.
7. A word about public ICOs (Initial Coin Offering - crypto version of crowd-sales): Many new projects choose to make a crowd-sale where they offer investors an early opportunity to buy a share of the project (tokens or coins) in what is meant to be a good price for the tokens.
The motivation for the investors to participate in the ICOs is that the token will be traded from day one on the exchanges and would yield a nice profit. The last year or so, there have been many successful ICOs, both the project itself and the ROI for investors. Augur’s and Populous's ICOs yielded investors around a ~10X on their investment.
There's a catch here though. Not all the projects benefit their investors. Many ICOs proved to be complete scams, not only were they not being traded at all but some projects disappeared with the money and we have not heard from them right up to this day. You also have to consider the fact that sometimes you'd have more profit simply by holding the Ethereum (ETH) instead of sending it to an ICO. If ETH is bullish, the ROI on the new coin/asset has to be phenomenal to outperform ETH.
Many scam ICOs are easy to detect, obnoxious advertising, style-over-substance websites, bogus white papers (or no white paper), any co-founder with a shady past, devs prevaricating or using buzzwords to explain things, should be red flags. Be sure to google a lot, view their bitcoin talk ANN thread, their subreddit, popular cryptocurrency subs, and other forums.
8. Buy the rumor, sell the news. When major news sites publish articles it is usually exactly the right time to actually get out of the trade.
Lastly, leave your ego aside. Do NOT indulge in revenge trading. The goal here is not to be right on your trades, but to make a profit. Do not waste resources (time and money) to try to prove something. Remember, there is no trader who never loses, at least sometimes. The equation is simple – get the total profits to be higher than the total losses.The latest Bloomberg Politics poll finds a dead heat in North Carolina, with 46% for Hillary Clinton, 45% for Donald Trump.
Those numbers are for a two-way race, but the same razor-thin margin holds when the third-party candidates are included: Clinton 44%, Trump 43%. In that scenario, Libertarian Gary Johnson draws 6%, while the Green Party’s Jill Stein gets 2%, even though she did not qualify for the North Carolina ballot and must appear as a write-in candidate.
Five percent of North Carolina voters remain undecided.
Forty-five percent of respondents said their support for Clinton increased after the first presidential debate, while only 30% said the same for Donald Trump.
Pollster J. Ann Selzer nevertheless said North Carolina is “the kind of situation where third-party candidates could tip the balance.”
“It’s hard to imagine a battleground state where things could be much closer, both in the overall horse-race number and in the underlying party ideology of the voters,” Selzer said.
“In the two-way presidential race, Clinton receives support from 88 percent of the state’s black voters, a group that represented 20 percent of the likely electorate in the survey. Exit polls in 2012 showed blacks casting 23 percent of the state’s ballots and Obama receiving 96 percent of their votes,” Bloomberg reports.
Clinton also leads among urban residents, young voters, women, and voters with a college degree, while Trump leads among rural voters, evangelical Christians, and white men without a college degree. He is ahead with the latter group by 51 points, while Clinton leads by 67 points with non-white voters.
Trump and Clinton are both underwater on approval with North Carolina voters. His favorable numbers are 44%-53%, while hers are 46%-52%.
The North Carolina Senate race is also close, with Democrat Deborah Ross currently leading Republican Richard Burr by 2 points, 46% to 44%. Democrat Roy Cooper is more comfortably ahead in the gubernatorial race, leading Republican Pat McCrory by 50% to 44%.It sometimes feels like we get a lot of “record-breaking” weather. Whether it’s a heatwave in Europe or the “Angry Summer” in Australia, the past few years have seen temperature records tumble.
This is the case both locally – Sydney had its hottest year on record in 2016 – and globally, with the world’s hottest year in 2016 beating the record set only the year before.
Some of 2016’s heat was due to the strong El Niño. But much of it can be linked to climate change too.
We’re seeing more heat records and fewer cold records. In Australia there have been 12 times as many hot records as cold ones in the first 15 years of this century.
If we were living in a world without climate change, we would expect temperature records to be broken less often as the observational record grows longer. After all, if you only have five previous observations for annual temperatures then a record year isn’t too surprising, but after 100 years a new record is more notable.
In contrast, what we are seeing in the real world is more hot temperature records over time, rather than less. So if you think we’re seeing more record-breaking weather than we should, you’re right.
Why it’s happening
In my new open-access study published in the journal Earth’s Future, I outline a method for evaluating changes in the rate at which temperature records are being broken. I also use it to quantify the role of the human influence in this change.
To do it, I used climate models that represent the past and current climate with both human influences (greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions) and natural influences (solar and volcanic effects). I then compared these with models containing natural influences only.
Lots of hot records, fewer cold ones
Taking the example of global annual temperature records, we see far more record hot years in the models that include the human influences on the climate than in the ones without.
Crucially, only the models that include human influences can recreate the pattern of hot temperature records that were observed in reality over the past century or so.
Author provided
In contrast, when we look at cold records we don’t see the same difference. This is mainly because cold records were more likely to be broken early in the temperature series when there were fewer previous data. The earliest weather data comes from the late 19th century, when there was only a weak human effect on the climate relative to today. This means that there is less difference between my two groups of models.
In the models that include human influences on the climate, we see an increase in the number of global record hot years from the late 20th century onwards, whereas this increase isn’t seen in the model simulations without human influences. Major volcanic eruptions reduce the likelihood of record hot years globally in both groups of model simulations.
Projecting forward to 2100 under continued high greenhouse gas emissions, we see the chance of new global records continuing to rise, so that one in every two years, on average, would be a record-breaker.
Author provided
I also looked at specific events and how much climate change has increased the likelihood of a record being broken.
I used the examples of the record hot years of 2016 globally and 2014 in Central England. Both records were preceded by well over a century of temperature observations, so in a non-changing climate we would expect the chance of a record-breaking year to be less than 1%.
Instead, I found that the chance of setting a new record was increased by at least a factor of 30 relative to a stationary climate, for each of these records. This increased likelihood of record-breaking can be attributed to the human influence on the climate.
More records to come?
The fact that we’re setting so many new hot records, despite our lengthening observation record, is an indicator of climate change and it should be a concern to all of us.
The increased rate at which we are getting record hot temperatures is controlled by the speed of global warming, among other factors. To meet the Paris target of keeping global warming below 2℃ we will have to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions drastically. Besides keeping average global temperatures under control, this would also reduce the chance of temperature records continuing to tumble, both globally and locally.'3 stooges' crew accused of causing $500K in damages to Conroe, other schools
Ronnie Morris Ronnie Morris Photo: MCSO Photo: MCSO Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close '3 stooges' crew accused of causing $500K in damages to Conroe, other schools 1 / 5 Back to Gallery
The "3 stooges" crew is accused of causing more than a half-million dollars in damages to Conroe ISD and other schools in and outside Montgomery County.
A Montgomery County grand jury indicted Chad Eaton, 21, Paul Clark, 20, and Ronnie Morris, 21, all of Conroe, on first-degree felony aggregate criminal mischief charges for an alleged month-and-a-half-long spree of burglaries and acts of vandalism that stretched from Harris County up to Walker County. On multiple occasions, the "3 stooges" and "3 Stooges hits again" was spray-painted on the wall when individuals broke into schools, Conroe ISD police said in court documents.
Five Conroe ISD schools were vandalized from late August to early October 2016. Six other schools outside of Conroe ISD also were targeted.
Eaton, Clark and Morris were arrested Oct. 7 during a traffic stop.
"We are pleased with the fine work conducted by the Conroe ISD Police Department in investigating and arresting the suspects," Conroe ISD Director of Communications Sarah Blakelock said.
A first-degree felony aggregate criminal mischief charge is used when the total cost of damage exceeds $300,000, according to the Texas Penal Code, although authorities said in civil court documents that the total cost among the 11 schools could be more than $500,000.
Morris and Eaton's attorneys declined to comment, and an attorney for Clark could not be reached.
The Incidents
Court documents show Conroe ISD's Moorhead Junior High, located in the 13400 block of FM 1485, was the first school hit around midnight Aug. 27. The three allegedly attempted to break into the school through a door near the school's bus ramp, but custodial staff members on scene scared off the individuals.
Law enforcement believes the second break-in happened about an hour later at The Woodlands High School 9th Grade Campus in the 10000 block of Branch Crossing Drive. Someone pried open a door by the bus ramp. Police believe the suspects ransacked parts of the building by smashing in computer monitors with a pry bar, breaking windows and damaging a vending machine.
The perpetrators also flooded part of the school by clogging a sink drain and turning on the faucet, court records show. The individuals responsible scrawled "3 stooges" on a wall in the teacher's lounge, right next to a knife that was left in the wall. School officials estimated the cost to repair the school was close to $27,000.
Next hit was Coldspring-Oakhurst High School in Walker County on Sept. 4, where there was $30,000 in damage, followed by Splendora, New Waverly and New Caney high schools all in one night on Sept. 18.
About a week later, the three allegedly broke into the Conroe High School 9th Grade Campus around 1 a.m., causing close to $13,000 worth of damage and stealing an undisclosed amount of money from the school's safe. A fire extinguisher also was discharged throughout the building and multiple windows and doors were broken.
That same night, the three allegedly broke into Conroe High School and The Woodlands College Park High School. At College Park High School, there was a broken glass door with estimated damages at $5,400, as was as $12,000 in cash stolen from a safe, court records show.
The final two reported hits caused the most damage, detectives said. Waller High School and Rosehill Christian Academy, west of Tomball, were broken into Oct. 2, allegedly causing a collective $130,000 worth of damage to both schools. It was at Waller High School where the three allegedly spray-painted "3 Stooges hits again," court records show.
On all of the reported break-ins, detectives said three assailants wore dark clothes, some sort of head covering to conceal their identity and dark shoes. They all had crow bars.
Arrest
Using surveillance camera footage, police said they were able to capture part of Eaton's face. Eaton, a former student at Caney Creek High School, was positively identified by a principal there, court records show. From that identification, Conroe ISD detectives searched social media and found photos of Eaton, Clark and Morris together, according to an affidavit.
The detectives pulled surveillance footage and credit card data from a gas station near Waller High School and found that Clark and Morris were at the gas station together around the same time of the burglaries at Waller High School and Rosehill Christian Academy, court records show.
The group was arrested after a traffic stop by Conroe ISD police, court and jail records show.
As a result of his arrest, Eaton had two cars seized by authorities, civil court records show.
Detectives believe Eaton was driving a 2005 gold Nissan Altima during all of the break-ins, which they say could be seen on surveillance footage at the schools. Detectives believe Eaton purchased a 2007 silver Dodge Charger for about $7,500 cash with money stolen from the schools, court records show.
Both cars were seized by the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office. Eaton, court records show, contested the seizures of the cars in a letter he wrote from jail.
Eaton has been caught before burglarizing and vandalizing schools, court documents show.
All three face up to life in prison and a possible fine up to $10,000. Morris is sitting in the Montgomery County Jail on a $25,000 bond, while Eaton and Clark are in jail on a $150,000 bond each.
Eaton and Clark are due back in Judge Phil Grant's 9th state District Court Jan. 12 for a status conference. Morris will be back in Grant's court Jan. 19 for a status conference.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Salman Abedi's cousins say the bomber "betrayed his family"
Two cousins of the Manchester bomber say they had no idea he was planning his attack, which killed 22 people.
Isaac and Abz Forjani were arrested by police after the suicide bombing - and were questioned for a week - but have since been released without charge.
They say they did not know about Salman Abedi's extremist views - adding that he may have been radicalised abroad.
It comes as police released new CCTV images of Abedi before the attack at Manchester Arena on 22 May.
Sixteen people have been arrested over the bombing at an Ariana Grande concert and 10 remain in custody.
Meanwhile, police said they had so far found no record of any calls to the anti-terrorist hotline about Abedi.
After the attack, a community worker said two people had made separate calls to the hotline about five years ago to raise concerns about his behaviour.
The Forjani brothers were arrested in Fallowfield, south Manchester, the day after the attack.
Isaac, 24, said: "It's not easy being connected to 22 lost, innocent lives.
"The fact that the person that did this is related to us by blood is something that's going to stay with me for the rest of my life.
"My thoughts are with the families of the victims. I really do feel for them.
"We went in, we could come out, we can try and move on with our lives. They've lost their loved ones."
Image copyright GMP
Image copyright GMP Image caption Police have released new images of Salman Abedi
The two brothers said they last saw Abedi three months before the attack, when he got his hair trimmed at Abz Forjani's barber shop.
Abz, 21, said he had a "pretty close relationship" with Abedi. He said his cousin was not part of "a big network".
He said: "I believe it was all done by one man, (who) developed some sort of thoughts in the past few years which he kept to himself, secretly to himself.
"He never shared it with any members of the family - if he would've, we could have done something to stop that happening.
"He never admitted extremist views - it was just political opinions, so it wasn't focused or aimed at a particular group," Abz added.
"The thought was he was just a religious man taking it way too far, becoming judgemental maybe.
"There's never been a hint of extremism."
The brothers also insisted they shared the same British values as everyone else.
"We're Mancunians ourselves," said Isaac.
The pair's younger brother Alharth, 19, is still in custody.“Donald Trump’s campaign is melting down,” writes Correct the Record founder and Clinton supporter David Brock. | AP Photo Clinton allies circle the wagons against Trump speech
RALEIGH, N.C. — Donald Trump’s team spent Tuesday trying to prove that his political operation was professionalizing after it replaced its campaign manager. Reporters were bombarded with rapid response news releases during Hillary Clinton’s afternoon speech, there was news of hires in the early evening, and even news of the (pending) launch of lyingcrookedhillary.com minutes later.
If Clinton’s allies have their way on Wednesday when Trump delivers his long-awaited anti-Hillary speech, that won’t be enough.
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A constellation of groups in the presumptive Democratic nominee’s political orbit is prepping a wide-ranging response to Trump’s downtown Manhattan speech — originally slated for New Hampshire last week before getting postponed following the Orlando mass shooting — that will include a series of memos, rapid response releases, and calculated silences designed to paint the Republican as both corrupt and a peddler of conspiracy theories.
Recalling Trump’s relative silence when Clinton attacked him in her first dedicated anti-Trump speech in San Diego earlier this month — they hope it will paint the picture of a prepared campaign squaring off against a floundering one.
While the Clinton camp itself is not planning to any specific push against Trump’s morning address at the Trump SoHo — it prefers to maintain a posture of not responding to each of Trump’s frequent Clinton barbs — people close to the anti-Trump operation are hoping that her own economic policy speech here in North Carolina will provide enough of a contrast to send a message to voters.
The Clinton Foundation, however, is poised to respond to what it deems false allegations about its operations — likely about its foreign fundraising practices — on social media, and also to distribute positive stories and firsthand accounts of its work, foundation officials told POLITICO. The group has gone out of its way to circulate its last annual report, for example, which is full of such narratives.
Rapid response group Correct The Record will take the lead on the political side while Priorities USA Action, the big-money pro-Clinton super PAC that’s swamping swing states with anti-Trump television ads, is not expected to launch any specific response.
“Donald Trump’s campaign is melting down,” writes Correct the Record founder David Brock in a 3½ page memo seen by POLITICO that the group is set to distribute widely on Wednesday morning.
“Even the campaign’s attempt to ‘pivot’ on June 9th was an unmitigated disaster. As his family painfully watched at his side, Trump used a teleprompter to give the worst speech of his campaign,” Brock continues, detailing recent reports of political issues with the Trump’s campaign, from his lack of cash to tepid Republican support, and pegging the beginning of the decline to the presumptive GOP nominee’s mid-May revelation that he had hoped for a housing market crash in 2006 so he could profit.
Clinton forces are anticipating a glut of attacks from Trump, ranging from allusions to Bill Clinton’s alleged sexual indiscretions to lines about the attack in Benghazi in September 2012. Hillary Clinton’s private email arrangement at the State Department is also expected to be in Trump’s cross hairs.
Two other groups with ties to Brock — Democratic opposition research firm American Bridge and liberal media watchdog Media Matters For America — will also get in on the action, he said. Bridge is set to run out a memo of its own detailing Trump’s suspect foreign ties from Azerbaijan to Mexico, and the group will blast out rapid response news releases during the speech. Media Matters, meanwhile, will note instances in which Trump’s attacks appear to come from books like “Clinton Cash” or “Crisis of Character” that have received considerable pushback and fact-checking queries.
Brock’s Correct The Record missive, which will be joined by the group’s real-time fact-checking during Trump's speech, is itself an extensive prebuttal.
“Here is what we know about this morning: Trump will be depending on widely-discredited sources like right-wing books Clinton Cash, which was panned by many for a lack of evidence and many errors, and Crisis of Character, which has been denounced by Secret Service veterans because the author was too low-ranking to have seen any of what he claims. Trump will also lie about Hillary Clinton today as he has lied about her before. There have been at least a dozen fact checks calling out Trump for lying about Clinton — on the issues, on the polls and on Benghazi. You name it; he’s lied about it,” Brock writes, calling the real estate developer a “practiced conspiracy theorist."
The memo ends with a detailed list of Trump’s business ties, connecting him to entities ranging from former Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi to Russian President Vladimir Putin to the Mafia.
“Throughout his career, Trump has both sought to curry favor with sworn enemies of the United States and surrounded himself with convicted criminals,” Brock says.BENGHAZI, Libya — Islamic State militants were retreating Thursday from their main bastion in Libya, as militiamen allied to a U.N.-brokered government pushed into the central city of Sirte, officials said.
Some militants reportedly shaved off their beards to escape while the pro-government fighters, mostly from the western Libyan city of Misrata, pushed into the city center in their tanks and pickup trucks mounted with machine guns. At a main square, the militiamen dismantled the metal frame of what some Sirte residents had dubbed the "stage of horror" — a podium used by IS for public beheadings and extrajudicial killings during its reign of terror.
Videos circulated on social media show triumphant militiamen flashing victory signs and chanting "Allahu-Akbar" or "God is Great" as they drive around Sirte.
The capture of Sirte capped a month-long offensive by the Libyan militiamen to take the IS stronghold — it was the only major IS-held city outside Syria and Iraq, and was seen as a possible fallback option for the capital of its self-styled caliphate. The IS extremists are currently struggling to fend off advances on a number of fronts, including in the Iraqi city of Fallujah and the northern Syrian provinces of Aleppo and Raqqa.
In Libya, militiamen from the western city of Misrata have been the main fighting force for the U.N.-brokered unity government that was installed in Tripoli earlier this year. For nearly four weeks, the militiamen have been advancing from the west and south against IS. The extremist group dispatched suicide bombers against the militiamen, who lost dozens of fighters last month.
On Wednesday, the militias pushed |
a 3-4 defense that utilized some of their strengths from the previous scheme. That meant installing a hybrid scheme that would allow the Rams to penetrate and get upfield, but also allow the defensive front to occupy blocks for backers to blitz and make plays.
At the beginning of the season, the entire defense went through some growing pains. Robert Quinn, Michael Brockers, and Aaron Donald adapted to new positions. Donald held out of training camp which limited his availability and gave opportunities to rookie Tanzel Smart. Connor Barwin was the new starter on the group, coming over via free agency.
These changes are some of the reasons the group is currently allowing the No. 15 most yards per game and No. 21 most points per game. A deeper dive into the stats prove that the defense is closer to elite. Los Angeles is No. three in sacks with 40 and No. five in interceptions with 15 for the year. They’re 10th in both fumble recoveries (7) and forced fumbles (10). The defensive line deserves a lot of credit for the defense’s success considering they are still a focal point of the entire team.
Individually, the group is No. 20 in Football Outsider’s adjusted line yards through Week 13. That means opposing offensive lines are responsible for the 13th most yards versus the Rams when compared to the average running back. However, the same site ranks the Rams as No. five in adjusted sack rate which gives sacks per pass attempt adjusted by down, distance, and opponent.
Strengths
Traits
The Los Angeles Rams have very good athleticism across the defensive front. Brockers, Donald, and Quinn possess elite athleticism by blending speed, explosiveness, agility, and size at their respective positions. Ethan Westbrooks and Barwin are also solid athletes.
This group is very good at being competitively tough from quarter to quarter versus all levels of competition. They compete through injuries, they play multiple fronts and they’re consistently aggressive throughout the contest.
As for play strength, each of the five players shows very good play strength as they are good at winning one-on-one battles. Each player can penetrate the line of scrimmage and stalemate blockers at the point of the attack.
Run game
Otherwise, the team is solid at processing and reacting to the offense. They have very good play speed that they showcase by getting off the ball and swarming to the football.
Collectively, the defensive line has very good upfield burst. Donald and Quinn show elite burst while Brockers has a very good ability to quickly attack upfield.
Versus the run, the group can leverage their gap, neutralize a block, extend their arms, shed the block and make a play on the ball carrier. They use their hands effectively to control the chest of blockers and shed blocks before making the tackle.
Pass Rush
In the pass rush, the group uses good get offs to get their blockers off balance. They can use hands to visibly knock blockers off balance and get to the quarterback or they can use power and bull rush to get the blocker into the quarterback. Brockers is good at this and the entire interior line is great at pushing the pocket and not allowing quarterbacks a chance to step up.
Otherwise, Donald and Quinn are very good at cornering the quarterback and maintaining lean. Donald also has very good counter moves and pass rush plan to close on the quarterback with speed and power. The group does a good job of getting their hands into passing lanes when they cannot make a play.
Added, this d-line has a very good motor. Donald consistently shows an elite motor to work through double and triple teams. The rest of the defensive line is very good at using their speed, agility and mental processing to move through traffic and swarm to the ball carrier.
Weaknesses
The defensive front can struggle with the mental processing speed to discover fakes. They will be overaggressive and bite on screens, draws and play-action fakes.
Additionally, they can also find themselves creating cutback seems versus the zone blocking scheme as they will get too far upfield. Edges can get pushed outside on stretch and outside zone which will create a seem for runners too. Lengthier tackles with good footwork will reach the edges on outside zone too.
Very good offensive lines can push this unit back as their pad levels will get high. They are not the best at dropping anchor, neutralizing blockers, finding the ball carrier and protecting their linebackers as they like to penetrate gaps. The defensive line can be exploited on counters as they will get too far upfield and pushed out by tackles. Good run blockers can also drive and extend the Rams defensive line with superior hand play.
Versus the pass, very good pass protectors can neutralize them with good punch timing and placement to knock them back and control their defender. This group will also lose contain as their over-aggression can get them pushed out of rush lanes. Elite tackles can also neutralize their speed on the edge with good footwork and punch timing. They can lose their leverage and explosiveness on long twists and stunts as well.
The defensive line is also susceptible to cut blocks due to their aggression and mental processing speed.
Grade: B +
Overall, the Rams defense is an elite group based on talent alone. The pressure the defensive line creates is a big reason why they are ranked highly in sacks and turnovers. However, this group has plenty of room to grow as the season continues. The d-line can do more to maintain run integrity as well as dominate elite offensive lines.
Still, it is clear that the Rams defensive line and the entire defense is getting stronger as the season progresses. Specifically, the defensive line is getting better as they are starting to process less and react more. A new scheme is one of the reasons the run defense was so poor at the beginning of the season as they were going too far upfield and taking too much time to react.
Considering this group is the most talented position on the team, it is fair to hold them to a higher standard. Yes, they are an A group but they’re not playing to that full potential just yet. Hence, they’ve earned a B+ grade as they continue to develop cohesion in a new defensive scheme. In recent weeks, they are close to running on full cylinders. When they do, they will be an even scarier defensive line to face.
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Like this: Like Loading...In October of 1944, Hitler overthrew the leader of the Hungarian government, Miklos Horthy, and replaced him with Ferenc Szalasi.
Szalasi, whose ideology closely followed Hitler’s, immediately established the Arrow Cross Party - a fascist, anti-semitic organization that brutally and publicly terrorized the Jews in Budapest by beating and killing them. Nearly 80,000 Jews were expelled from Hungary in a death march to the Austrian border and approximately 20,000 Jews were brutally shot along the banks of the Danube River. The victims were forced to remove their shoes at gunpoint (shoes being a valuable commodity during World War II) and face their executioner before they were shot without mercy, falling over the edge to be washed away by the freezing waters.
Shoes on the Danube Promenade is a haunting tribute to this horrific time in history, created by film director Can Togay and the sculptor, Gyula Pauer. Installed along the bank of the Danube River in Budapest, the monument consists of 60 pairs of 1940s-style shoes, true to life in size and detail, sculpted out of iron.
This memorial is simple yet chilling, depicting the shoes left behind by the thousands of Jews who were murdered by the Arrow Cross. The style of footwear - a man’s work boot; a business man’s loafer; a woman’s pair of heels; even the tiny shoes of a child - were chosen specifically to illustrate how no one, regardless of age, gender, or occupation was spared. Placed in a casual fashion, as if the people just stepped out of them, these little statues are a grim reminder of the souls who once occupied them - yet they also create a beautiful place of reflection and reverence.
At three points along the memorial are cast iron signs with the following text in Hungarian, English, and Hebrew: “To the memory of the victims shot into the Danube by Arrow Cross militiamen in 1944–45. Erected 16 April 2005.”Last week, during one 24-hour period, Donald Trump first said he would “absolutely” consider a third-party run and then reversed course, saying that his “total focus is to run as a Republican and to win.” This question of whether to run as an Independent has also been brought up in relation to Bernie Sanders, who happens to be the only Independent member of the U.S. Senate.
In a Q&A session with the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce on Thursday, Sanders delivered a definitive “no” when asked if he would run as an Independent were he to lose the Democratic primary to Hillary Clinton.
Sanders explained that when he was making his decision to run for president in 2016, he considered doing it as an Independent because he feels the Democratic Party is “too conservative, too cozied up with big money and corporate America.” But ultimately he decided that the “only way” to run for president “at this unique moment in history” would be to do it as part of the two-party system.
“If it happens that I do not win that process, would I run outside of the system? No, I made the promise that I would not and I will keep that promise,” Sanders said. “And the reason for that is I do not want to be responsible for electing some right-wing Republican to be president of the United States.”
In other words, Sanders does not want to be the Ralph Nader of 2016. Trump, on the other hand, has only said that he “wants” to run as Republican, leaving the door far more open to a potential third-party run that would all but deliver the election to the Democratic candidate.
Watch video below, via C-SPAN:
[Photo via screengrab]
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>> Follow Matt Wilstein (@TheMattWilstein) on Twitter
Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.comThe book that is indirectly responsible for me getting my new job
A few months ago, I was in the pub with a couple of geekchums. The topic of job interviews was going round the table, in part because I’d been talking about my goal of getting a job and moving to the Bay Area. Someone mentioned that they’d interviewed at Google, had read Programming Interviews Exposed the night before the interview, and nearly every question they’d been asked was pretty much out of the book.
This caught my attention, because a few months earlier I’d had a phone interview with a division of Google that rhymes with TouYube which had gone pretty well until they pulled out one of those algorithmic questions that Google loves; Something about finding the median value in two sorted lists of integers. I’d come up with a solution, but clearly not a satisfactory solution. (As Keith later described it, every Google interview question has to have an O(log n) solution… and at that time, Big O notation hadn’t been on my radar in freakin’ years). The next day, the recruiter called to say they’d decided to pass on me.
So, the morning after the discussion, once the hangover had subsided, I ordered myself a copy. I read the whole thing in a few days, absorbing details about graph theory, pointers, recursion and, oh yes, Big O notation that I hadn’t thought about since receiving my CompSci degree 10 years ago.
But more important were the example interview questions throughout the book. Generally these would be structured as the question, followed by a naïve solution, a better solution, and then any follow-up questions or limitations the interviewer might introduce. For example, if you get the classic “Reverse the order of words in a string” question, it guides you through the initial solution of “Start at the end of the string, scan backwards, and when you find whitespace, copy the word to a temporary buffer, then replace the original string with the new one”, then explains what to do when the interviewer inevitably asks you to do it without using another buffer (reverse the whole string, then iterate through reversing the characters in each word).
A week or so later, I had a phone interview and was able to answer algorithmic questions speaking authoritatively about binary trees and heaps. That was enough to get me flown out to SF for in-person interviews, which at one point included a question word-for-word out of the book!
All that said… For a variety of reasons, I didn’t take that job. It just helped because I first spoke to Current during the weekend I was in town for the interviews, and got a chance to spend some face-to-face time at Current’s offices that day.
(In fact, the interviews with Current went by without a single algorithmic pointers-and-big-O question. And to me, that was a good sign, because as I say, I haven’t cared about that shit in 10 years—In my line of work, rather than optimizing lines of code, I’m more to get more bang by tweak a SQL query or throwing memcache at a problem.)
Which raises an interesting question: Is reading this book cheating? Is it the equivalent of just reading the answer key before an exam? In my opinion, no. For two reasons:
For the most part, it was just refreshing details I’d already learned during my CompSci course, but had filed away in the trashcan of my neurons, along with “Where’s the best deep-fried pizza in Edinburgh?”, as no-longer relevant to my life. This book probably won’t help too much if you don’t have the first clue about pointers or recursion to begin with. If your ability to answer algorithmic questions is the only (or most important) thing the employer is rating you on when you interview you, then they’re fucking idiots and will get everything they deserve.
The book is just a handy tool for your belt when preparing for interviews, to get your mind in the right place to push past the algorithmic questions so you can present all the other amazing reasons why they must hire you right now. Similarly, I highly recommend reading Joel Spolsky’s Smart and Gets Things Done and Rands’s guide to how your resumé is being read for an idea on what the person on the other side of the phoneline or table is (or should be) thinking.
But without this book, I might not have passed that phone screen, and thus might not have been in SF when Current called, and might not have met with them, and might not have gotten excited by the opportunity, and might not have the job I have now.
And for that reason, I unreservedly recommend this book to every software engineer who might be on either side of the interviewing process soon.FILE - In this Saturday, Dec. 17, 2016 file photo, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a rally at Ladd-Peebles Stadium in Mobile, Ala. China said Saturday its military seized a U.S. Navy unmanned underwater glider in the South China Sea but it would give the drone back. But Trump tweeted later that the Chinese government should be told "we don't want the drone they stole back" and "let them keep it!" This comes after United States officials had confirmed that they "secured an understanding" for the return of the device. Trump's evening tweet may extend one of the most serious incidents between the American and the Chinese militaries in years. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File) (Photo: AP)
Fidel Castro’s governing model was tailored to protect Cuba from American aggressions. He saw how the openness of Guatemala’s democratic society made it easy for the CIA to overthrow that country’s elected president. Therefore, Fidel determined to disallow such openness by suppressing freedom of expression. He balanced those restrictions by ensuring availability of life and health benefits. How might Fidel’s governing model compare to that of Donald Trump? Trump wants to clamp down on freedom of speech in radio, TV and Internet because people denigrate or mock him. Other First Amendment protections may also get suppressed. Donald Trump’s power base will be a well-oiled military-industrial-financial-evangelical complex.
What other particulars might warrant comparison between the two governments during the next four years. For one thing, Cuba has no evangelicals who infiltrate the government for the express purpose of denying women’s health and freedoms of choice. Secondly, Donald Trump is an extreme psychopath whose intentions are opaque and ominous. His erratic behaviors are worrisome. In contrast, Fidel focused on improving the lives and health of all of Cuba’s people.
Cuba’s constitution now guarantees free health care and housing, education through college, social security, unemployment insurance, paid maternity leave, union rights to participate in management and to strike. Money in political campaigns is disallowed. Ballot boxes are guarded by school children. Cuba has the highest ratio of doctors to patients in the world; its infant mortality rate is one of the lowest. Cuba is the only country in the world to have achieved sustainable environmental energy. Poverty and extreme wealth are both non-existent. People are respected so long as they don’t commit criminal acts.
Will America get as much love from Donald Trump as Cuba got from Fidel? Most of us understand kindness, but Republicans encourage us to forget it. Ayn Rand’s weird philosophy became Republican gospel.
Read or Share this story: http://argusne.ws/2i89HtFNational Sorry Day is held on 26 May each year to acknowledge and recognise members of the Stolen Generations. Charles Passi, a Dauareb tribesman from the Mer Island group in the Torres Straits, and Chair of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Healing Foundation shares his thoughts on the importance of National Sorry Day.
National Sorry Day is important to us as an organisation, but also to us as Australia’s First Peoples because we use it to remember and recognise our Stolen Generations. Most Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people I know have been affected either directly or indirectly by this terrible part of our history since European colonisation. With no disrespect intended, I am a strong advocate for turning our hurt from the past into something positive for our community and for our future generations, as a sign of taking our destiny into our own hands. That’s why I was very happy to hear the recommendation from the Bringing Them Home report (tabled in Federal Parliament on 26 May 1997) that a National Sorry Day be celebrated each year. And that’s what we’ve been doing since 1998. I see this as a positive contribution to our healing journey, just as the national Apology was five years ago.
At the Healing Foundation, we are dedicated to supporting the healing of Stolen Generations and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities around Australia. We see healing as a process of returning to our physical, emotional, spiritual and cultural wellbeing. It’s a journey that can happen over a long time and that’s understandable given the profound and damaging effects that forced removal has had on peoples’ lives. As our brothers and sisters over at Reconciliation Australia know, recognition is a big part of healing.
So that’s why National Sorry Day isn’t just another one of ‘those days’ for me. To celebrate it this year I’m going to take part in the Sorry Day Bridge Walk in Canberra, led by the deadly mob at Winnunga Health Service, on 24 May. I hope all Australians, whether they’ve been here for generations or just a short time, will take a quiet or (loud) moment to recognise our Stolen Generations on 26 May.
Au Esoau! (a big thankyou)Alberto Funaro, convicted of rioting against the 2001 G8 summit in Genoa, was released from prison! (Italy)
Alberto Funaro was released on probation, after two and a half years in prison for the events in Genoa in 2001, for which 10 people were convicted of devastation and looting by Italian courts.
Marina Cugnaschi and Francesco Puglisi, sentenced in the same case, remain imprisoned.
Vincenzo Vecchi, also convicted in the ‘Genoa 10’ trial, is still free / at large.
– ContraInfo
Write the comrades:
Francesco Puglisi
CC di Roma Rebibbia
Via Raffaele Majetti 70
00156 Roma
(Braccio G9/2° Piano)
Italia
Marina Cugnaschi
CC Bollate
Via Cristina Belgioioso 120
20021 Milano
Italia
Tags: Alberto Funaro, Anti-G8, Francesco Puglisi, G8, Genoa, Genoa G8 2001, Italy, Marina Cugnaschi, Vincenzo Vecchi
This entry was posted on Sunday, February 22nd, 2015 at 6:57 pm and is filed under Prison Struggle.Boise University PhD candidate Joshua Kiepert has built a 32-way Beowulf cluster from Raspberry Pis.
Kiepert says his research focuses on “developing a novel data sharing system for wireless sensor networks to facilitate in-network collaborative processing of sensor data.” To study that field Kipert figured he would need a decent simulator, preferably a cluster so he could simulate lots of distributed sensors. The University possesses just such a cluster, comprised of 32 nodes each packing a quad-core Intel Xeon E3-1225 CPU humming away at 3.1GHz.
That's a lovely facility and is therefore much in-demand, which meant Kiepert could not guarantee access for lengthy experiments. That got Kiepert thinking that if he had a cluster of his own he could tweak as required, and that cluster was a bit closer to the low-level hardware used in sensors, that would be a fine thing.
Kiepert's mathematical skills then did some multiplication: at $45 per Pi, including an 8GB SD card, he could acquire the raw materials for a 32-way cluster for $1500, or the same price as one Xeon-powered PC. As he contemplated the design for such a cluster, Kipert settled on Arch Linux for its tiny size. He eschewed the Pi's micro-USB port as a power source, as he felt it would complicate cabling, instead using a 5V pin on the machines' I/O headers.
USB power would also have complicated the housing for the cluster by adding weight, a problem Kiepert said was not insignificant because 32 ethernet cables were a drag on the slim and light computers.
“In order to keep the cluster size to a minimum while maintaining ease of access, the RPis were stacked in groups of eight using PCB-to-PCB standoffs with enough room in between them for a reasonable amount of air flow and component clearance,” he writes. “This configuration suited our needs for power distribution very well since it allowed for a power line to be passed vertically along each stack.”
“Using this orientation, four RPi stacks were assembled and mounted between two pieces of acrylic. This created a solid structure in which the cluster could be housed and maintain physical stability under the combined weight of 32 Ethernet cables.”
Joshua Kiepert's 32-way Raspberry Pi cluster
The Pis were also overclocked, using Turbo Mode, to give Kiepert the grunt needed to run his simulations.
Kiepert's now doing all his research on the cluster, writing in a lengthy (PDF) account of the build that “I have found performance perfectly acceptable for my simulation needs, and have had the luxury of customizing the cluster software to fit my requirements exactly.”
Custom software doesn't, however, mean faster performance: Kiepert admits performance of the cluster isn't stellar, even after he re-wrote simulation software for his cluster.
But the price was right: the PDF above includes a bill of materials that includes cabling, lighting and even screws needed to assemble his acrylic racks. The total came to $1967.21. ®This week, the owners of two secular, for-profit corporations will ask the Supreme Court to take a radical turn and allow them to impose their religious views on their employees — by refusing to permit them contraceptive coverage as required under the Affordable Care Act.
The Supreme Court has consistently resisted claims for religious exemptions from laws that are neutral and apply broadly when the exemptions would significantly harm other people, as this one would. To approve it would flout the First Amendment, which forbids government from favoring one religion over another — or over nonbelievers.
The showdown will take place Tuesday when the Supreme Court hears arguments on two consolidated challenges to the Affordable Care Act. The owners of Hobby Lobby, a chain of arts-and-crafts stores, and Conestoga Wood Specialties, a cabinetmaker, want to be exempted from the sound requirement that employer health plans cover without a co-payment all birth control methods and services approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
These companies are not religious organizations, nor are they affiliated with religious organizations. But the owners say they are victims of an assault on religious liberty because they personally disapprove of certain contraceptives. They are wrong, and the Supreme Court’s task is to issue a decisive ruling saying so. The real threat to religious liberty comes from the owners trying to impose their religious beliefs on thousands of employees.Arsons spread: 4 more cars torched in S.F. San Francisco
Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Arsons spread: 4 more cars torched in S.F. 1 / 1 Back to Gallery
Four more cars were set ablaze overnight in San Francisco, bringing the number of arson attacks since this weekend to a dozen, authorities said Wednesday.
The fires have cut through a wide swath of the city, and vehicles of all types have been targeted, from a Volvo to a Ford F-150 pickup. No arrests have been made in the fires, which have all occurred late at night or before dawn. Authorities don't even know if the same person is responsible for all 12.
The most recent fire happened about 3:25 a.m. Wednesday when a Honda was burned at La Playa and Balboa streets near Ocean Beach. The blaze charred a vehicle parked behind it.
A Porsche and an Infiniti were found on fire at Francisco and Powell streets in North Beach at 2 a.m. Another blaze happened at Newcomb Avenue and Selby Street in the Bayview about 11 p.m. Tuesday.
Wednesday's fires came a day after someone burned three cars and tried to torch a fourth on streets off of Geary Boulevard. Over the weekend and early Monday, there were four additional fires.
"It's very upsetting. We just hope it stops," Jamie Tapia, 38, said Wednesday, a day after her husband, who works with the state Employment Development Department, found his state-owned Chevrolet on fire near 48th Avenue and Geary Boulevard.
"It's not fair," Tapia said. "Hopefully, the police can do something, catch the people responsible for doing this."
The attacks are being investigated by an arson task force that includes San Francisco police and fire officials. Police say there is no direct evidence linking all the incidents, despite a number of similarities.
The arsons come as authorities continue to investigate a series of portable-toilet fires that began late last year. In some cases, the arsonist ignited outhouses with newspaper, authorities said.
In one of the car-related incidents early Tuesday, someone saw a burning newspaper under a Ford truck, kicked it away and doused the fire with a water bottle.
The use of newspapers as kindling is a clue, said Candice DeLong, a former FBI profiler and psychiatric nurse.
"If I had a series of arsons only being started by a newspaper, that would be something I would consider in developing a personality and lifestyle sketch - i.e., a profile," DeLong said.
Both the car and toilet fires are considered "nuisance arsons," crimes that are typically committed by young people, DeLong said.
"They're not a nuisance to the owners, but compared to seeing a forest fire or an apartment building on fire, the nuisance-fire offenders tend to be those who are more on the youthful side, say their late teens or early 20s," DeLong said.
Arsonists typically strike in areas close to where they live or work, DeLong said.
It's possible, but not likely, that the arsonist has something against cars, she said. In 2005, Caltech graduate physics student William Cottrell, then 24, was convicted of a series of Los Angeles-area firebomb attacks of sportutility vehicles and car dealerships in the name of the Earth Liberation Front.
Investigators in the San Francisco fires will probably cast a wide net, she said.
"Could it be a homeless person? Yes," DeLong said. "Could it be an ecoterrorist? I suppose. But I rather doubt it's a hardened, middle-aged criminal."
Catalina Perez, 54, whose Volvo was one of two cars destroyed early Tuesday on Bertie Minor Lane in Japantown, figures "it's either someone who's a little crazy or kids that are out of control."
"School's out and they don't have much to do," Perez said. "They're completely unsupervised, if in fact it's kids."Editor’s Note: All posts written in the “Controversial Wednesday” category come directly from the author and are in no way representative of or endorsed by Mom Meet Mom.
This post represents the opinion of Mom Meet Mom co-founder Julia High, but we want you to know that Mom Meet Mom supports all moms – even the ones who disagree with our founders. Additionally, there will be a follow-up opposing response blog coming soon from another mom.
TL; DR: Vaccines are safer than the alternative.
I’m going to lose some friends over this; the thing is that I don’t mind. There’s a chance that I’ll save some people from horrific, preventable diseases, or even death. Frankly, anyone who wants to get angry at me for that…well, let’s just say we are at a philosophical impasse.
Pregame: Why it might seem weird that I am pro-vaccination.
In nearly all other ways, I am a very crunchy, hippie mom. We buy local, organic, sustainably raised meat and produce. I wear my baby in a sling – heck, we don’t even own a stroller. Cloth diapered the older kid, still hoping to work out the logistics to do the same with the younger kid. No spanking, and we even try not to yell. Co-op preschool. I even ferment my own kombucha!
I’m a hippie mom – and I vaccinate on the standard schedule.
You know why? Because I love my kids, and I don’t want them to suffer through an awful disease. Moreover, I believe it is our civic duty to keep our vaccinations up-to-date.
And one more thing, and this is where I’ll really get in trouble:
Unless there is a medical reason that prevents you from getting your kids vaccinated (like an allergy to a vaccine component or a compromised immune system), if you choose not to vaccinate your children, I believe that you are a dangerously selfish person.
My reasons? Science and math.
I’m going to focus on the TDaP and MMR vaccines, since those are the ones that most anti-vaxxers skip.
Don’t Whoop On Me
TDaP stands for Tetanus, Diphtheria, and Pertussis. In the anti-vaccinating crowd, most people indicate that they skip this one due to the presence of “toxic chemicals,” most often specifically citing the presence of formaldehyde and aluminum. While it’s true that the vaccine does contain these ingredients, the amounts are miniscule, and their relationship to disease states is overblown. In short, they don’t pose a threat, even to an infant. You’ll find about 50 times more formaldehyde in a pear than you will in a TDaP vaccine. You heard me, in a pear. And don’t try to pull some kind of silly, “yeah, but you don’t inject a pear into your bloodstream,” argument, because a) you don’t inject vaccines into your bloodstream, either, those are intramuscular injections, and b) your body naturally produces formaldehyde, in amounts much higher than are found in any vaccine. It’s in the metabolic pathway for DNA synthesis, for crying out loud.
So, how about the aluminum? Aluminum causes Alzheimer’s disease, right? Well, actually, no, that’s not really clear. Back in 1965, some scientists injected aluminum directly into the brains of lab animals and found that their neural tissue broke down in ways that were reminiscent of Alzheimer’s disease. Then there was an outbreak of dementia among dialysis patients whose dialysis fluids contained aluminum, and another researcher noticed that in areas where tap water was high in aluminum, there was a higher prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease. But then, when researchers directly compared the amount of aluminum in the tissues of people with Alzheimer’s to age matched controls who did not have the disease, they found no difference. In fact, since roughly the early 1980s, attempts to link aluminum to Alzheimer’s have been unreliable. And, frankly, even if aluminum does cause Alzheimer’s, I’d rather have my kids live full lives that end in a few years of awful dementia than have my kids die of a preventable disease before they even get a chance to grow up.
In fact, I’m willing to exchange a few years of horrible dementia for my kids just to keep your kids from dying in their youth.
It’s Just a Measly Disease
Okay, up next, MMR. The anti-vaccination crowd suggests that the MMR vaccine causes autism. I’m going to put this in bold text because it’s important that you read this. The MMR vaccine does not cause autism. Autism is a genetically-based developmental disorder. That’s why it runs in families. That’s why it’s more common in boys than girls. That’s why researchers have documented autism symptoms in infants before they even reach the age when the first MMR booster is given. That’s why you can safely vaccinate your damn kids, because autism is a genetically-based developmental disorder that cannot be caused by a vaccine. So, what about Dr. Wakefield’s work linking autism to the MMR vaccine? Yeah, it turns out he misrepresented or straight up falsified the data from all 12 patients in his study. And the studies that have since debunked that work? Included thousands of patients, and produced replicable results clearly demonstrating that there is no link between vaccines and autism. So, if you choose not to vaccinate your kid as a result of your fear of autism, you’re really only increasing the odds that your autistic child will come down with a nasty case of the measles. Good luck with that.
Surely This Can’t Happen to Me.
Next, some of you will suggest that the risk of these diseases is so low that there is really no reason to vaccinate.
Really.
Perhaps you aren’t aware of the huge measles outbreak in the UK this year? Or the one in Texas? Did you know about the confirmed cases of measles in Boston, New York, Orlando, and Seattle? How about the 9,000 folks who were diagnosed with whooping cough in California in 2010? And, can I say for the record that both the 2010 pertussis outbreak and the current measles outbreak have been linked to low vaccination rates, with the highest rates of disease found in those communities with the lowest vaccination rates? That’s the thing; your choice to forgo vaccination doesn’t just affect your family. By increasing the odds that someone carrying one of these diseases will come in contact with another person lacking immunity, you not only increase the risk to other unvaccinated and under-vaccinated people (like, you know, newborns, old people, kids with allergies, and kids with cancer), you also increase the risk that the efficacy of existing vaccines will be reduced by giving the viruses and bacteria an opportunity to mutate. So don’t try to pull some ridiculous excuse that your vaccination choice is just between you and your doctor when you’re actively putting my kids at risk.
“Well, yeah, I had a cough for 4 months, but it wasn’t that bad.”
But enough debunking. Let me talk about these diseases for a few paragraphs, because kids are dying, and suffering horribly, and the parents of this generation have the luxury of not knowing what these diseases do to people because vaccination so effectively eliminated them from our experience. These statistics and symptom lists are all from the CDC:
Tetanus: Tetanus is a bacterial infection that you can get when a cut or puncture wound is exposed to dirt, feces, or spit (so, basically, any cut a kid gets). Symptoms include headaches, painful muscle cramping of the jaw, muscle spasms throughout the body, and seizures. The muscle cramps are intense enough to break the infected person’s bones and can make it impossible to breathe. 10-20% of patients will die, usually as a result of this breathing difficulty.
Diphtheria: Diphtheria is horrifying. Someone coughs or sneezes, exposing you to the bacteria. You get a fever for a few days, then suddenly your body starts to produce a grayish green coating in the back of the nose and throat that is so thick that you lose your ability to breathe or swallow. 10% of patients die. The good news is that vaccination has been particularly effective for diphtheria, with fewer than 5 cases reported annually, as compared to the 100,000 cases and 15,000 deaths each year before vaccination was common.
Pertussis: You have a cold – runny nose, maybe a mild fever for a couple of weeks. Then the coughing starts. The coughs come in fits, and it can be hard to breathe, and you might even throw up. The coughing fits last for two months, or sometimes even longer. Babies are particularly vulnerable to pertussis, with half of those infected ending up in the hospital, 1 in 8 ending up with pneumonia, and 1 in 200 dying. It’s no picnic for older kids or adults, either. Symptoms typically last 6-8 weeks, and can include coughing so intense that you lose bladder control (1 in 4), pass out (1 in 20) or break a rib (1 in 25).
Mumps: Admittedly, the mumps are pretty mild. You get a fever and a headache, and your salivary glands swell up painfully on both sides of your jaw. Every once in a while, someone might get encephalitis. Slightly more commonly, male patients end up with tender, inflamed testicles.
Measles: You feel a little run down with a sore throat and a cough for a few days. Then, suddenly, your temperature spikes, and you get a rash all over your body, spreading from the head down. One in 20 kids will end up with pneumonia. One in 1,000 will develop encephalitis. One in 1,000 will die.
Rubella: Rubella is an interesting one. The disease is pretty mild – a low fever |
strong women. My mother is a warrior. My wife is a force, and our daughter is like a miniature version of her. All of my bosses (department chair, editors, agent) are tough as hell, smart as hell. So I was thinking more about them when building the characters of Claire and Miriam, who are stronger than any of the men in the novel.
TM: In an interview several years ago, you mentioned having abandoned earlier novels, but that The Wilding played to your strengths. What do you see as your strengths now?
BP: I didn’t abandon any novels. I completed four — all failures — and buried them. Most writers have a similar arc: you get the bad writing out of your system. Throw away a few thousand pages. The Wilding, my first published novel, was a negotiation between the short and long form — in that it has a small time frame, follows a small cast, takes place on a small stage. It was a gateway to the epic sweep of Red Moon (which is a novel that follows many characters over many years in many different places). I’ve always loved the epic — the immersive reading experience provided by T.H. White’s The Once and Future King, Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Stephen King’s The Stand — and I’m excited to have conquered something of this scope. It’s the same exhausted satisfaction that comes from completing a 10,000-piece jigsaw puzzle. With that said, I know I can do better — and plan to in the next novel.
TM: You’ve published a number of articles about the craft of fiction writing, including several for Poets & Writers, and a craft book, Thrill Me, is on the way. How do you answer critics who say it’s too soon for you to publish a book of writing advice? That it’s too early in your career to assume that role? Stephen King, a writer you admire, had been publishing novels for twenty years before On Writing.
BP: Writing a craft book is such a small pebble tossed in the big lake of letters, I can’t imagine anyone even noticing or caring. Dozens of people will be outraged by the dozens of people who read my writing advice!
I’ve been teaching writing for over a decade — including time served in MFA programs, among them the Iowa Writers’ Workshop — and I’m a regular on the conference and festival circuit. And people use my Poets & Writers columns regularly in classes, so I guess I must have at least a few nuggets of half-assed wisdom to share.
What distinguishes the book is this: I’m not going through the standard motions, talking about character, setting, point of view, and blah blah blah. I’m looking at genre through a literary lens and focusing especially on how to ramp up suspense and momentum. Hopefully it will be helpful.
TM: Young writers are often told that teaching will take time away from their writing, but it doesn’t seem to have hindered you much.
BP: I’ve had some killer teaching loads. The 4/4, with four different preps a semester. All writing classes of thirty students or more, so that I was grading what amounted to two thousand pages a semester. And doing service. And raising kids. And renovating a house. But if you know me — like, live near me, see me regularly — you know that I’m no fun. All I do is work. I’m obsessed. Writing is my obsession. And when I had those heavy teaching loads, I would sleep four hours a night in order to get the writing done. The writing has always been the priority. Everything else is what I need to do, but writing is what I must do. If you don’t have that mindset, then you’re always going to be prepping class or grading papers before you’re building worlds, pushing sentences around.
TM: You’re adapting The Wilding for the screen, working with producer Shana Eddy and director Guillermo Arriaga (Babel, 21 Grams). To my knowledge, this is your first screenwriting job. How did this opportunity unfold, and what have you learned during the process?
BP: I’ve written a few original screenplays that didn’t go the distance, but taught me quite a lot. But yeah, this is my first job as a screenwriter. If you look at Arriaga’s Twitter bio, you’ll see that he describes himself first as a hunter, then a storyteller. When Shana read about the book, she thought it would match his sensibility.
It’s been fun, getting a second chance on a novel. And playing around with the form. Arriaga always employs a non-linear design and he wants me to do the same. So I’ve rearranged the narrative in a way that contributes to suspense and gives the viewer the sense of being lost in the woods.
TM: The magazine writers I know work hard — they’re word hustlers — but they don’t have major book contracts and movie deals and a university position. Maybe one of those, sometimes two, but not all three. Why do you write for magazines? What do you get out of it?
BP: I’ve never had writer’s block because I keep a lot of irons in the fire. When I get sick of the novel, I write a short story, fiddle with a screenplay or comic script, hammer out a craft essay, pitch an article. Then I return to the novel, which is always my central concern, with renewed energy and a fresh perspective. So there’s that — this compulsion I feel to dabble in all different forms of storytelling — and there’s this: magazine writing is fun. I typically take on some sort of challenge (like, jump out of a plane, raft a river, hang-glide off a mountain, climb a 250-foot old-growth tree and spend the night in it, go on a crazy detox diet in which I drink only water and eat only fruits and veggies for 21 days). Usually it’s something I want to do or need to do, and then I scam an article out of it. When writing fiction, I’m visiting faraway places and meeting new people, but only in my mind. Magazine writing puts me in new and uncomfortable situations, introduces me to interesting people, exposes me to danger—all of which I’ll probably find a way to channel into my fiction as well.
TM: “Refresh, Refresh” was adapted into a graphic novel by the talented Danica Novdorgoff. Do you have plans to write an original graphic novel or comic book series?
BP: I’ve talked to Vertigo [an imprint of DC Comics] several times — we’ll see if something flies there — and I’ve just finished a graphic novel that M.K. Perker will be illustrating.
TM: What would you go back and tell young Ben Percy, the boy just beginning to dream of becoming a writer?
BP: I was going to say something like, “This is going to be a long painful apprenticeship. Be ready to put in your 10,000 hours at the keyboard before you produce anything of note,” or “Read your brains out and write your brains out,” or “If you want to go the distance, you’ll need the right balance of ego and humility,” but I learned all of that without anyone whispering Yoda-esque platitudes in my ear. So I guess I’d say what Jess Walter is always saying to me, “Don’t forget to enjoy yourself.” Not that I’d listen.Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, left, Clarence Thomas, center, and Stephen G. Breyer, right, listen as Justice Elena Kagan speaks at the dedication of the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University on Oct. 6, 2016 in Arlington, Va. To the right of Thomas is his wife, Virginia. (Photo by Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
The public knew him as a leader on the conservative wing of the Supreme Court whose sharp-edged legal opinions for decades helped frame the nation’s social and political debates. But in the world of academia, Justice Antonin Scalia also was known as a jurist who loved to drop by law schools.
Justice Elena Kagan recalled her late colleague’s passion for these visits Thursday at the dedication of the newly renamed Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University. Kagan, one of six justices from the high court at the event in Arlington, Va., said Scalia relished connecting with students because it gave him a forum to talk about ideas. She saw this firsthand when she served as dean of Harvard Law School.
“I had the good fortune to host the justice several times,” Kagan said, “and those days were among the most fun I ever had as dean.” Kagan said Scalia displayed “his brilliance, his wit, his good cheer, and, well, let’s say his confidence in the manifest rightness of all his opinions.”
Kagan, whose opinions on the court frequently were opposed to Scalia’s, nonetheless made clear her admiration for the late justice, who died in February.
“He’ll go down in history as one of the most important Supreme Court justices ever, and also one of the greatest,” Kagan said, noting that it was a “great, great thing” that the law school was named for him.
This file photo of late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia shows him speaking in October 2015 at the University of Minnesota. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)
The dedication came six months after George Mason announced that it would rename its law school for Scalia, an action controversial in some quarters. The renaming coincided with $30 million in combined gifts to support the school — $20 million from an anonymous donor and $10 million from the Charles Koch Foundation. The Koch family is well known for its support of conservative political causes.
[It’s official: George Mason’s law school is named in honor of Antonin Scalia]
Skeptics, including some of George Mason’s faculty and students, said the gift and the renaming showed that donors were wielding undue influence over Virginia’s largest public university. Protesters displayed a banner on a sidewalk along Fairfax Drive, outside the law school, Thursday morning as people gathered for the dedication. “Protect Public Ed Not Private Interests,” it said.
“Our concerns have been ignored by the leadership of George Mason University,” one of the demonstrators, sophomore Janine Gaspari, said.
Speaking at the event inside the school, George Mason President Angel Cabrera said he remains convinced that the 34,000-student university did the right thing. “Absolutely no concerns,” Cabrera said. He said that a public university must be committed to “diversity of ideas,” a principle for which Scalia stood. “I am very, very proud that the name of Justice Scalia will forever be associated with this wonderful law school,” he said.
[Are conservative donors bullying this public university? Its president says no.]
Looming above the speakers in the Hazel Hall Atrium was a giant portrait of Scalia accompanied by one of the justice’s quotations: “I am something of a contrarian, I suppose. I feel less comfortable when everybody agrees with me. I say, ‘I better reexamine my position.’ ”
Members of the Scalia family were in attendance, including the late justice’s wife of more than 50 years, Maureen Scalia. The Rev. Paul Scalia, one of his sons, gave the invocation. Catherine Scalia Courtney, another speaker, who works as an administrative assistant and academic adviser at Mason’s engineering school, said her father would been honored to have a public law school named for him. The chief justice of the Virginia Supreme Court, Donald W. Lemons, recalled first seeing the future U.S. Supreme Court justice years ago when Scalia was a law professor at the University of Virginia. Lemons, then a law student, noticed Scalia walking at “a decidedly brisk pace.” He added: “I remember thinking even then, this is a man who’s on a mission.”
Also in the audience Thursday were Supreme Court justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Stephen G. Breyer, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Sonia Sotomayor.
[How the other justices remember Antonin Scalia]
George Mason’s new association with Scalia has drawn unprecedented attention to the 600-student law school. U.S. News and World Report ranks the law school 45th in the nation, tied with counterparts at Southern Methodist University and the University of Utah, and just ahead of schools at the universities of Florida and Maryland.
During his lifetime, Scalia was no stranger to the school. Faculty said he was known for stopping by, and he spoke at the dedication of the law school’s main building in 1999. Now the school hopes to build on its new name. David K. Rehr, a senior associate dean, said demand for the school appears to be rising.
“We’re getting more people wanting to come here, and we’re raising our standards,” he said.Microsoft has been absolutely pummeled in the press and in reader comments this week by pundits and customers alike. They feel cheated by the amount of free storage space available to them on the new line of Surface Pro devices.
But is that criticism fair or even valid?
If it were valid, then surely Apple would have been scrutinized carefully over its 11.6-inch MacBook Air 128, which has specs that are reasonably similar to the Surface Pro 128. They’re both ultraportable devices that run full-strength operating systems. Both use similar CPUs, offer similar amounts of RAM, and advertise 128 GB of storage. The Surface Pro has touch capabilities and can be used as a tablet, but at its heart it is a full-strength PC designed for extreme mobility.
Unlike the Surface RT, which is a tablet that does a few PC-like things, Surface Pro is a real, no-compromises PC. It can power a 2560x1600 30-inch display, it runs Windows 8 Pro, it supports Hyper-V virtualization, you can run PhotoShop and AutoCAD on it. It deserves to be compared head to head with another full PC like the MacBook Air.
Here’s what you see if you order a MacBook Air from the Apple Store online:
So how much of that storage do you actually get to use? And how does it compare to the Surface Pro?
I’ve done the cold, hard math of looking at disk storage for both devices. Here’s the story, in a single picture:
Wait a minute, I can hear you saying. Those bars look remarkably similar. And in fact, the Surface Pro actually has MORE free disk space for user data in one of those bars than the MacBook Pro.
Yes, that’s true.
Here’s the tl;dr version. The MacBook Air 128 gives you 83.4 percent of the advertised storage space for user data. The Surface Pro 128 gives you 75.2 percent of its advertised capacity for storing data. And with one minor tweak that doesn’t affect the system’s capabilities in any way, you can increase the amount of data storage space on the Surface Pro to 81.8% of the advertised capacity.
Update: I've updated the chart and the tl;dr paragraph to reflect information provided by readers about current MacBook Air models. See details below, in the Update in item 3.
Forget what you’ve read in the past week. The widely reported number that Microsoft mistakenly confirmed (83 GB of free space for the Surface Pro 128) is not accurate. In its Reddit AMA yesterday, the Surface team confirmed that those numbers were wrong:
Initial reports out regarding available disk space were conservative (eg. 23GB available on 64GB and 83GB available on the 128GB system), however our final production units are coming in with ~6-7GB additional free space.
My tests on a production Surface Pro 128 confirm that amount almost exactly. I found that the factory image provided 89.7 GB of free space. (Why the difference? A source inside Microsoft tells me the employee who confirmed the numbers did so using pre-production machines that contained different disk images and debug code that is different from final shipping units that will be on sale beginning this weekend.)
And on top of that, the numbers Microsoft reports in its Windows utilities use a scale that unfairly disadvantages the Surface Pro when you look at supposedly similar numbers for the MacBook Air.
A lot of people have gotten this stuff wrong, so here’s the detailed breakdown.
1. Apple and Microsoft report disk sizes differently.
If you do not take this difference into account, you will not be able to make proper comparisons.
This is not just a technical difference between Apple and Microsoft. It represents a deliberate marketing decision Apple made in August 2009, when it released Snow Leopard. You can read the details in this Apple Support article: How OS X and iOS report storage capacity.
Before that release, Apple reported disk capacity using the same Base 2 system that Windows uses:
When you view the storage capacity of a Mac [running] Mac OS X v10.5 or earlier … the capacity is reported using the the binary system (base 2) of measurement. In binary, 1 GB is calculated as 1,073,741,824 bytes. This difference in how the decimal and binary numeral systems measure a GB is what causes a 32 GB storage device to appear as about 28 GB when detailed by its operating system, even though the storage device still has 32 billion bytes, as reported. [Emphasis added]
But with Snow Leopard, Apple changed the way it reports disk capacity:
In Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard and later, storage capacity is displayed as per product specifications using the decimal system (base 10). A 200 GB drive shows 200 GB capacity…
Here’s what this means in practice. I took a 1 TB Western Digital USB drive and formatted it using a Mac. Here’s what it looks like in the OS X Mountain Lion Disk Utility:
And here’s the exact same disk in the Windows 8 Disk Management console, which continues to use Base 2, as it has since the dawn of Windows NT:
OS X says that disk can hold 999.86 GB. Windows says it can hold 931.51 GB. But it's the exact same disk. The measurements are just expressed differently, in a way that makes Apple look generous and Microsoft look stingy.
The moral of the story: If you want to compare disk sizes between Macs and PCs, you need to convert one measurement so that it is comparable with the other. You can convert the Windows Base 2 measurements to Base 10 (making them appear bigger), or convert Apple’s Base 10 measurements to Base 2 (making them appear smaller). But you can’t compare them directly.
2. At Apple, reported disk sizes are less than advertised. Microsoft reports full disk sizes.
This one shocked me when I looked it up, but it’s true.
In fact, in a separate support document Apple explicitly acknowledges this fact: “The Solid State Drive capacity stated in the product specification may be higher than what is reported by Mac OS X.“
(Try saying that backwards to understand what it really means: The amount of storage you see when you look at your Mac's system drive using OS X will be lower than the number that was advertised.)
Pop quiz: If you buy this new MacBook Air (the same one whose detailed configuration options I showed earlier in this post), how much disk space do you expect to get?
Before you answer, note that there’s a superscript 1 next to the memory listing in the detailed specs below the bold product name, indicating that there's a footnote to that number. The very fine print for footnote 1 at the bottom of the page reads: “1GB=1 billion bytes; actual formatted capacity less.”
Factoring in those adjustments, how much capacity do you actually get?
Yes, that’s only 120.47 billion bytes (remember, a GB in Apple-land doesn't mean the same as a GB in Windows World). If you convert that number to Base 2, so that it’s comparable to the Surface Pro disk, you get 112.2 GB. The same is true of a “256 GB” SSD in a MacBook Pro, which appears in Disk Utility as 250 GB. The 64 GB of flash memory advertised in a MacBook Air shrinks to 60.67 GB after Apple is through with it.
By contrast the Surface Pro 128 disk is 119.12 GB in Base 2, or 127.90 GB in Base 10. That is 7 GB more than the MacBook Air “128 GB” drive (112.2 and 120.47 GB, respectively).
3. Where did the MacBook Air’s missing 7 GB go?
I’m really glad Apple published that support article, because it contains the answer to this very question:
These items may account for the additional space used in your Solid State drive: EFI Partition
Restore Partition
Wear-leveling blocks
Write-buffer area
Metadata
Spare blocks
Grown bad blocks
Factory bad blocks
The parts about wear-leveling blacks and bad blocks are just part of how SSDs work. On a new SSD these numbers should be very small. But hold on... EFI Partition and Restore Partition? The Surface Pro has EFI and Recovery partitions as well. They’re fully documented in the Disk Management console, not hidden in a footnote. Here, see for yourself. This is the partition map, minus the Windows system partition (and not to scale):
That's a 600 MB Recovery Partition, which holds utilities to repair the operating system, followed by a 200 MB EFI System Partition. The other Recovery Partition, at the end of the disk, is a hefty 7.81 GB and contains the Windows Image (WIM) file that restores the out-of-box configuration if you use the Windows 8 Reset feature.
So, more math:
On a MacBook Air 128, the space I labeled "System Reserved" adds up to 7.53 GB. It cannot be recovered. (A Mac includes a hidden EFI partition as well, and a hidden Recovery HD partition, which is roughly 1/10 the size of the Windows version. It is intended for bootstrapping a recovery of OS X from the Internet.)
On the Surface Pro 128, the EFI and Recovery partitions add up to 8.61 GB. Pretty close. But one big difference is that the Windows 8 Recovery partition can be transferred to a USB flash drive and the disk space can be reclaimed.
Finally, there’s the OS and the apps that are included as part of a standard configuration. I was able to confirm the amount of disk space used for Windows and included apps in a base configuration of the Surface Pro 128. I don’t have a MacBook Air to do the same calculation, but I confirmed from several online sources that the available disk space on a new, 2012-model MacBook Air is approximately 99 GB. I originally used that figure as the basis of all calculations here.
Update: There's only one Surface Pro, which makes measurements easy. But Apple has produced many MacBook Airs in the more than four years of the products life. Over time, it has steadily improved the efficiency of builds of OS X. One reader reports that the most recent MacBook Air provides 106.87 billion bytes (99.5 GB in Base 2) of user-available storage out of the box. Other reports from a few months ago show 103-104 billion bytes available. The 99 billion bytes figure I used was from a MacBook Air owner who was reporting details in late 2012. Differences could be due to Lion versus Mountain Lion, updates to iLife, or different flash memory parts. In any case, when expressed in Base 2 terms, the amount is going to be in the mid- to high-90 GB range. In the chart, I have also relabeled the blue blocks as "System reserved" to avoid confusion over their proper purpose.
4. So how much free space is really left on either of these “128 GB” devices?
The picture I published at the top of this post tells this story better than words and numbers. But here’s the detail, with the first number expressed in Windows- and pre-Snow Leopard style Base 2 calculations and the second number in billions of bytes:
MacBook Air 128: 99.5 GB (approx. 106.87 billion bytes)
Surface Pro 128: 89.7 GB (approx. 96.3 billion bytes)
Those numbers are extremely close.
In both cases, you can remove installed software to further free up disk space. The MacBook Air includes iLife ‘11, while the Surface Pro has 18 included apps, some or all of which can be removed.
But there’s one tweak you can make to the Surface Pro that isn’t possible for the MacBook Air.
Using the built-in Recovery Media Creator, you can copy the contents of that large Windows 8 Recovery partition to a USB flash drive.
The final step in the Recovery Drive wizard allows you to delete the recovery partition completely. You can then use the Disk Management console to extend the existing system drive to use the space that had formerly been “devoured” by the Recovery partition,
If you go through those steps (it’s a simple process, really), you end up with 104.7 billion bytes of storage available for user data and new apps. At least that’s how a Mac user would describe it. A Windows user will see 97.5 GB in File Explorer and in Disk Management, but that’s just a difference in terminology.
It’s worth noting, by the way, that that number is roughly equal to the free space available on a MacBook Air fresh out of the box.
Update: A correspondent (and former Apple employee) notes that a utility is available to create an external recovery drive for a Mac: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4848. As he notes:
The utility does not delete the local hard drive recovery partition, but you can then use the thumb key you created to boot off and then run the disk utility to repartition the internal drive and claim back the missing space. The utility literally copies from the supplied recovery partition on the internal drive, so you are getting an exact copy.
To then remove the Recovery HD utiltity, you have to use a Terminal command to make the hidden partition visible, and enter another Terminal command to delete the partition, followed by yet another operation to resize the system partition. That's a far cry from the built-in Windows 8 wizard, which is very easy to use. Also, my colleagues at The Verge say doing this trick (which requires a separate download and some steps that are not for the faint of heart) will recover about 650 MB of disk space in Mountain Lion. Not a great deal but worth noting.
And before you ask…
No, I haven’t done similar calculations comparing a Surface Pro with 64 GB, because I haven’t seen one. Based on my extrapolations, I expect that the MacBook Air will compare more favorably to a Surface Pro in this configuration. But the size of the operating system doesn’t change, and the smaller overall storage means that the amount of advertised capacity available to the owner of either device is going to be in the 50-64% range for the Surface Pro, starting at right around 32 billion bytes (or 30GB, as expressed in Base 2).
I consider the 64 GB Surface Pro and MacBook Air pure companion devices, designed for people who don't care about carrying around large amounts of personal data. A storage capacity of 30-40 GB is more than adequate for current work, especially when it's supplemented with external devices (SD cards, USB flash drives, external hard drives) and cloud storage.
For anyone who does want to carry around a large number of working files, the 128 GB configuration of either the MacBook Air or the Surface Pro should be more than adequate.
Of course, neither device can compare to a tablet or phone OS in terms of efficiency. Tablet operating systems are designed to be small, and they sacrifice all sorts of capabilities that you expect in a full-strength PC. But if you're going to complain about operating systems using too much of the available storage, you'd better make sure your letter to Redmond is cc'ed to Cupertino.phrase appears to be 'a referendum on our identity' which was used in two of the two
question: 'Why do you keep saying the same thing about Obama
Marco Rubio is nothing if not consistent. Close to twelve hours after he began his day campaigning in New Hampshire he ended it with a rally in Nashua Community College – looking and sounding exactly the same as he had that morning.
Not a hair was out of place nor a line misspoken. Welcome to a day in the life of Senator Rubio: five tour stops, several hundred hand shakes, dozens of stories heard and just one speech portioned up and delivered over and over again.
The Nashua crowd may have been slightly diminished by the snowstorm – reserved seats went unclaimed and the decision to move the rally into the gymnasium to accommodate numbers left the venue a touch sparse. But there were still close to 400 New Hampshire voters out to support Rubio with less than 24 hours to go before polling begins.
Before he took to the stage, it was announced that ‘Fox’s own Megyn Kelly’ would conduct a brief interview at the far end of the gymnasium.
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Marco Rubio posed for pictures after a rally at Nashua Community College, New Hampshire, where he once again told the story of his parents' upbringing
Close to 400 New Hampshire voters came to support Rubio in New Hampshire, with less than 24 hours to go before polling begins
Megyn Kelly came to conduct a brief interview of Rubio at 6:45 before he went onstage, but the crowd couldn't hear what they were saying
At 6.45, fifteen minutes after the rally was scheduled to begin, Rubio and Kelly emerged and took their seats on a raised platform in front of the cameras.
Rubio’s appearance was met with a swell of chants of ‘Marco! Marco! Marco!’ ‘Don’t say Polo’ he joked as he looked out over the field of banners raised above heads.
While hair and make-up fluttered around Kelly, Rubio looked more like the plus one in this scenario with every passing moment.
With the interview underway and inaudible to the crowd the supporters in the hall were relegated to extras in this television moment – a backdrop testament to Rubio’s popularity. A flurry of excitement came with an outburst of protesters towards the back, but their shouts were quickly drowned out by Rubio’s ardent fans’ own chants.
Finally, at 7.10 Rubio took to the stage accompanied by his wife, Jeanette and their children Amanda, Daniella, Anthony and Dominic.
With hair and make-up fluttering around Kelly, Rubio looked more like a plus-one than the guest of honor with every passing moment
Rubio and Kelly emerged at 6.45, fifteen minutes after the rally was scheduled to begin. Rubio’s appearance was met with a swell of chants of ‘Marco! Marco! Marco!’ to which he replied, ‘Don’t say Polo’
After the interview, Rubio finally took to the stage at 7.10 accompanied by his wife, Jeanette and their children Amanda, Daniella, Anthony and Dominic
A day in the life of Senator Rubio included five tour stops, several hundred hand shakes, dozens of stories heard and just one speech portioned up and delivered over and over again
Standing there with his children, Rubio said ‘was a vivid reminder that this election is not a choice between the parties. It is a choice about what America is going to be like for our children.’
In a rare ad lib he added: ‘I’d like to thank the people who were here screaming a few moments ago because that means they ‘re not out getting votes.’
Queue laughter and applause.
Rubio doesn’t need a script. The chip is embedded. All he needs to do is call up the data and deliver it. And so he did what he had done all day.
He didn’t miss a beat. He dismissed Bernie Sanders – ‘a nice guy’ – as a socialist and stated that ‘just tonight it was confirmed that the FBI are investigating [Hillary Clinton’s] use of email.’
‘We cannot have a Commander in Chief that lies to the relatives who have lost family members in Benghazi.’
‘The Democrats do not want to run against me,’ he said, as he has stated many times over in GOP debates and at stump speeches. ‘They know if I’m the nominee we win. Hillary Clinton attacks me five times for every time she attacks any other Republican.’
Haven't I heard this before? Marco Rubio used a campaign stop at BAE Systems, a manufacturer which prides itself on investing in robotics
Hi-tech: Rubio was speaking at the Nashua, NH, center of BAE Systems. It prides itself on its advanced robotics - but Rubio was careful not to be photographed with one
Looking and pointing: It was a high-risk stump stop for Rubio but he made sure to avoid any pictures with robots
Rubio’s trait of repeating the same line, over and over, with little variation has seen him lambasted in recent days and labeled a robot but throughout the day he was unapologetic and tonight was no different.
‘I’m going to keep on saying it again and again,’ he said. ‘Barack Obama has damaged America.’
He listed Obama’s failures, claiming he had undermined the constitution and the second amendment, that he had put Federal government in America’s schools and betrayed allies while cutting deals with the nation’s enemies such as Iran.
‘When I am president,’ he told the crowd. ‘There will be a war on terror and if we capture a terrorist alive they’re going to go to Guantanamo.’
Turning to his own narrative – as he has done at pretty much every speech, debate and interview since launching his campaign last April – he told the crowd.
‘By now you know the story of my parents.
‘The fact that a son of a maid and of a bartender can run for the same office and have the same chance as the son of a President and the son of a millionaire,’ he said. ‘I think that’s special.’
He continued: ‘My parents lived the American dream – the American dream of being able to leave their children better off than themselves.
‘It’s our obligation to ensure not just that [the dream] survives but that it reaches more lives than it has ever touched.’
Anyone present earlier in the day could have been forgiven for feeling a distinct hint of déjà vu as the phrase was an almost pitch perfect echo of lines delivered at his first stop this morning.
For a man who’s been accused of being Rubio the Robot that first visit was a brave decision that saw him heading to a company that prides itself on its use, development and championing of all things robotic.
First on Rubio’s tour of New Hampshire this morning was a visit to BAE Systems, the British multinational defense, security and aerospace company whose Electronics System sector is headquartered in Nashua, New Hampshire where it employs some 11,200 locals.
Today, however, Rubio managed to avoid the obvious gaffe of being photographed with a robot by restricting his tour to the foyer.
And he unveiled a response to the critics who say he just repeats canned talking points - and promised to repeat it 'a million times'.
On reflection: Rubio was visiting BAE systems, New Hampshire's biggest manufacturing employee and a key supplier to the Pentagon. Among the military technology it provides are systems for the Air Force
Rubio has been fighting for his reputation since Saturday night's Republican debate, when he delivered the line, 'Let's dispel once and for all with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn't know what he's doing. He knows exactly what he's doing.'
WHAT RUBIO THE ROBOT SAID - NOW AND LAST YEAR Nashua, 8 February 2016 My father was a bartender, my mother was a cashier at Kmart and a maid in Vegas. That's not just my story. That's our story as a people, as a nation. Nashua, 17 April 2015 Now that happens to be my story. That actually is our story. It defines us as a nation and as a people. That's not just my story, that's our story. This is who we are. And this is who we must still be. Nashua, 8 February 2016 I'm running for President. I believe the twenty-first century can be the greatest era in history. It can be a new American century. Nashua, 17 April 2015 I believe with all my heart that America's greatest days are right around the corner. The twenty-first century will be the greatest era of our nation's history.
Then he delivered it again and again and again. In total Rubio repeated versions of the line five times – a fact that saw him roundly mocked as robotic and canned.
Chris Christie slammed the Florida senator for his habit of repeating a'memorized 25 second speech.'
But today Rubio was unapologetic about his performance. He said: 'The press in particular say, 'Why do you keep saying the same thing about Obama trying to change America?''
Then he answered the question himself: 'I'm going to say it a million times because I think it's true.'
The response came in the course of a speech which had more than a hint of the familiar.
'My father was a bartender, my mother was a cashier at Kmart and a maid in Vegas.'
'That's not just my story,' he told the assembled crowd as he has told many hundreds before, 'That's our story as a people, as a nation.'
The line played well – just as it did last April when he told an audience in Nashua itself the same story at the First in Nation Leadership Summit.
After reciting the story of his parents' move from Cuba and humble life in America he concluded: 'Now that happens to be my story. That actually is our story. It defines us as a nation and as a people.'
Later in that same speech he returned to the theme once more, stating again, 'That's not just my story, that's our story. This is who we are. And this is who we must still be.'
That was not the only deja vu.
'I believe the twenty-first century can be the greatest era in history,' he said at one point today, building to his climactic campaign tagline. 'It can be a new American century.'
It's pretty much what he said in Nashua last April.
Speaking then he said: 'I believe with all my heart that America's greatest days are right around the corner.'
And, in an almost word for word version of today's speech, he expressed his belief that 'the twenty-first century will be the greatest era of our nation's history.'
Today he described 2016 as 'the last and best chance to make America better than she has ever been.' It was, he added, 'a referendum on our identity.'
Last year he called the 2016 election as 'a referendum on our identity.'
Much of Rubio's focus this morning fell on the subject of national defense - BAE Systems is the six-largest military supplier - and here too he stuck to the script, over and over again.
Outlining the threats facing America today he said: 'We have a lunatic in North Korea…a traditional power like China…a non-state actor like ISIS…Russia which doesn't really have the same standing on the national stage as the United States does and then Iran – another rogue state.'
Positive reception: At Mary Anne's Diner in Wind |
not sweating it -- the company brought in $8.9 billion in sales in the first three months of this year alone.
Americans can opt out of telemarketing communications thanks to a 2003 law that set up the national "Do Not Call" registry. You can sign up for the registry online at www.donotcall.gov.Keeping fish as pets is a fun hobby that is enjoyed by many. However, recently people have been wondering how to reduce the environmental impact of this activity. This is because the word about global warming is becoming more widespread, and people want to do what they can to help. Luckily, there are many ways of making your fish tank or aquarium eco-friendly! This article will be going over a few popular methods of doing so. If you find one that stands out to you, give it a try and observe the difference it makes!
Do Not Use an Oversized Aquarium
As you go up in aquarium sizes, the energy usage will grow correspondingly. There will be a greater need for pumps, heavier lighting and filters. If your fish are comfortable in a smaller aquarium, you do not need to use a larger one. However, you should check at the pet store to find out what the requirements are for your specific fish. It may be the case that your fish is small, but requires a lot of room to swim around.
Use the Correct Filter
Having the correct filter is similar to the previous point. If you do not need an incredibly heavy-duty filter for your aquarium, switch it for a smaller one. This will decrease the energy that is being spent and wasted. Do some research at the pet store before you decide on a filter. The best canister filters for your aquarium will depend entirely on what type of fish or other water creature that you want to keep in it. You will notice a decrease in your energy bill if you switch to the proper filter instead of using a more powerful one.
Be Mindful of the Type of Fish You are Keeping
Fish are sometimes captured using methods that harm the environment. Some fish that come from Southeast Asia are caught using squirt bottles that are filled up with cyanide. The cyanide stuns the fish, making them easy to catch. However, these chemicals are also harming the coral reefs where the fish are hiding. All the other creatures that live in the reefs also are affected by this, and many of them die. The fish that have been caught are permanently weakened, and many of them do not survive being transported to pet stores in other countries. This means that more and more fishing in this manner will take place.
Conclusion
Having fish means that you have an obligation to keep them healthy and happy. You also have the option of making your tank as eco-friendly as possible. If you do this, you will be helping the fish, the environment, and yourself. It can be as simple as using the correct sized aquarium, filter and being aware of what type of fish you are buying. If you implement these changes, you are already being eco-friendlier, and you should be proud of the difference that you are making.The Hebrew Hammer is the hero we need right now, and he's answering the call.
Back in 2003, Adam Goldberg and filmmaker Jonathan Kesselman introduced the world to Mordecai Jefferson Carver, the world's first Jewish blaxploitation hero. The titular private eye of The Hebrew Hammer kept kosher and kicked ass, protecting the Jewish people after a childhood filled with anti-semitic ostracization.
There were several attempts to make a sequel, including a crowdfunding campaign Kesselman launched in 2013. But it took last year's presidential campaign, and the events that followed, to convince Goldberg that it was time to bring the Hammer back. Last week, the team announced that a long-awaited sequel, The Hebrew Hammer vs. Hitler, is in development, and asked fans to invest in the project with a new crowdfunding platform.
Goldberg spoke with SYFY WIRE about the project, the recent resurgence of anti-semitism, and how he's dealing with his own share of Twitter hate.
So Trump's election, which is the focus of the video you posted [see below], was the impetus for this return?
I guess the most recent impetus. Because, yeah, it had been just sort of dormant, and I kind of just let it, sort of c'est la vie. And then I started to talked to Jon about the idea of actually doing a series of shorts. And this was sort a pilot premise to the short, the Hammer comes out of retirement. Instead of making a series of shorts, we just decided to sort of rewrite the script and take that concept for the pilot for the shorts and then do a campaign again. The other campaign that Jon did a few years ago was really something that Jon did and I wasn't really involved in.
Before Trump got elected, I was talking to Funny or Die about maybe doing something. They like to do topical stuff, so I was trying to figure out a way for the Hebrew Hammer to get involved in what's going on topically. It just all seemed so relevant, with all the demagoguery and everything. We were going to do literal ones. We had one, which was my favorite, about the Hebrew Hammer and Steve Bannon. And there was the Hebrew Hammer seducing Ivanka Trump. We had very, very, very literal ones that we wanted to do with Funny Or Die, but we just couldn't work it out.
So I reached out to Jon and started talking about that. And then we just got into discussing the script again. It was almost as though we had conceived of it prematurely in a way. That idea, The Hebrew Hammer vs. Hitler, came about in a conversation I had with him in like 2005. At the time, there was some stuff in the news, like the Mel Gibson s***, but we didn’t realize he represented this contingent of people who had been hiding in their basement until recently. And they're still hiding in a basement behind their cartoon avatars, but it's getting a little bit more visceral with these demonstrations, with their J.Crew models.
We just kind of decided to recontextualize the premise of the series. The rest of it remained intact. It just felt sort of prescient, in a way. Although not really, because it's not like anti-Semitism is a brand-new invention. In the last few days since we announced it, if you look at my timeline on Twitter, it almost entirely comprised of my exchanges with these f***ing morons.
Video of The Hebrew Hammer is Back: Make America Kosher Again! (#MAKA)
How do you feel about returning to the role?
I wasn't sure that I really wanted to be overly identified with that. That was a concern of mine going back to doing the first one. So that was always an issue I had to kind of grapple with a little bit. I'm sort of culturally Jewish, but to the extent to which I am known, it’s a Jewish person. But my mom isn't Jewish, she’s a lapsed Catholic, and I didn't get bar mitzvahed.
So I always had kind of a lot of inner conflict and contradictions and kind of a difficult time. But lately I've just been like, f*** it, I now feel like it's important to not be a self-loathing Jewish person of any stripe. I mean, I'm still going to be self-loathing as a human. But arguably my self-loathing comes much more from the f***ed-up Catholic side of my family than it does from the Jewish side, who all seem pretty normal.
This was Jon's movie. This was his baby. He made a short in, I think, film school or something. The Hebrew Hammer is all Jon. It was a script I came to when I was pitching my own film, to the production company that made The Hebrew Hammer, which I eventually made, called I Love Your Work.
We collaborated a lot while we were shooting the first one, but we're collaborating much more on this in terms of story. And in terms of where one of us begins and the other ends, and the character begins and ends, it has sort of gotten kind of mushier over time.
Someone posted news about the movie on Reddit, and it was filled with anti-semitic comments. I don’t think I realized how widespread it has become again.
Clearly these are people who didn't feel like they had any real kind of conduit through which to voice their secret antipathy and misery and all of that. Obviously the internet has provided that, and what started out as 4chan and now has just gone everywhere Twitter, and basically the cabinet of the presidency, have obviously given these guys an opportunity to hitch their wagons to what appears to be something like some sort of conservative, right-wing nationalism or whatever. When it's really just sort of preppy Nazism.
I always sort of referred to the anti-Semitism that I experienced, which was really nothing compared to what I interact with now, as America's cuddly racism. Because people were always very casual about the way that they were anti-Semitic, and in a way that I don't think that many Jews were cognizant of. I mean people have no qualms about saying, “nice Jewish boy." Now, I know that that comes from an idiomatic Jewish vernacular, I think, but it gets kind of appropriated in a way that I always felt like was insanely condescending.
Video of Shabbat shalom, motherf***ers!
Whereas the Hebrew Hammer sort of owns a lot of the Jewish stereotypes, which is empowering. Or at least neutralizing.
What I remember from the response to the first movie was, to whatever extent to which it was controversial, and it was a little bit, I remember Jewish people being offended. So I think it's just interesting the way that the world has changed. That if you announce the crowdsourcing campaign for a movie called "The Hebrew Hammer vs. Hitler," who could possibly be offended by that? Well, apparently, a lot of Nazis.
And what's annoying is, people say, "Oh, whaddya know, a schlomo begging for shekels." And it's like, if you'd seen the first one, which I'm sure you didn’t, we're already making the joke. You don't get to be a Nazi or an asshole or a wannabe Nazi or a f***ing bedwetter in their basement hiding behind their f***ing avatar, and also appropriate the Jewish self-loathing. You can't loathe a self-loather. It doesn't work.
So while it's kind of shocking that people are this f***ed up, on some level, it's really funny, too, to kind of call their bluff. The “nationalists" that have engaged with since Entertainment Weekly announced that we were doing the campaign, they troll you and then they block you once you start interacting with them. And it's hilarious.
And one of them, I said I would fly to Toronto, I would meet him on Bloor and Yonge just before Shabbat on Friday. Just before sundown, Old West-style, at 4:30. And he wrote back, "I'll be there by myself, faggot." And I was like, okay. And he blocked me so then I couldn't see his tweets anymore. So I could log in as the Hebrew Hammer on that Twitter handle, and be like, “Randy, what happened, buddy? I'm literally offering this fight. And send me a picture."
Because if you're like 600 pounds or whatever, and all muscle and eight-foot-two, I probably won't meet you. But let's at least size each other up. You know what I look like, let me see what you look like. And they just f***ing don't respond.
So tell me about the movie itself. Hebrew Hammer goes back in time?
When Jon and I first got together about this, I said, if we're going to make a sequel, you know, we might as well go after Hitler, because really what else is there to do? Let's just kind of get down to brass tacks. It was kind of like you're reverse engineering a script. Now there's kind of a prologue that's more connected to the movie. It's not literal. It's basically, an infomercial star becomes president. And there's this escalation of demagoguery and racism and all that. I was just like, well what's slightly dumber than Trump becoming president? I guess an infomercial guy.
So Hammer, who's living this quiet life in suburbia, is sort of rustled out of retirement to go save his younger hipper counterpart, who gets trapped back in Nazi Germany. So I take a s***ty time machine and try and find him. We're going back in time. We run into Jesus. I mean, because there's all kinds of issues with the time machine. Obviously, there has to be. So, yeah. There's a lot of pit stops and detours along the way. Jon sort of likes to liken that aspect of it to Bill & Ted. It's like Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure meets Shoah.
And you’re doing a new kind of crowdfunding, which allows people to buy into it, to invest into the project.
The key obviously is just to get this thing made. We’re doing something which is fairly new, which is this equity crowdsourcing thing. It's kind of annoying because when you're being trolled by Nazis, them saying "You're begging for shekels," I'm like, you f***ing idiot, Nazis can actually invest in the film and own part of it.
That's what I keep tweeting, is like, you know, tired of the worldwide Jewish media conspiracy? Well, join us. You know, don't you want to co-own the media? Well, okay. And I always think it's funny, too, because it's like either you're like a loser who's crowdsourcing and begging for shekels, or you own the media. But apparently there's no in-between for Jewish people.Hyperledger Project, a collaborative cross-industry effort created to advance blockchain technology, announced on Wednesday it added eight new members to its organization as a way to help create an open standard for distributed ledgers for a new generation of transactional applications.
The Hyperledger project, which is hosted by the Linux Foundation, seeks to enable organizations to build robust, industry-specific applications, platforms, and hardware systems to support their individual business transactions by creating an enterprise-grade, open source distributed ledger framework and code base. The latest members include CA Technologies, Factom Foundation, Hashed Health, Koscom, LedgerDomain, Lykke, Sovrin Foundation, and Swisscom.
Brian Behlendorf, Executive Director of the Hyperledger Project, stated:
“This year has been full of growth for the project. Not only did we exceed 100 members, Hyperledger met significant development milestones thanks to the community’s hard work. As 2016 was a year of exploration, R&D and prototyping, we’re excited for 2017 to be the year we start to see case studies of the technology in production environments.”
Last month, Hyperledger announced it reached 100 active members in less than one year.Insomnia affects up to 40% of the general population yearly and is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality. The direct and indirect costs of insomnia place a tremendous economic burden on society and employers. In addition to the cost of medical treatment and drugs, measurable costs of insomnia include reduced productivity, increased absenteeism, accidents, and hospitalization, as well as medical costs due to increased morbidity and mortality, depression due to insomnia, and increased alcohol consumption. This article reviews the literature on the economic costs and effects associated with insomnia. Based on the data reviewed, a conservative estimate of the total annual cost of insomnia was calculated at $92.5 to $107.5 billion. Early recognition and treatment of insomnia can reduce the costs associated with the condition, as well as possibly prevent other illnesses.Asher Wolf is a journalist, information-activist and commentator. You can follow her on Twitter at @Asher_Wolf
Updated 07/02/2014: The original version of this article contained some inaccuracies. Please see the notes at the bottom of this updated article for details.
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Can we have a little chat about your privacy? "Why?" you ask.
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Well, because it appears the UK government is selling off the rights to your personal health data in the name of "transparency" and "open data".
What?
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Okay, it goes like this:
You might have noticed the Guardian newspaper article by Randeep Ramesh on 19 January, about a new initiative from the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC.)
Ramesh described how data harvested "from GP and hospital records, medical data covering the entire population will be uploaded to the repository controlled by the arms-length NHS information centre, starting in March".
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The HSCIC responded within 24 hours to the Guardian article, with a statement claiming "patients and their carers should know that no data will be made available for the purposes of selling or administering any kind of insurance and that the NHS and the HSCIC never profit from providing data to outside organisations."
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This appears to be a partially disingenuous statement, because despite HSCIC's privacy impact assessment, a publicly available PDF produced by the HSCIC sets out service charges for data linkage and extraction: approved organisations and individuals will be eventually allowed to buy a standard extract "containing personal confidential data" for the low, low price of a £1,594 set-up fee and a £2,782 fee for the data set. Although the NHS argues that this is a cost for processing the data, rather than a fee for the data -- it's about cost recovery, not profit.
The Care.data database is a UK national database which, according to the HSCIC, will "build on existing data services and expand them to provide linked data, that will eventually cover all care settings, both in and outside of hospital".
The database's users includes pharmacies, mental health services, opticians, dentists, education and training establishments, as well as the National Adult Social Care Intelligence Service (NASCIS.)
The HSCIC gathers Care Eposide Statistics (CES) which, according to HSCIC, "will provide commissioners with data from across primary, secondary and tertiary care, as well as community health services and social care."
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The CES information includes demographics (such as post codes, birthdates and gender); events (such as hospital admissions; GP referrals as well as prescription data and pathology results. The datasets also gather information about specific conditions or disease types.
Data is colour-coded according to how risky it is. Green data is the least contentious. It involves the publication of average values for large groups of patients or completely anonymous figures. Red data is personally identifiable data and is very tightly controlled. Amber data is a little bit more tricky. It's supposedly "pseudonymised", meaning that each patient's identifiers (date of birth, postcode etc) have been stripped out.
The aggregated "green" data will be published openly, but record-level CES data will only be made available pseudonymously to nominated users under the terms of a legally binding agreement.
In September 2013 the NHS proposed an addendum to the NHS England's existing customer requirement for the Care.data general practice extract.
The addendum "seeks to increase the range of eligible recipients who may apply to the HSCIC for access to CES linked data in the form of disclosures of 'potentially identifiable data' in pseudonymous form (i.e., data that could be considered identifiable if published but are considered non-identifying when released into a controlled environment)."
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Under the addendum, vetted "researchers and other recipients" will be allowed to access "potentially identifiable data". But considering that the NHS can barely manage the unsolicited spam and malware on its own webpages, should the public really trust them to advise on who should be given access to the public's personal health data?
It should be pointed out that back in March 2013, a report commissioned by the NHS found: "By providing such users with extracts of the pseudonymous CES file, there is a risk of malicious re-identification of patients from inference (a so-called "jigsaw attack")."
Already pharmaceutical companies like AstraZeneca are rubbing their hands with glee at the implications of being approved access to the datasets.
As security researcher Ross Anderson points out, there are typically only a few dozen addresses in a post-code, so with access to a birth date (that may come from sources outside of HSCIC) it is fairly easy to make a correct personal identification for about 98 percent of people (the exceptions are twins, students, soldiers and prisoners). For this reason, "amber" data can only be released into controlled environments -- but the NHS wants to extend access rights to "a wider audience" including researchers and companies vetted by the Data Linkage and Extraction Service within the HSCIC.
HSCIC's own guide to confidentiality points out the potential for messy dilemmas. For instance, the guide mentions that "removing the individual's name, age, address and other personal identifiers may not be sufficient to effectively anonymise the information".
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Therefore, some of the amber data could be cross-referenced with other datasets (not issued by HSCIC) in order to de-pseudonymise the data.
While HSCIC attempts to fix legal issues by stating the information should always be shared in accordance with the law and organisations must abide by legal provisions which may ban or limit attempts to re-identify confidential information, plans for HSCIC to publicly track client compliance are yet to be revealed.
Though privacy advocates have bemoaned the lack of public clarity and transparency over exactly which organisations will be able to pay to access (HSCIC says this is simply about covering costs, not profiteering) particularly sensitive datasets, two companies may already have a head-start to the aggregated (green) data treasure trove: MedRed and BT.
Perhaps it's time we took a closer look.
Late last year the White House hosted an interesting little shindig. Obama and friends from the White House Office of Science and Technology got together in December 2013 to celebrate the launch of a cross-Atlantic cloud partnership providing commercial access to aggregated population data "of more than 50 million lives".
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The partnership known as "MBHC" linked MedRed, a Washington, DC-based healthcare software company, and BT, a UK-based telecommunications cloud partnership. Essentially, MedRed has imported all of the UK's aggregated healthcare data (not identifiable patient-level data) to a cloud service based in the US. Considering the HSCIC's own publications suggests access to personal information in other datasets has a relatively cheap price, this could be concerning.
MedRed's CEO Will Smith even said that the UK's approach to data release was "gutsy". "People are using foreign data because it's available," he said. "The UK made some gutsy decisions about data liberation. There's political risk associated and they have a more tolerant climate over there."
Combining public datasets with deep analytic tools and big data, MedRed and BT plan to charge for access to MBHC in the future.
Already a beta version of MBHC is in use by pharmaceutical companies and universities. And what is to stop those corporations and organisations from requesting access to "amber" data from HCSIS when they find something particularly interesting in their combination of the public datasets and big data analysis?
But wait, there's more.
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Perhaps we should do a little digging into the background of MedRed as well?
MedRed was first contracted by the US Army to develop medical decision support for chemical, biological weapons and blast injury in 2007 and provides software used to track traumatic brain injuries and PTSD in active duty military personnel and veterans.
MedRed's technology has been used by the Kenyan government to track disease outbreaks, and provides product support to the US Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs medical treatment facilities. MedRed has also created a mobile form of its technology called EFR MedCom "to support first responders, state and local activities, and functions involving the participation of private citizens" in emergency services.
As a 2009 article from mHealth News notes: "EFR MedCom is also designed to facilitate communication of casualty data to a command centre, facilitate information exchange through the Nationwide Health Information network and develop information databases through the Google Health platform."
Oh, and MedRed's board of directors and management? Well, there's a bunch of guys with an interesting history.
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The founder, William Kennedy Smith, is the nephew of former US President John F. Kennedy. Other board members include a former staffer from Booz Allen Hamilton (the firm for which whistleblower Edward Snowden worked); a senior US public health policy adviser, a former US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary; and a former President and CEO of the Russian-American Enterprise Fund.
The management team includes a military technologist who worked on US Army, Air Force and Navy projects developing "computer-assisted medical diagnosis and treatment systems, digital television broadcast and reception systems, network operations for space-based telephone communication systems and satellite communication systems"; an "Air Force headquarters' expert on space-based laser systems", who "led the development of acquisition processes for major DoD efforts such as the Medical Community of Interest project for the Integrated Electronic Health Records (iEHR) programme"; and a data-mining expert who "architected, designed and built some of the largest and most successful national security threat assessment systems within the Department of Homeland Security."
It's spooky stuff. But scratch half of the Fortune 1000 companies that engage in military contracting and you'll find a similar range of characters.
I have no doubt that governments could find all kinds of amazing results using the data contained in NHS records. MedRed's work with traumatic brain injury is undoubtably important, but by now you're probably asking, "Should I be worried about Care.data and MedRed?"
Hell yes, particularly considering the lack of transparency and the dubious history of governments and organisations when it comes to safeguarding medical data privacy. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to give a US military contractor access to my personal health data -- aggregated or not -- for medical research and software development purposes.
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Whether it's through MedRed or Care.data, the crux of the issue is that ultimately we don't know who will get access to our health data and for what purposes the data will be used.
What happens when commercial corporations use jigsaw attacks to de-anonymise the public datasets for profit? And despite making their customers sign contracts, there is no realistic way HSCIC can effectively prevent such kinds of de-anonymisation. How will the Information Commissioner even know?
You can opt-out from your GP data being placed into the HSCIC's database.
In fact there's a website, called MedConfidential.org, that will help you take back control over your personal health data.
They've even drafted a form letter you can give to your GP, to ensure your NHS Care Records aren't given to BT and MedRed.
Privacy is a basic human right that should be afforded to people everywhere. Transparency is meant to keep the corporations and governments accountable. While there is much public good that can come from open source data sets, ultimately you should be in charge of how your personal information is shared and used.
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Just don't let your government tell you anything different -- particularly not when they're attempting to sell off your personal data.
The author thanks the following people for their invaluable consultation and advice: Professor Ross Anderson, Cambridge University's Head of Cryptography and Professor in Security Engineering at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory; Eleanor Saitta, Principal Security Engineer at the Open Internet Tools Project (OpenITP); and Trevor Timm, Co-founder and Executive Director of the Freedom of Press Foundation.
Updated 07/02/2014: This article -- originally titled "Care.data and the murky US partnership that puts your health data at risk" -- contained a number of inaccuracies and has been updated to reflect this. It stated that Care.data was known as "the Spine" within the NHS. This is not the case. It also suggested that MedRed would have access to identifiable patient data, be it pseudonimised or otherwise; MedRed only has access to the aggregated "green" data which will be made public on data.gov.uk. It's unclear whether or not it will gain access to any of the "amber" data in the future. The article also originally stated that the GP data extract would include details about drug addition, sexual health and abortion procedures. These "sensitive" data will remain in the GP, although that may be reconsidered at a later date, according to HSCIC.Many people have never heard of Braddock, Pennsylvania, an industrial town on the Monongahela River, just a 20-minute drive from Pittsburgh. Just over 2,000 people live there. The town’s defining feature is itself a remnant of outdated industry — Andrew Carnegie’s steel mill, built in 1872.
But photographer LaToya Ruby Frazier‘s work tells a story that weaves Braddock into the social and economic fabric of the U.S. — one that began when Braddock was a thriving mill town and center of culture.
Frazier’s family dates back four generations in Braddock, having arrived there in the early 1900s as part of the Great Migration of more than 6 million African Americans from the South. Braddock was a hub of industry and commerce, with Carnegie’s mill operating in full force and one of his famous libraries serving Braddock since 1888. That was the life her grandmother knew while growing up in the 1930s, Frazier said.
“Some people remember, this is the place that had all the theaters, had all the bars, had all the shopping centers. That’s why people came to Braddock. They came to shop and for entertainment in that period,” she said.
The steel mill was the center of the town, and most of its residents worked there and lived in Carnegie-built row homes. “That area, the way I see it historically, [was] the right of passage for black and white steelworkers,” she said. “At one point, we all lived there.”
But as the steel industry declined in the 1960s and 1970s, the area lost much of its vitality. White residents moved away from Braddock, leaving behind communities of color who were frequently barred from getting loans to buy homes elsewhere, Frazier said.
“What’s interesting is that through discrimination and racial and systemic oppression, you see how black people were entrapped in that area — through redlining, and not being able to get loans from banks to move to the suburbs, how they were left behind,” she said.
For 12 years, Frazier has captured these changes in a series of portraits of the town and her family entitled “The Notion of Family.” But one home, she said, tells a unique part of this story: the Bunn family home, which sits in the neighborhood that residents call “The Bottom” just a block away from where she grew up. The home rests on a lot that used to hold multiple black-owned homes and businesses, including a cleaners and cafe that Frazier’s great-grandmother ran.
Over roughly the past decade, those buildings came down, leaving room for the lot to become a dumping-ground for city construction, according to Isaac Bunn, the third generation of his family to live in the house.
In 2000, Bunn said he filed an application through the Vacant Property Recovery Program to obtain the vacant land adjacent to his home, but described coming up against bureaucratic red tape multiple times, both in Allegheny County and later in Pittsburgh, where he traveled to check the status of the application.
Eventually, the block dwindled, leaving only his house there by 2009. “I’m trying to hold on to the land and gain a voice for the people, but it was very stressful and draining,” he said.
For Frazier, the Bunn home is the latest chapter in a history that has disadvantaged people of color in industrial suburbs like Braddock. Bunn said he does not intend to leave the house, where his family has lived since 1949, and founded the Braddock Inclusion Project to organize residents’ input on city policies and development in 2013.
When Bunn — who she described as “extended family” — told her what had happened to the land surrounding his house, she rented a helicopter and photographed aerial views of the home to help raise awareness and resources for the Braddock Inclusion Project.
“I will continue to fight to hold onto the property as a means to preserve my family’s legacy and the history of a once-thriving African American community,” Bunn wrote in an email. “Without any black controlled assets [or] land … the future of Black America is bleak.”
Check out the images below for more aerial views of Braddock and the Bunn home.This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License, permitting all non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Adipose tissue is no longer considered to be an inert tissue that stores fat. This tissue is capable of expanding to accommodate increased lipids through hypertrophy of existing adipocytes and by initiating differentiation of pre-adipocytes. Adipose tissue metabolism exerts an impact on whole-body metabolism. As an endocrine organ, adipose tissue is responsible for the synthesis and secretion of several hormones. These are active in a range of processes, such as control of nutritional intake (leptin, angiotensin), control of sensitivity to insulin and inflammatory process mediators (tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α), interleukin-6 (IL-6), resistin, visfatin, adiponectin, among others) and pathways (plasminogen activator inhibitor 1 (PAI-1) and acylation stimulating protein (ASP) for example). This paper reviews some of the biochemical and metabolic aspects of adipose tissue and its relationship to inflammatory disease and insulin resistance.
Although its participation in thermogenesis is irrelevant, white adipose tissue's functional capacity is much broader and more comprehensive. It has extensive distribution in the body, involving, or infiltrating, almost the entire region subcutaneously by organs and hollow viscera of the abdominal cavity or mediastinum and several muscle groups, for which it offers mechanical protection, softening the impact of shocks and allowing appropriate sliding of muscle bundles, one on the other, without compromising their functional integrity [ 2, 4 ]. Because it is an excellent thermal insulator and has a wide distribution, including the dermis and subcutaneous tissue, it plays an important role maintaining body temperature [ 5 ]. By this ability to accumulate and provide energy when necessary, it assumes the status of the most important buffering system for lipid energy balance, particularly fatty acids, which are an exceptionally efficient fuel storage species. The highly reduced hydrocarbon tail can be readily oxidized to produce large quantities of ATP (adenosine triphosphate) [ 9 ].
Brown adipose tissue specialized in heat production (thermogenesis) is almost absent in adult humans, but is found at birth. Brown adipocytes, with an average diameter, are smaller than adipocytes of white adipose tissue. They have a number of cytoplasmic lipid droplets of different sizes, cytoplasm relatively abundant, a spherical core and slightly eccentric and numerous mitochondria that release heat by oxidation of fatty acids. Brown adipose tissue also stores energy in lipid form, but more regularly produces heat by oxidizing fatty acids within the adipocyte, rather than supplying free fatty acids for use by other cell types [ 2, 4, 5 ]. Brown fat derives its color from extensive vascularization and the presence of many densely packed mitochondria. It is traversed by many more blood vessels than white fat. These blood vessels assist in delivering fuel for storage and oxidation, and in dispersing heat generated by the numerous mitochondria to other parts of the body [ 8, 9 ].
In mammals, there are two types of adipose tissue: white and brown. The adipocytes in these two types exhibit different morphology and function.
Pre-adipocytes within adipose tissue can differentiate into mature adipocytes throughout life, thus enabling hyperplastic expansion of adipose tissue when increased storage requirements are needed. In addition, the mature adipocytes can expand in size to accommodate increased storage needs and in situations of overnutrition become hypertrophic. As a result, adipocyte number and morphology transform in response to energy balance via the biochemical processes involved in lipid uptake, esterification, lipolysis and differentiation of pre-adipocytes [ 11 ].
Adipogenesis refers to the differentiation of pre-adipocytes into mature fat cells, i.e. the development of adipose tissue, which varies according to sex and age. Adipocytes differentiate from stellate or fusiform precursor cells of mesenchymal origin. The morphological and functional changes that take place in the course of adipogenesis correspond to a shift in transcription factor expression and activity leading from a primitive, multipotent state to a final phenotype characterized by alterations in cell shape and lipid accumulation [ 4, 5 ].
Originally considered as simply a storage organ for triacylglycerol, interest in the biology of adipose tissue has increased substantially. Over the last decades there has been considerable accumulation of experimental data about the biology and biochemistry of adipose tissue. This tissue is no longer considered to be an inert tissue that just stores fat [ 1 ]. Adipose tissue is a metabolically dynamic organ that is the primary site of storage for excess energy but it serves as an endocrine organ capable of synthesizing a number of biologically active compounds that regulate metabolic homeostasis. This dynamic tissue is composed not only of adipocytes, but also of other cell types called the stroma-vascular fraction, comprising blood cells, endothelial cells, pericy |
add and change. There isn’t a point at which you can say that an MMO is finished.
“Still, if you look back to 2013 when we released A Realm Reborn we were in a tough situation given the time constraints and the amount of work we had to get through. I don’t think we could have done anything more than we did at that point.”“Access Hollywood” is responding to reports that President Trump doesn’t believe that the infamous tape of him on the program — bragging about groping and kissing women without their consent — is real.
“We wanted to clear something up that has been reported across the media landscape,” host Natalie Morales said during a Monday broadcast.
“Let us make this perfectly clear: The tape is very real,” she said. "Remember his excuse at the time was 'locker room talk.' He said every one of those words."
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Trump reportedly told a senator and an adviser earlier this year that he believes the tape, which was recorded in 2005 and came to light weeks before the 2016 presidential election, might not be authentic.
Trump acknowledged that it was him caught on the tape after it was released last year and apologized for the comments, describing them as “locker room talk” between men.
Also on Monday, Arianne Zucker, one of the actresses who greeted Trump and "Access Hollywood" host Billy Bush on the tape, said that while she wasn't present for Trump's "when you're a star, they let you do it" remarks, she didn't see how the recording could be faked.
“I don’t know how else that could be fake unless someone’s planting words in your mouth,” Zucker told CNN host Anderson Cooper on “Anderson Cooper 360.” “How do you apologize for something and renege on it? It’s puzzling to me.”
“How do you apologize for something and then renege on it?” - Arianne Zucker, who appeared in the "Access Hollywood" tape reacts to reports of Trump questioning its authenticity https://t.co/hXLaGiktCa https://t.co/VARP7ztrbR — Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) November 28, 2017
After the tape's existence was first reported by The Washington Post last year, multiple women came forward to accuse Trump of sexual harassment or assault.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders refused to deny that Trump thinks the tape is fake during the press briefing Monday.
“The president addressed this, this was litigated and certainly answered during the election by the overwhelming support for the president and the fact he's sitting here in the Oval Office today,” Sanders said.
Updated at 10:50 p.m.Hi there Vainglorians! Today I’m breaking down the 1.3.0 patch to better understand what the changes mean (attack speed reductions? huh?) as well as how the meta looks due to these changes! Let’s kick it off with…
Heroes:
Vox
He’s new, but he’s looking great. His dash doesn’t let him pass over every wall, but can amplify his damage. Don’t stay clumped together for long, as this hero can punish entire teams for being too close to one another.
Koshka
Good news! You don’t have to wait to see which of your teammates is going to pick Koshka to counter the enemy Koshka! While the nerf was a BIG step in the right direction it didn’t break our (least) favorite kitty-cat pouncy princess. On the surface she’ll look and feel a lot like the old Koshka. However, numbers were shifted well enough that she will be much more manageable in the early game.
Koshka’s perk used to grant 64 armor and shield, even at level one. The defensive boost has been removed and Koshka has been granted 24 flat armor and shield to compensate.
Twirly Death also had a touch of damage removed from the base stat (20 at level one, 60 at max rank), but was graciously compensated for with a boosted Crystal Power ratio (up to 80% from 35%). While it’s still much more effective to purchase an Oakheart at level one, the scaling Crystal Power ratio gives her the ability to scale better as an assassin into the late game, rather than an uber speed-demon tanky assassin. What an improvement!
Krul
Save the best for last, right?? Does anyone even trust my opinion on this guy? Krul got a couple of number adjustments and Quality-of-Life fixes this patch.
Krul’s heroic perk is now activated sooner. It always felt so strange to walk up to gank a lane, have my laner see me coming, and then have to stop and wait in the bush for three seconds. “Hold on, friends! I’ll be ready soon!” While the shadows have always empowered Krul, they do it more efficiently now.
Dead Man’s Rush really lets Krul stand with the big boys in the late game. However, rather than buff this skill out of proportion, they instead changed it to make the use of basic-attack effects more convenient. Now you can use DMR to close the gap on someone and instantly apply an active Shiversteel. The fine print on this ability also says that it includes your total Weapon as damage. It makes for a great finisher if you have a few stacks on Breaking Point (adding 15 Weapon Power for each stack) and an Aftershock.
To help round the ability out they also increased the Crystal Power ratio of the barrier you gain from using the ability, and lowered the cooldown to compensate for the lack of utility (not a great escape tool*).
The last buff for Krul was a slight increase to his survivability in the form of raw stats. As you can see from the comparison chart below, it’s a step in the right direction.
Hero Level 1 HP HP per Level Level 12 HP Level 1 Armor Level 1 Shield Per Level Level 12 Armor Level 12 Shield EHP Old Krul 643 71 1424 20 20 4 64 64 2335 New Krul 643 78 1501 20 20 5 75 75 2627 Adagio 719 85 1654 20 20 6 86 86 3076
*You can jump a lot of walls with DMR if you can see a minion or targetable enemy on the other side. Get close to the wall, target them, activate the ability, and watch Krul slide awesomely through the wall. Every time I do that (even with Vainglorious players) someone on my team will say they didn’t know it was possible, so I figured I’d write it down.
Adagio
Speak of the devil. Adagio was very under-rated. Considered one of the champions hurt most by the Breaking Point changes, Adagio was still dominating the Fold with his superior range, uncontrollable sustain, and immense AOE damage.
His ultimate still does 910 damage at level 12, but his Gift of Fire heal now only ever lasts for three seconds and doesn’t heal as much at later levels. To compensate, the Crystal Power ratios have been slightly improved to provide incentive for players to move away from the dominant Weapon Power builds. In another attempt to dissuade everyone from playing Weapon Power Adagio his base Weapon and attack speed at level 12 were lowered to 118 and 100% respectively.
Petal
I think the only player above The Hotness playing Crystal Power Petal is ellendegeneres! To encourage more to join the funny lesbian club SEMC reduced Petal’s attack speed at level 12 to 111% from 136%. Petal still has the longest range in the game, which makes her Weapon builds so tempting. Hopefully now we see more Ellen’s out there!
Celeste
Celeste is bursting with potential and I really hope some of these buffs make her better than ever. Heliogenesis has a better Crystal Power ratio, effectively letting Celeste scale with Weapon carries.
Solar Storm got a name change and is now known as “Solar Stohrm” (the “h” is silent). While it no longer collides with (and I quote) “non-objective jungle monsters”, it really makes me think that a game was decided on the SEMC campus when Celeste’s ultimate would have stolen Kraken, but was instead blocked by a jungle monster. Come on guys, just tell us the story and get this band-aid off quickly. Also in this patch, SEMC shows their support for the metric system by saying the projectile speed was reduced from 22 meters per second to 16. They may as well have said metres.
Skaarf
I felt like they hinted that Skaarf was going to see a nerf. What a sigh of relief! This little caterpillar had really started getting out of control! His ultimate was being combined with an Ardan ultimate to really turn up the heat and melt teams like cheap wax.
In regular style, SEMC delivered a timely change to Skaarf. They saw into the future that he was going to be worse in the current meta and instead buffed him by letting him activate any of his items while channeling his ultimate.
Taka
While many people don’t think this was much of a buff, Taka’s perk is no longer buggy. However, Taka’s numbers are insane, and this change is a huge boost to our panda assassin. Am I saying that he’s a panda, or a murderer of pandas? That’s up to you to decide.
Gameplay Changes
Meta is rapidly developing and having the ability to declare positions in hero select just adds to the small levels of communication available. This is a welcomed change, and makes certain picks much more viable. I never knew if Catherine wanted to lane or roam, but now I know that she just wants to play in the jungle!
Don’t sell your boots!
Now you don’t have to! No more mental math of sold boots = 500 gold, infusion = 500 gold, new boots = 1000 gold, so I need roughly one billion gold for everything I need. Now you can purchase consumables from the shop when you are full of items and use them automatically and instantly! I love this!
Snowballs are only good in winter
and it’s summer on the Fold. By changing how experience is gained for teams ahead and teams behind, SEMC has prevented games from getting completely out of control.
Come again?
Attack speed reductions such as Atlas Pauldron will never reduce the attack animation below base attack speed. Attack cooldowns are still able to go below base speed.
I’m glad I got that “attack speed reductions” thing cleared up and out of the way. It didn’t make any sense to me, but sadly I’m not able to go into much detail. What I can say is that Gadianton has been cracking this super evil code to make the most sense of it. He said something about “exponential decay” and “directrices of an ellipses” and then I lost all sight of his math mobile. I’m sure he’ll be able to clear up the confusion on “attack cooldowns” if we just give him time.
Thanks for taking the time to read about the latest patch! While patch 1.4.0 probably won’t have Corpus, it will be great to get more information about the skins system.The wife of Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz Rafael (Ted) Edward CruzTrump unleashing digital juggernaut ahead of 2020 Inviting Kim Jong Un to Washington Trump endorses Cornyn for reelection as O'Rourke mulls challenge MORE sat on the board of a group that unanimously voted to support a 2014 Houston ballot measure designed to offer protections to LGBT individuals, according to BuzzFeed News.
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Cruz's campaign said Heidi Cruz did not participate in the vote and publicly condemned the HERO ordinance during her time on the Greater Houston Partnership board, on which she no longer serves.
“Mrs. Cruz was not able to participate in that vote,” Cruz campaign spokesman Catherine Frazier told BuzzFeed.
Frazier added that Heidi Cruz “strongly opposed” and voted against the measure, which came to be known as the “bathroom bill” and was overwhelmingly rejected at the polls.
Ted Cruz’s father, Rafael Cruz, was also an outspoken critic of the bill and of Houston Mayor Annise Parker, who is a lesbian.
“If the righteous are not running for office, if the righteous are not even voting, then what is left?” Rafael Cruz said during the HERO controversy. “The wicked are electing the wicked. And we get what we deserve.”
He said it was “appalling that in a city like Houston, right in the middle of the Bible Belt, we have a homosexual mayor.”
Ted Cruz condemned the bill for infringing upon religious liberty.
Cruz surrogates have criticized staffers of rival Marco Rubio Marco Antonio RubioHillicon Valley: Senators urge Trump to bar Huawei products from electric grid | Ex-security officials condemn Trump emergency declaration | New malicious cyber tool found | Facebook faces questions on treatment of moderators Key senators say administration should ban Huawei tech in US electric grid Trump unleashing digital juggernaut ahead of 2020 MORE for supporting gay marriage.Hello everyone,
It’s been announced that on October 15th, there will be a wave of bans in the Russian Server, for everyone who uses illegal mods or cheats. The most interesting part is that if a player is using cheats and deletes them right now, they will still be banned.
Wargaming has been monitoring what mods players use, and has been doing for quite a while now. They haven’t given any details on how they do this, but they advised this will be their first step against illegal mods and cheats.
Also, if a clan has a big number of players banned for cheating, the clan will also be disbanded.
The fact that Wargaming is actually doing something against cheaters is very good, but to what point will this actually work? And will we ever see this happening across all servers or will be it just for the Russian Server?
Source: WOT-ExpressThe fact that I’m over half way through this project and this is only the second Estimated Prophet pick speaks to how much great material the Dead have released over the years.
Estimated Prophet is high on my list of “Growing Bobby Appreciation Songs.” Of course, I can do without the “Bobby Rock Star” ad libs in the jam of some of the later era stuff. Those falsetto “HA!”s grate on my ears. But I’ve not only come to a greater appreciation of Bobby’s playing but it’s always great when Garcia is relieved of vocal duties and can focus exclusively on playing guitar. Combine that focus with some cool effects and an odd time signature and it’s a match made in Deadhead heaven.
Fat bass and jangly guitar are the signatures of this song. Well, along with a 7/4 time signature, but I digress…. Keith is playing some sort of electric keyboard and Jerry has his mutron and/or envelope filter switched on. Estimated has such a unique sound and feel in the Dead’s repertoire. It’s to hear why so many people like it. Donna’s vocals are pretty low in the mix but you can tell that she’s in good voice on this tune. Jerry flubs the entry to the bridge, but recovers nicely. This has to be a tough song to recover on. There’s another flub, not sure the culprit, during the walk up section at the end of the bridge. A quick solo over the chorus chords is a bit disjointed so they exit quickly to the next verse. Weir throws in some vocal ad libs, but the part we’ve all been waiting for enters with Jerry’s guitar. Envelope filter in full effect, Jerry explores all seven corners of the time signature. He’s not in a rush by any means at this point. This continues until the groove starts to breakdown and the band shifts out of the 7/4 time and into something a bit more standard in preparation for Eyes of the World.
Complete Setlist 9/3/77
Previous Estimated Prophet DFAY SelectionsIf BitPay’s decision to promote bitcoin through a college football playoff seemed bizarre or peculiar at times, the event ultimately succeeded as spectacle, promoting the emerging technology’s benefits to many hearing about it for the first time.
The Bitcoin St Petersburg Bowl packed in references to bitcoin amid the typical college football trappings, the cheerleaders, marching bands and garishly painted fans that assembled in Florida throughout the week. Bitcoin was visible at a Christmas Day ‘Battle of the Bands‘ competition, a commemorative physical bitcoin was used during the official coin toss and BitPay executive chairman Tony Gallippi explained bitcoin on local sports radio.
Though advertising blanketed the host stadium at Tropicana Field both on field and on ESPN, evidence suggests the event may have had the greatest impact not on a more general audience, but on BitPay’s target demographic – small merchants.
In contrast to the skeptical college football fans in attendance and a sometimes critical social media viewership, the more than 20 local merchants surveyed by CoinDesk throughout the day were receptive to bitcoin as a payment method.
Still, the event featured a dedicated bitcoin ‘Fan Zone’ aimed at consumers. Located just blocks from the stadium on bustling Central Avenue, it was here where bitcoin arguably had the most impact on this demographic as attendees were able to ask questions and engage the industry.
AirBitz CEO Paul Puey, who showcased his company’s bitcoin wallet at the booth, perhaps best summed up the industry’s optimism that the game and similar events will have a more lasting impact on consumers and the general public.
Puey said:
“This event is not going to be remembered for the people who played in it, this event is going to be remembered going down as the biggest event to expose bitcoin in 2014. I can tell my kids about the Bitcoin Bowl, that I was there, that I educated a handful of people.”
Perhaps most notable, however, was the lack of bitcoin payments at the event itself, as bitcoin was not accepted at the venue’s retail stores or concession stands as it is at other US sports venues in San Jose and Sacramento.
“We could not come to an agreement on bitcoin being in the stadium with the Tampa Bay Rays,” BitPay spokesperson Ashley Wheeler said, referring to the baseball franchise that calls the venue home.
As for the game, the North Carolina State (NC State) Wolfpack defeated the University of Central Florida (UCF) Knights after an exciting late comeback by their opponent. The final score was 34 to 27.
Up close with bitcoin
Though packed with entertainment, education was also a key focus for BitPay.
At its collaborative Fan Zone, bitcoin companies like Airbitz and Trucoin and digital payment companies like NCR Silver interacted with interested consumers alongside the official event sponsor.
NCR Silver product manager Reggie Kimble, who cited the Bitcoin Bowl as one of the reasons the payments giant integrated bitcoin into its point-of-sale system, believes events like the Bitcoin St Petersburg Bowl are effective and needed.
“A lot of people are interested in bitcoin and really, the name Bitcoin Bowl has inspired a lot of curiosity from the general public which is sadly disillusioned and asking a lot of questions, so it’s an opportunity to educate,” Kimble told CoinDesk.
However, Kimble noted that, for now, such education is still in the early stages. “I can tell you the most frequently asked question is ‘Tell me all about this bitcoin’,” he added. “Consumers want to know about it.”
Chris Brunner, president of bitcoin brokerage Trucoin, reported more success, speaking to “a few hundred” people at the booth over the course of the day where he showcased his company’s new bitcoin ATM solution.
“It’s been exciting for us to speak to people who are from a slightly different demographic,” Brunner said. “As bitcoin becomes more mainstream, it’s exciting for us to touch base with the world outside with the tech-sphere.”
Elsewhere, mobile payments startup TabbedOut was in attendance.
Consumer awareness low
Outside the booth, however, attendees seemed less concerned with bitcoin.
A random sampling of both NC State and UCF fans by CoinDesk suggested that bitcoin awareness among the crowd was limited, even despite the presence of the BitPay and bitcoin logos throughout the stadium and surrounding shops.
Regardless of demographic, many fans of both NC State and UCF were unaware of bitcoin, had only heard about it in passing or believe bitcoin is a company. Most seemed generally receptive to the idea of digital money, while others suggested they would learn more about bitcoin after hearing its benefits.
Steve Patterson, author of the e-book What’s the Big Deal about Bitcoin? was also in the crowd interacting with fans, and reported similar findings.
“I’ve spoken with a few people here and no one understands anything about [bitcoin],” he said, adding that he’s had the opposite experience with local business owners.
Twitter tipping blitz
The educational efforts surrounding the game weren’t limited to St Petersburg.
On Twitter, bitcoin enthusiasts such as author Andreas Antonopoulos; bitcoin investor Erik Voorhees and core developer Jeff Garzik engaged social media users with bitcoin tipping service ChangeTip, donating bitcoin to those interested in learning more about the technology.
There, the industry helped dispel common misconceptions about the technology, while engaging users who demonstrated a real interest in the digital currency and poking fun at bitcoin’s more visible critics.
Could someone explain #bitcoinbowl to me? The bitcoin I understand. It’s the football that has me stumped. Why are they slamming each other? — AndreasMAntonopoulos (@aantonop) December 27, 2014
BitPay refines its pitch
The game also showcased new advertisements for BitPay, both of which took opposite approaches to appealing to merchants while stressing bitcoin’s benefits as an online payment option.
The ads are the first by a bitcoin company to appear on ESPN, a major US sports network that reaches 100 million households in total.
One video took a decidedly humorous approach to highlighting the difference between bitcoin and credit cards, painting traditional online payment companies as a greedy mafia.
Watch the first commercial here:
Another was more serious with its tone, emphasizing the benefits for merchants. The approach suggests BitPay is still trying to refine its pitch to a wider audience, but that small merchants remain its core focus.
BitPay boasts a notable stable of billion-dollar clients including online retailers TigerDirect and Newegg, and most recently, Internet pioneer Microsoft, though neither ad catered to enterprise companies.
Watch the second video below:
BitPay did not respond to an inquiry about whether the commercials would be aired again on ESPN or other networks.
Did the Bitcoin St Petersburg Bowl live up to your expectations? Tell us your thoughts below.
Images via Pete RizzoBrazilian barbecue restaurant to invest £1.5 million in Leeds opening creating 60 jobs
Brazilian barbecue restaurant chain Cabana has announced plans to open in Trinity Leeds in November, investing £1.5million and creating more than 60 new jobs in the city.
Its first venture outside of London, the Brasilian barbecue specialist currently has 6 restaurants across London and has plans to expand further next year.
Launched in 2011 by restaurateurs Jamie Barber (Hush, Villandry, Sake No Hana) and Brasilian-born David Ponté (Momo), Cabana currently employs around 300 people in the UK.
The new 4,500 sq ft. restaurant will serve street food snacks such as Chicken Coxinhas (crunchy chicken croquettes).
Jamie Barber, co-founder of Cabana said: “The past three years have seen Cabana really take off and we knew the time was right to expand our Brasilian Barbecue offering beyond London.
“Visiting Leeds, it was clear to us that the city, with its vibrant business community, huge student population and amazing shopping, had to be our first place to open.
“Cabana will offer a relaxed dining style, including a fun full-sized cabana hut for large groups, a vibrant menu and an array of distinctively Brasilian cocktails created by experienced mixologists, including the signature caipirinha, made using South American spirit Cachaça and offered in a variety of flavours such as passionfruit and pineapple & mint.
“The modern Brasilian style of Cabana will offer Leeds’ diners an affordable taste of the refreshing Brasilian ‘tudo bem’, meaning ‘everything’s good’, spirit.”
Cabana has appointed Leeds-based food and drink PR specialists MCG to support the launch its new Leeds restaurant. MCG will be working with Cabana to launch the restaurant with an integrated campaign of social media activity, events, promotions and media relations.Microsoft announced earlier this week that Skype would be available for Windows 8 on October 26th, but it appears that the company has released it ahead of schedule. Skype is now listed in the Windows Store, available to Windows 8 and Windows RT users. Although neither operating system officially launches until October 26th, if you're running the Windows 8 RTM then Skype is now installable. If the app isn't available in your region just yet, it should pop up sometime in the next few hours.
The Verge got an early look at Skype for Windows 8 this week and we found that it is one of the best Microsoft-built Windows 8-style apps right now. Integration with the People app is included, and Skype runs in the background as you'd expect in Windows 8. This is the second piece of the Skype and Microsoft puzzle, following the release of a Windows Phone client earlier this year. Skype is now building an Xbox version that will likely debut next year.
Update: Skype has reached out to The Verge to clarify that the app is starting to populate in the Windows Store today, but it will not be available for all users until the 26th.Few CultureMap stories have resonated with readers more strongly than 2014's Secrets of the TABC Report series. Spread over a series of three articles in 2014 that used the Mixed Beverage Tax Receipts data published by the State Comptroller's Office to expose a few of the hidden truths behind dining trends, the columns remain topics that readers most frequently ask me about.
Despite requests to bring the column back, I never wanted it to become stale. Recently, new trends have emerged that made it seem like the right time.
A note on the name: although the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission isn't responsible for sharing this data with the public, the "TABC Report" moniker is a piece of restaurant industry jargon that reflects its connection to liquor sales. All establishments that serve hard liquor are included in the report; bars and restaurants that only serve beer and wine — a list that includes places like Underbelly, Uchi, and Oxheart — are not listed. This article primarily considers the July 2016 data published last week, but it also includes data from other reports when its relevant.
Before diving into the data, keep in mind that liquor sales don't take into account costs such as rent, ingredients, and labor. A bar or restaurant could have low liquor sales and still be doing well financially, or have high liquor sales and still be struggling. Still, people in the restaurant industry use these numbers as a benchmark to compare how their business is faring relative to its peers. With that, let's dive in.
River Oaks District is booming, and Steak 48 is leading the way
If the luxury cars out front and the constantly packed bar weren’t sufficient evidence of its success, Steak 48’s sales in July attained a level that even Houston’s most successful restaurants don’t reach in December, which is the month when holiday celebrations take restaurant earnings to their highest point of the year. The almost 14,000-square-foot steakhouse reported approximately $627,000 in sales. To put that into perspective, consider the following:
The next two highest revenue steakhouses, Pappas Bros. on Westheimer, and Vic & Anthony’s, combined for about $689,000 in sales, or roughly 10 percent more than Steak 48 sold by itself. Pappas Bros. December sales of $604,000 correlate more closely to Steak 48’s July performance.
The four Clumsy Butcher cocktail bars — Anvil, Julep, the Pastry War, and the Nightingale Room — reported approximately $478,000 in sales. Six of the seven Treadsack concepts (less D&T Drive Inn) reported $389,000 in combined sales.
With $339,000 in sales in June and $55,000 in sales in May (during its soft-opening and preview events), Steak 48 has already sold over $1 million of alcohol in less than three months.
While Steak 48 is clearly leading the way at the luxurious mixed-use development, the other restaurants in River Oaks District are also performing well, especially compared to their peers in other Texas cities. The iPic Theater reported $256,000 in liquor sales, while its siblings in Austin and the Dallas suburb of Fairview reported $118,000 and $106,000.
In Houston, Toulouse had alcohol sales of $146,000, and its sister restaurant Taverna reported $111,000. As points of comparison, Toulouse’s Dallas outpost had $85,000 in sales, and Taverna’s Austin and Fort Worth locations reported $60,000 and $48,000 respectively (the Dallas location only serves beer and wine). Even Hopdoddy's $66,000 in sales ranks third among the company's eight locations behind the two Austin outposts. Clearly, their parent companies should be happy with the decision to open in Houston.
Going forward, I expect Le Colonial's luxurious upstairs lounge to cut into Steak 48's numbers (at least a little bit) and propel it into second place in the District. It's probably too small to earn over $600,000 in a single month, but the first few months will be worth tracking.
Houstonians love patio bars
Houston’s summer weather may be unpleasant, but Houstonians seem to love drinking at bars that offer lots of outdoor space. In a number of inner loop zip codes, patio bars are leading the way. No wonder even popular establishments like Pub Fiction and Royal Oak are remodeling to add more outside seating.
In Midtown (77004), Axelrad reports $261,000 in sales. In 77006, which combines Montrose and Midtown, the top four highest selling bars — The Dogwood ($431,000), Little Woodrow’s ($330,000), La Grange ($261,000), and Irish Cowboy ($242,000) — all use outdoor space as part of their appeal. The pattern holds true in the Heights (77008) where Cedar Creek ($193,000) and Eight Row Flint ($168,000) are two of the top three.
Of course, Kirby Ice House, the Upper Kirby bar with a massive backyard, has captured plenty of its customers’ dollars. Its July sales of $372,000 are impressive, but that’s down from $484,000 in May and $431,000 in June, which demonstrates that even the most popular patio bars are somewhat weather dependent.
Nightclubs are back
For those inner loop zip codes where patio bars aren’t at the top, a nightclub probably is. While the idea of loud music and the velvet rope will never appeal to some people, overall, Houstonians can't wait to dance the night away. In 77002, Clé’s Vegas-style glitz generated $532,000 in sales, which is good for the fourth most liquor sales of any licensed establishment in Houston. That's a lot of bottle service! No wonder the owners are already working to transform a former church into another nightclub called Spire.
Elsewhere in Midtown, Rich’s ($158,000) and VrSI ($132,000) are also performing well despite only being open a few nights per week. In downtown, Boots ‘N Shoots reported sales of $177,000 only puts it behind Vic & Anthony’s, The Flying Saucer ($202,000), luxury hotels, and sports and concert venues like Minute Maid Park and Revention Music Center. The Commoner/Boulevardier twins reported $99,000 in sales while only being open for 10 hours per week on Friday and Saturday nights.
On Washington Avenue, three nightclubs rank in the top five: Kung Fu Saloon ($437,000), Dallas import Concrete Cowboy ($241,000), and Aura ($223,000). Maybe Hughes Hangar should have tried to stay open a little longer to catch the area's resurgence.Nicholas Repino “Mort(e),” Robert Repino’s debut novel, imagines a war between humans and animals.
Would your cat eat you? Probably, but so would your dog, given the opportunity. At least, that’s the thesis behind “Mort(e),” the utterly absorbing debut novel by Robert Repino that imagines a war between humans and other species.
In an unnamed future, ants have evolved — and they have a grudge. Sick of being exterminated in droves, their Queen has created a master race of Alphas, basically man-size killing machines, to fight back. As an experiment, she has also devised a chemical formula that causes other animals to grow and gain self-consciousness (as well as usable hands), which enables them to turn on their former masters and join her war.
But one pet has other ideas. Sebastian, a declawed and neutered house cat, has led an ordinary life of benign neglect until his human mistress starts fooling around. Her lover brings his dog, Sheba, over during their trysts, and while the humans are upstairs, Sebastian and Sheba bond in the basement.
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“After the Change,” as the ant-engineered evolution is called, “many of the animals reminisced about the time when they first achieved self-awareness.” For Sebastian it comes during one of his last moments with Sheba, and his first self-aware thought is of their love, or as the otherwise matter-of-fact third-person narration puts it, “a true moment of bliss, a welling of joy and peace.”
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Unfortunately, it is also the moment when Sebastian’s human master returns and uncovers his wife’s infidelity. The resulting chaos sends Sheba fleeing and upends Sebastian’s well-ordered life. Although all he wants is to find his friend, the former pet is adrift in a brave new world. Bereft and desperate, he is pulled into the war and, as his hope ebbs, he becomes reckless, winning renown as the “choker-house-cat-turned-warrior.” Changing his name to Mort(e), in part after the “Le Morte d’Arthur” (which he reads while holed up in a library), he is hailed as a hero of the revolution.
What happens next is convoluted and, perhaps, inevitable as the war winds down and the transition to a peaceful new order begins. Veterans struggle to find their place, and even Mort(e) ends up looking down on civilians, like one Russian blue who accidentally vomits up a hairball in his presence, evidence that she indulges in the “guilty pleasure” of licking herself, rather than washing “like civilized people.” She “couldn’t have fought in the war, he thought. She lacked the discipline.”
Despite his desire to resign from active duty and live alone with his memories, Mort(e) is drafted back into the fray when a new, more subtle terror begins. As he investigates this deadly counteroffensive and is caught up in a strange prophecy, he begins to receive messages that Sheba may, in fact, still be alive.
Alternatively an updating of “Animal Farm” and a meditation on friendship and free will, “Mort(e)” is complex, beguiling, and often bloody. Despite its science fiction-fantasy set up, this is very much a book for adults: Mort(e)’s neutered status is rudely alluded to (he is a “choker’’), and the brutality of war is presented prosaically. As in any good war novel, that savagery is also the source of grim humor, delivered in a deadpan worthy of Vonnegut. Speaking of their human enemy, for example, one “Changed” animal notes, “I don’t know why the Queen hates them so much. They’re delicious.”
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After millennia of human domination, it’s a fair turnabout. And as Mort(e) goes on his final quest, the possibility of peace is, at best, vague. Still, some things endure. “I remember my time with my friend,” he says. “I realize that these things don’t last. But I will fight for them.” Mutilated but determined, he’s a compelling hero for any species.
Clea Simon is the author of 16 mysteries. She can be reached at cleasimon@mac.comLess than 24 hours after the recent hack against the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was announced to have reached 21.5 million affected individuals, its director has stepped down.
In a statement, Katherine Archuleta wrote that it was “best for me to step aside” from leading the agency charged with managing federal employees. She had been in the position for just over two years.
This is quite a reversal for the OPM boss. Speaking before a Senate hearing on June 23, Archuleta said, "I'm as angry as you are that this is happening... I am dedicated to ensuring that OPM does everything in its power to protect the federal workforce and to ensure that our systems will have the best cyber security posture the government can provide.”
Yet she insisted that no one at the OPM was to blame for the breaches. "If there is anyone to blame, it is the perpetrators," she said.
The hack has affected huge number of federal employees.
"If you underwent a background investigation through OPM in 2000 or afterwards (which occurs through the submission of forms SF-86, SF-85, or SF-85P for either a new investigation or a re-investigation), it is highly likely that you are impacted by the incident involving background investigations," OPM officials warned in an update published Thursday. "If you underwent a background investigation prior to 2000, you still may be impacted, but it is less likely."
SF-86 is the form that all federal employees are required to fill out to obtain a security clearance.
Earlier this week, FBI Director James Comey told a Senate panel that he “was sure” the hackers now had his personal information.
"I'm sure the adversary has my SF-86 now," Comey said. "My SF-86 lists every place I've ever lived since I was 18. Every foreign travel I've ever taken. All of my family, [and] their addresses."
The OPM did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment.Story highlights This anonymous CEO has had two nose jobs, liposuction, breast implants plus eight other cosmetic surgeries
She credits her surgery for enhancing her romantic life and helping her career
She refuses to be judged by anyone else but herself and only dates people who love her for her
First things first. What procedures have you had?
I started with liposuction on my thighs. And breast implants.
Then I had a nose job. Twice -- the first one was botched. |
together hashers from one particular nation, although visitors from other countries are actively welcomed.Achieving personal goals deserves a huge amount of celebration but setting these goals in the first place is a massive achievement in itself.
While the big goals serve as a destination, the journey is probably the most important part of the process. It reflects your progress, your growth and your ability take control and steer your life towards positive change.
Whatever your goal is, whether it’s losing 20lbs or learning a new language, there will always be a set amount of steps you need to take in order to achieve it. Once you’ve set your sights on your goal, the next stage is to take an assertive path towards how you will get there.
The aim of this article is to guide you through how to take action towards your personal goals in a way that will help you achieve them strategically and successfully.
1. Get very specific
When it comes to setting your personal goals, honing in on its specifics is crucial for success.
It’s common to have a broad idea of where you want to go or what you want to achieve, but this can sabotage your efforts in the long run.
Get clear on what you want your goal to look like so you can create solid steps towards it.
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Say you have a vision on retiring early. This goal feels good to you and you can envision filling your days of work-free life with worldly adventures and time with loved ones.
If retiring early is a serious personal goal for you, you will need to insert a timeframe. So your goal has changed from “I’d like to someday retire early and travel the world” to “I’m going to retire by 50 and travel the world”.
It may not seem significant, but creating this tweak in your goal by specifying a definite time, will help create and structure the steps needed to achieve it in a more purposeful way.
2. Identify the preparation you need to achieve your goal
It’s easy to set a goal and excitedly, yet aimlessly move towards it. But this way of going about achieving goals will only leave you eventually lost and feeling like you’ll never achieve it.
You have to really think about what you need to do in order to make this goal possible. It’s all very well wanting it to happen, but if you just sit back and hope you’ll get there one day will result in disappointment.
Self-managing your goals is a crucial step in the process. This involves taking control of your goal, owning it and making sure you are in a great position to make it happen.
In the early retirement example, this would mean you will need to think about your financial situation.
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What will your finances ideally need to look like if you were to retire early and travel the world? How much money will you need to put into your retirement fund to retire at 50? How much extra savings will you need to support your travels? You could also start researching the places you’d like to travel to and how long you’d like to travel for.
Outlining these factors will, not only make your goal seem more tangible, but also create a mind shift to one of forward motion. Seeing the steps more clearly will help you make a more useful plan of action and seeing your goal as a reality.
3. Breakdown each step into more manageable goals
The secret to achieving your goals is to create smaller goals within each step and take action. Remember, you’re looking for progress, no matter how small it may seem.
These small steps build up and get you to the top. By doing this, you also make the whole process much less daunting and overwhelming.
In the early retirement scenario, there are several smaller goals you could implement here:
Decide to make an appointment with a financial advisor asking what financial options would be available to you if you were to go into early retirement and travel. Get advice on how much you would need to top up your funds in order to reach your goal on time.
Set up and start to make payments into the retirement fund.
Research savings accounts with good rates of interest and commit to depositing a certain amount each month.
Make sure you meet with your financial advisor each year to make sure your retirement plan remains the best one for you. Research new savings accounts to move your money into to reap the best returns in interest rates.
Start investing in travel books, building up a library that covers where you want to go.
Think about starting a language course that will help you get the most out of your travel experience.
4. Get started on the journey
Creating a goal planner in which you can start writing down your next steps is where the magic happens. This is where the real momentum towards your dream starts!
Create a schedule and start by writing in when you will start the first task and on which day. Commit to completing this small task and feel the joy of crossing it off your list. Do this with every little step until your first mini goal has been reached.
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In the early retirement example, schedule in a meeting with a financial advisor. That’s it. Easy.
As I mentioned before, it may seem such a small step but it’s the momentum that’s the most important element here. Once you cross this off, you can focus on the meeting itself, then once that’s ticked off, you are in a position of starting a profitable retirement fund…and so the momentum continues. You are now on your journey to achieving your dream goal.
5. Create an annual review
Taking a step back and reviewing your progress is essential for keeping yourself on the right track. Sometimes you can be moving full steam ahead towards your goal but miss seeing the opportunities to improve a process or even re-evaluate your feelings towards the goal.
Nominate a day each year to sit down and take a look at your progress. Celebrate your achievements and how far you’ve come. But also think about changing any of the remaining steps in light of new circumstances.
Has anything changed? Perhaps you got a promotion at work and you feel you can add more to your monthly savings.
Do you still feel the same about your goal? It’s normal for our desires to change over time and our personal goals need to reflect this.
Perhaps you’d like to take someone new with you on your travels and you need to take this into account regarding timelines. Are there any new steps you want to add as a result?
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Remember, reflection is a useful tool in realigning your goal to any changes and it’s important to keep on the right trajectory towards it.
Strive to become the best goal-setter you can be
Having personal goals gives you purpose and the feeling of becoming a better version of yourself.
But it’s the smaller steps within these big goals that the growth and achievement really lies:
Whatever your goal is, make sure you get specific on when you want to achieve it. This helps you focus on the necessary steps much more efficiently.
Research the actionable steps required to get to the end result and…
Break these down into smaller, manageable goals.
Create a daily or weekly schedule for these smaller goals and start the positive momentum.
Reflect each year on your goal journey and purpose, readjusting steps according to changes in circumstance or desire.
Keep going and always have the end goal in sight. Remember the ‘why’ behind your goal throughout to keep you motivated and positive.
More Resources About Setting & Achieving Goals
Featured photo credit: Pexels via pexels.comNATO allies have agreed to provide increased military support, including surveillance planes, to Middle Eastern and North African countries whose governments are in conflict with hardline armed groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Saturday said alliance leaders also agreed to launch a new naval mission in the Mediterranean Sea, and made commitments to maintain a stable military presence in Afghanistan and to fund Afghan security forces through 2020.
"Today we have taken decisions to strengthen our partners and to project stability beyond our borders," Stoltenberg told reporters on the second day of a crucial NATO summit in Warsaw.
He said millions of people in Africa and the Middle East have been rendered "homeless and helpless" by organisations such as ISIL.
In response, Stoltenberg said NATO will start a training and capacity-building mission for armed forces in Iraq, a country he called central in the fight against ISIL.
Mediterranean patrols
NATO is also working to establish an intelligence centre in Tunisia, a major recruiting ground for ISIL, and will shortly start providing support to Tunisian special operation forces, he said.
US President Barack Obama and leaders of the other 27 NATO countries also reportedly agreed in principle for alliance surveillance aircraft to provide direct support to the US-led coalition fighting ISIL in Syria and Iraq, a decision the NATO chief called "a clear signal of our resolve to help tackle terrorism".
NATO diplomats said they expected flights by alliance AWACS planes to begin this autumn.
OPINION: NATO's meeting in Warsaw is the 'Second Chance Summit'
Stoltenberg said the alliance will launch a new maritime operation in the Mediterranean called Operation Sea Guardian, whose responsibilities will include "counterterrorism".
NATO will also cooperate with the European Union's efforts to shut down human-smuggling operations that have led to Europe's greatest refugee crisis since World War II.
The alliance will also increase cooperation with Jordan, and is preparing to help the new government in Libya design policies and institutions to help it better defend itself against armed groups, Stoltenberg said.
"We will provide greater support to our partners, so they can secure their countries and push back against violent extremism," he said.
Afghan extension
Obama urged his fellow NATO leaders in Warsaw to expand their support for the war in Afghanistan against the Taliban. Meanwhile, violence in the US led the US leader to cut his Europe trip short to return home on Sunday.
The US has pledged $3.5bn annually to fund Afghan forces, and the government in Kabul is expected to contribute as much as $500m. Allies would provide the remaining $1bn.
The funding would maintain a total of 352,000 Afghan Army troops and police officers.
"We are very close and I am certain we will reach that (funding) level," Stoltenberg told reporters. A senior US administration official said NATO has commitments for about 90 percent of the goal.
Stoltenberg said it was too soon to say exactly how many troops individual allies will agree to keep in Afghanistan under NATO's Resolute Support training and advisory mission.
But he said he believed that force levels would remain largely stable, based on commitments made on Saturday. Specific numbers will be finalised this autumn, he said.
READ MORE: NATO leaders discuss perceived Russian threats
Obama administration officials said they believe the number of forces dedicated to the NATO mission will be a bit more than 12,000. The officials were not authorised to discuss the details publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
US Army General Curtis Scaparrotti, the NATO supreme commander, told reporters the US has pledged about 6,700 of that total, about 200 fewer than it currently provides.
He said training and advising of the Afghan air force and special operations forces would be affected. But he added there will be fewer US troops training Afghan conventional forces, although the US will still send teams into the region to assist the army and police.
Earlier this week, Obama announced that overall he would keep 8,400 US troops in Afghanistan, rather than cutting their numbers to 5,500 as he had once planned. In addition to taking part in the NATO advisory-and-assist mission, the US has special operations forces in the country that conduct counterterrorism missions.
The planned force levels allow NATO allies to remain in regional hubs around Afghanistan, with Germany in the north, Italy in the west, Turkey in the capital of Kabul and the US in the east and south.
Baltic deterrence
The Warsaw summit, NATO's first in two years, was considered by many to be the alliance's most important since the Cold War.
On Friday, NATO leaders approved the deployment of four multinational battalions to Poland and the Baltic states to deter Russia, as well as a Romanian-Bulgarian brigade for the Black Sea region.
READ MORE: Is Eastern Europe entering a new Cold War?
Germany will lead a multinational battalion in Lithuania, with similar battalions to be led by the US in Poland, Britain in Estonia and Canada in Latvia.
A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow is willing to cooperate with NATO, even though he said it treats Russia like an enemy.
Russia "has always been open for dialogue" with NATO, especially to fight the "genuine threat" of "terrorism", Dmitry Peskov said.
"Russia is not looking [for an enemy] but it actually sees it happening," Peskov told reporters in Moscow. "When NATO soldiers march along our border and NATO jets fly by, it's not us who are moving closer to the NATO borders."A 16-year-old teen is in police custody after he shot and killed a northeastern Pennsylvania cab driver. The teenager, Aazis Richardson, shot his 47-year-old cab driver twice after the latter refused to heed the shortcut route that the teen wanted the cab driver to take. The frustrated teen believed he was being ripped off by the cab driver and fatally shot him.
Richardson was charged with the murder of the cab driver, Vincent Darbenzio, who was shot twice in the head. Police officials found the cab driver’s body inside his taxi, parked near the entrance of a housing complex at around 5 am, according to ABC News. His lifeless body was found by a co-worker who was trying to locate him after he failed to respond to the company phone calls. Vincent worked for McCarthy Cabs. According to The Times Tribune, before leaving the scene of the crime, the unrepentant teenager also stole $500 from the cab driver’s pockets.
In the criminal complaint filed by the police against the teen. It states:
“Richardson said he got upset because the cab driver was taking the long way and ripping him off.”
Richardson apparently told investigators that the driver did not heed his request to take a shorter route and kept on driving along a longer route. This eventually angered him to the point that he asked the cab driver to pull over, after which he shot him. When asked if being ripped off was a reason to kill a person, Richardson replied, “To me, it is.”
Richardson was found after the police traced the call from a woman that had requested for the McCarthy cab to pick someone up. It was found that the drop point for the cab was a home where Richardson often went. The police conducted a search operation at the property, where Richardson was found hiding inside a shared attic. The handgun used to kill the cab driver was also recovered from the attic. The gun used in the crime was purchased for for $175 from Newark, New Jersey. Richardson also claimed he is a member of the Boyton Boys set of the Bloods gang, and says that he was released from jail recently for being a suspect in a triple homicide in New Jersey.
The woman who had made the call claimed she did not know Richardson and that she had only helped call the cab for him since he didn’t have a phone.
The victim cab driver Vincent Darbenzio had joined McCarthy Cabs just a month ago.
Richardson has been charged with first-, second- and third-degree murder, robbery and carrying a gun without a license for the death of the cab driver. He currently doesn’t have an attorney. This unfortunate piece of news comes just a day after The Inquisitr reported about a New York City cab driver losing his license after he caused an accident that claimed the life of a nine-year-old boy.
[Image Via Lackawanna County Police]Twitter has updated its privacy policy, creating a two-lane service that treats US and non-US users differently. If you live in the US, your account is controlled by San Francisco-based Twitter Inc, but if you're elsewhere in the world (anywhere else) it's handled by Twitter International Company in Dublin, Ireland. The changes also affect Periscope.
What's the significance of this? Twitter Inc is governed by US law, it is obliged to comply with NSA-driven court requests for data. Data stored in Ireland is not subject to the same obligation. Twitter is not alone in using Dublin as a base for non-US operations; Facebook is another company that has adopted the same tactic. The move could also have implications for how advertising is handled in the future.
Ireland is widely recognized as having the most relaxed privacy laws in Europe, and this is something which is important for any company looking to monetize user data through advertising. While data that is processed in Europe may be beyond the immediate reach of the NSA, the policy change could also be seen as a way of trying to sidestep future legislation which may make it more difficult for US-based companies to share data about European users with advertisers.
The changes kick in on 18 May 2015 and Twitter briefly explains them in a policy update post:
If you live outside the United States, our services are now provided to you by Twitter International Company, our company based in Dublin, Ireland. Twitter International Company will be responsible for handling your account information under Irish privacy and data protection law, which is based on the European Union’s Data Protection Directive. If you live in the United States, the services will continue to be provided to you by Twitter, Inc., based in San Francisco, California, under United States law.
Of course avoiding the NSA or making advertising easier are not quite how Twitter explains the reason for the change:
As more people around the world use our services, we’ve expanded our operations to improve how we support our users globally.
It is interesting to see that while San Francisco is used to process US data, Dublin is used to process data from users in every other part of the world. Twitter has also made it clear that users are free to sign up for an account using a pseudonym if they want -- take that, real name policy!
Photo credit: MyImages - Micha / ShutterstockCorrection: Earlier print versions of this article misidentified abortion rights activists who took part in a July walk ouside a Montgomery County middle school. This version has been updated.
Pro-life activists listen to speakers talk during an abortion protest of abortion doctor LeRoy Carhart on December 6 in Germantown. (Ricky Carioti/WASHINGTON POST)
Antiabortion activists who have sought for months to shut down a Germantown clinic picketed its landlord outside a Montgomery County middle school where his daughter is a student, school and police officials said Monday.
A small group of protesters stood outside Robert Frost Middle School in Rockville on Thursday, holding signs and a banner, during back-to-school night, officials said.
The student’s father, who did not want to be named to protect the safety of his daughter, a sixth-grader at the school, said he saw the five protesters when he went to the school event.
Some held a large banner that showed his photo, his full name, his phone number and the words “Please STOP the Child Killing.” Others held posters showing aborted fetuses.
The man owns the property in the Germantown office park where LeRoy Carhart has been performing abortions late in a pregnancy at the privately owned Reproductive Health Services clinic. Antiabortion protesters have repeatedly demonstrated outside the clinic since Carhart arrived in Maryland in December. Carhart is one of the few doctors in the country who openly acknowledges performing the procedure.
Police said no one violated the law outside the school. No arrests were made at the protest or at one on Aug. 29, the first day of school, when two protesters holding antiabortion posters stood for about an hour at the school’s entrance.
The clinic’s landlord said he explained the situation to his daughter and his son, a freshman at nearby Thomas S. Wootton High School, and reassured them that they were safe. Neither child was named in the posters or the banner.
But he said he is furious that the protests targeted his daughter’s school. Both children use their father’s last name.
“It’s horribly outrageous that they’re going out in front of a middle school,” he said. “It is way crossing the line. I very much respect the right of the protesters to do so in front of the clinic, or the steps of Capitol Hill, or the courthouse. But in front of a middle school is really not an appropriate place to do anything except protest for better teacher wages or the school budget.”
The protesters were never on school property, and school security officials are working with county police to “keep those folks away from the school,” Montgomery County schools spokeswoman Lesli Maxwell said. During Back-to-School Night, Frost’s principal made an announcement, telling parents the protests had nothing to do with the school, she said.
“The idea that a group of protesters would target a school because the child of someone they are targeting attends the school... is fairly despicable.” Maxwell added.
Jack Ames, director of a regional antiabortion group called Defend Life, said his group organized the protest at the school because it was a “very good public venue.” Previous demonstrations at the Germantown clinic have been hampered because the clinic is on private property inside an office park.
Ames said the landlord, whose father operated a College Park abortion clinic that was firebombed in the 1980s, was a part-owner of the clinic and should not be allowed to “hide under this cloak of anonymity.”
Michael Martelli, executive director of Maryland Coalition for Life, which last week launched a campaign focusing on the landlord and cancellation of the clinic’s lease, said his group was not involved in the school protests.
“We did not support this,” Martelli said. He said he did not know which group was involved. A letter-writing campaign aimed on the clinic is promoted on a general Web site that lists Martelli’s cellphone as the contact for media inquiries. The Web site address was also listed on a banner held by protesters last week.
The clinic’s landlord said he has received about 100 e-mails and 25 phone calls. In response, he has asked volunteers to help him in a counter-campaign to call and e-mail thanks to each person who has contacted him.
Staff researcher Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court fired another salvo in its war on democracy with its decision in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission (PDF). In the 5- 4 opinion, the conservative members of the Court joined forces to ensure that the wealthy in our country have even more influence in American politics. I know many of you are thinking: is that even possible? And the answer is yes.
This Supreme Court decision struck a provision of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 that had limited the aggregate amount an individual could contribute to federal candidates in a year to $48,600 and to other political committees (DNC, RNC, PACs, etc.) to $74,600.
What does this mean as a practical matter? Well, as the dissenting opinion of Justice Breyer pointed out, the Court has now created, “a loophole that will allow a single individual to contribute millions of dollars to a political party or to a candidate’s campaign.”
But this is not the first time the Supreme Court, or more accurately the five Republican-appointed justices, have sided with big business and the wealthy over the average voter. These conservative justices’ war on democracy began with its infamous Citizen’s United decision in 2010, invalidating federal laws that restricted corporations and unions from spending their funds on electioneering. The result was that these entities could spend unlimited amounts of money to influence voters and it paved the way for the creation of the monstrosities known as Super PACs.
And then in 2012, the same five justices struck down the 100-year-old Montana Corrupt Practices Act, which had banned corporations from spending money to influence elections in that State. The law was enacted in 1912 to stop the wealthy mining company owners, known as the “Copper Kings,” from bribing elected officials, buying judges and controlling newspapers.
Campaign finance laws, often enacted in a bipartisan manner, were designed to counter corruption and give people confidence in the integrity of our elections. But now they are falling like dominoes—and that’s truly a threat to our democracy.
As Justice Breyer noted in his dissent (PDF), the decision yesterday, taken together with Citizen’s United, “eviscerates our nation’s campaign finance laws leaving a remnant incapable of dealing with the grave problems of democratic legitimacy that those laws were intended to resolve.”
Lets be brutally honest. Does anyone doubt that a political candidate will be more receptive to a person who can donate millions to support his/her campaign over an individual who can only offer their vote?
I can tell you first hand, as someone who has attended hundreds of political fundraisers over the years, that money matters. It is the lifeblood of politics. And the more money you can contribute, the more influence and access you will have to elected officials. For example, I recently attended a $5,000-a-ticket fundraiser for a political committee. (Mine was free.) I was amazed at the high level of congressional leaders at this event who not only attended, but also discussed with the attendees concrete ways to shape public policy.
I can’t even imagine the influence that a billionaire like Sheldon Adelson, who can offer millions to candidates. But we did saw a small an example of it over the weekend when Chris Christie apologized for using the term “occupied territories” when speaking of the Palestinians in the West Bank because Adelson objects to that term.
Our campaign finance system has become so grotesquely obscene that even Newt Gingrich recently bemoaned the influence that the super-rich have on it—both those on the right like his former benefactor Adelson and the left like George Soros.
We are already seeing people lose confidence in our democracy because of the obscene amounts of money that corporations and the wealthy can throw at elections. A 2012 study by the Brennan Center for Justice found 65 percent of Americans say they trust government less because of the influence the wealthy have via Super PACs. Sixty-nine percent of people polled believe that unlimited campaign contributions to Super PACs will lead to corruption, including 74 percent of Republicans and 73 percent of Democrats.
Worst of all, 26 percent of Americans say they are less likely to vote because of the influx of huge campaign donations. I can safely predict that the number of people who feel that their vote is meaningless when compared to the millions that the wealthy and corporations can spend on campaigns will rise after today’s Supreme Court decision.
So where do we go from here? We have a Supreme Court controlled by five conservative justices who are squarely pro-big business and the wealthy at the peril of the average citizen. Perhaps Congress will consider, as I wrote about in the past, super-taxing the Super PACs. (Right now contributions to Super PACs are considered gifts under the tax code, so they don’t pay taxes on these massive donations.)
Or perhaps it’s time for a government-funded campaign finance system, which is supported by 50 percent of those polled in 2013. I would also predict you will see an increase in that number after the Court’s latest assault on campaign finance restrictions.
Those may help but in reality, but nothing will truly change until the current conservative control of the Supreme Court ends.For years, folks have taken to the dunes to experience the thrill of skiing in a unique, warmer way. But GoPro just released a video that has changed the sand-skiing game forever. It takes place in Peru and features Jesper Tjäder and Emma Dahlstrom taking their world-class skills to mountains covered in tan instead of white. We could go on all day about how rad this is, but it’s probably just best if you watch it over and over again right now.
Grams from the crew:
Tomorrow will be exciting 😍 #peru #dunes #release P: @GoPro #HERO4 #GoPro A photo posted by Emma Dahlström (@emmadahlstrom_) on Dec 6, 2016 at 11:28am PST
A photo posted by Jesper Tjäder (@jespertjader) on Jul 24, 2016 at 5:47am PDT
A photo posted by Jesper Tjäder (@jespertjader) on Jul 23, 2016 at 5:19am PDTSen. Rand Paul sent a reminder to his colleagues on Thursday that preserving the current budget caps is important if Republicans have any intention of enforcing fiscal restraint.
“If the House passes a CR with a waiver of paygo budget caps, I will force a Senate vote to keep caps in place,” Paul tweeted.
If the House passes a CR with a waiver of paygo budget caps, I will force a Senate vote to keep caps in place. — Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) December 21, 2017
PAYGO, or “pay as you go” was a 2010 budget law that requires spending cuts to Medicare and other programs if legislation is approved that adds to the deficit. Paul will introduce a point of order to oppose waiving these budget caps, which would require the vote of 60 senators. The Republicans currently hold 51 senate seats.
Sen. Paul praised the recently passed tax bill, adding that staying within the budget caps would bring much-needed spending cuts to Washington.
In a video posted to his Twitter account Thursday, Paul says not enough Republicans believe in “spending restraint,” noting that the budgets caps have been exceeded 29 times and have added over $6 trillion to the national debt.
Calling all conservatives, libertarians, and anyone who believes in limited government: call your legislatures and say don’t exceed the budget caps and vote for Rand Paul’s point of order, which will prevent us from exceeding the budget caps. pic.twitter.com/5eOKpYDfY7 — Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) December 21, 2017
This is not a new position for the senator. Back in October, Paul said he wanted to eliminate the $43 billion in funding foreign wars that exceeds the federal budget caps Congress previously agreed to in 2011.
The senator said he was prepared to vote “no” on the GOP budget if congressional leaders refused to cut spending.
“I’ve told them I’m a ‘yes’ if they’ll not exceed the budget caps,” Paul said. “If leadership is unwilling to compromise with somebody who is concerned about the debt, then they deserve to lose.”
In Thursday’s video, the senator implored conservatives and libertarians to contact their legislators to encourage them to vote for his point of order.
Jonathan Bydlak, president and founder of the non-partisan Coalition to Reduce Spending (and Rare contributor) told Rare, “When it comes to spending, members of Congress almost never limit themselves, and when they do, they immediately start looking for ways around those rules.”
Bydlak believes the self-imposed limits are crucial to forcing Congress to be fiscally responsible. “Of course limits like PAYGO put lawmakers in a difficult position where they have to find ways to cut spending—that’s the point,” Bydlak said.
Bydlak added, “It’s crucial not to make another mockery of budget rules.”We learned a few more details of Lucid’s autonomous system at their event this weekend in LA, one of which is its apparent name: “Copilot.” This may well just be a placeholder name for development purposes and could change before production, but the instrument cluster demo showed the name clearly as you can see in the picture above. Given Tesla’s similar “autopilot” name – which has gotten them in some trouble with the authorities in Germany and California – “copilot” is definitely an interesting choice, and perhaps one less likely to result in legal questions.
As for some other details of the system, it was already confirmed that Lucid would use MobilEye for their front-facing camera and image processing system. But the car will also incorporate many other sensors, which you can see below the break.
While Lucid is currently doing some autonomous drive testing on their own (though they do not currently have a permit through California’s Autonomous Vehicle Tester Program), their vehicles will not be fully autonomous when first released, as they’ll have to collect more data before they have enough to enable the system. Lucid thinks it will take another six months after launch before they are able to enable full autonomous driving. Considering, however, that they will likely have fewer than 5,000 cars on the road at that point – based on their estimate of 10,000 cars delivered in the first year – it seems very optimistic that they will have collected enough miles of data to enable a truly autonomous driving system in so little time.
For comparison, Teslas are not currently fully autonomous, and as of three months ago they had accumulated 1.3 billion miles of data – certainly orders of magnitude more than Lucid will have in the first six months after delivery. But Lucid’s system does seem to gather at least as much data as Tesla’s, and probably even more given the greater diversity of sensors, so they might be able to achieve a bit of catch-up with higher quality data.
Here you can see that Lucid’s sensor suite consists of much more than MobilEye’s camera and image processing unit. The three front cameras are supplied by MobilEye, as is the computer which interprets their data. But Lucid will have to write their own software to interpret and integrate MobilEye’s input along with the input of the six Radar and four LiDAR sensors on the car.
The autonomous sensors aren’t in their final packaging yet, and the cars on display only had the front-facing LiDAR system installed, so we were unable to get pictures of any of the other sensors. You can see what the unit looks like in the shots of the rolling “camo” chassis above. The unit, which is supplied by Valeo, is “solid-state” – rather than the large spinning LiDAR system mounted atop some other autonomous prototypes (e.g. Google, Ford), any moving parts are self-contained within the unit.
The “show car” didn’t have active sensor units installed, but did show a mockup of what the units might eventually look like. The closeup photos above show the front and rear bumpers – where LiDAR and radar units are expected to be installed.
What do you think of Lucid’s autonomous drive ambitions? Will they be able to deliver on their promises?
We still have more insights to come from the event, so stay tuned for over the next couple days.
correction: this article previously stated that the LiDAR unit was supplied by Velodyne, it is actually supplied by Valeo.HORROR! Thugs Bully and Brutally Beat Massachusetts Teens Out Enjoying Boardwalk (VIDEO)
HORROR! Thugs Bully and Brutally Beat Quincy Teens — Who Were Enjoying the Boardwalk in Marina Bay in Quincy
A group of white kids were just hanging out at the Marina near Quincy, Massachusetts when the gang of minority youths approached them.
That’s when the thugs beat the hell out of the young kids.
The criminal mob beat the kids and kicked them on the ground.
They kicked them in the head and mobbed up on them.
Some other kid came over and rescued the younger boys from the mob.
This will make your stomach churn.
Boston 25 reported on the story but blocked out the faces to PROTECT THE THUGS because of their ages.
Video showing a group of teenagers brutally attacking another in Quincy is extremely graphic and hard to watch, but police are hoping the images can be used to identify those behind the assault. The attack on a group of teens by the other group was recorded on a cell phone, and police said it’s a critical clue to help find those responsible. Boston 25 News blurred out the faces of those responsible because of their ages. The attack was reported around 5 p.m. on a dock near Marina Bay and appears to show a group of boys that are surrounded by another group, and they begin to taunt them and use inappropriate language. That’s when the hitting begins. When the boys try to walk away, that’s when one of them was thrown to the ground. As he cowers on the pier trying to protect himself, he is then kicked and punched by another teen.Mark Cuban, who endorsed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, said Thursday he’s considering running for president as a Republican so he could “go head on with Trump right in the primaries.”
“There’s nothing I’d have more fun doing,” the owner of the Dallas Mavericks said Thursday on CNBC.
Cuban acknowledged, however, that he’d prefer to run as an independent.
“Republican before Democrat, most likely independent because I think a lot — I think there’s an incremental value for setting up an independent candidacy. Now, I understand the difficulties of that and the challenges of that from an infrastructure perspective, but the positives of doing it as a Republican means you get to go head on with Trump right in the primaries. There’s nothing I’d have more fun doing. The benefit of being an independent is you go right to the golden ticket time, right. And if I get enough support in the polls, then I get to participate with the debates, which is right up there with something,” he said.
Host Andrew Ross Sorkin then asked if he was serious about running.
The billionaire businessman only committed to “considering” it but pointed to the burden it would place on his three young children.
“What caring, loving parent would put their three young children through the disaster I mean my now 14-year-old girl, it’s hard enough raising a 14-year-old girl it’s really hard raising a 14-year-old girl and, you know, the thought of what she’d have to face over the next couple of years on social media and from her friends and particularly in a red state, that’s not, you know, a comforting thought,” he said.
Last month Cuban said much the same, telling CNN he’s considering it but is not ready to commit.Arkham Asylum is a home for the 'criminally insane'. The prisoners there are the most dangerous people in the Batman universe. It makes Gotham's plan to let them loose in their own neighbourhood beyond dumb. But dumb ideas make for interesting games.
Arkham City expands everything that made 2009's third-person action game Arkham Asylum so much fun: five times more space for the criminals to settle into and for Batman to roam, more Batpunches in his repertoire, and a better class of criminal with Two-Face, Catwoman, the Riddler and Professor Hugo Strange joining the Joker and his team of jesters. And an expanded arsenal of gadgets and weapons expands the previous game's tally.
Arkham Asylum was hardly cramped, but now there's more vertical space to take advantage of. Taking cues from both the Assassin's Creed and Just Cause series, Bats will be able to climb on almost anything, using telephone wires to silently get around, topping buildings to get a view on the criminal scum below before leaping off like a leathery missile. He can even use his grappling hook to boost into the air and insta-glide.
The slick combo fighting system, which gave Batman the edge over multiple foes in the asylum, has been tweaked. Bats is now able to counter multiple attacks from all angles, and a perfectly timed attack has a chance to instantly take down a thug. More excitingly, there's a new beatdown mechanic, where you simply unload a flurry of blows into |
ating yourself to them. But just in case, here are a few tips to help you communicate with crossdressers, or anyone, your might find online.Please enable Javascript to watch this video
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — “I was traumatized,” a teenage boy said. “You could see your life flash before your eyes like this. I’m like I’m finna die.”
A boy stood on the same streets where he thought he would die on Saturday.
WREG agreed to hide the identity of a 17-year-old boy because he was just raped.
With his family by his side and with their permission, the teen told WREG he is still scared for his life after the attack.
“I’m thinking about what he finna do,” the victim said.
It was around noon on Friday when the teen was headed to a friend’s house on Evergreen near Vollentine Elementary School when Marvin Bruce approached.
“He was like I’m trying to sell a phone,” the teenager said.
However, when the boy refused the offer and tried to help police said, Bruce pulled out a knife and demanded the teen to walk with him.
“We (were) walking down there and we got to right there where those bushes are and he told me to take out the money and give it to him,” the victim said.
The high school student was robbed for $2.00 and forced into a passageway behind the school.
“He told me to sit down, and he sat down and laid down and he unbuckled his pants and pulled out a condom and made me put it on him,” the teenage explained.
The boy was forced to perform a sex act, according to police.
The teen said, “He was like saying like ‘you like this’ and ‘you want this’ and was like ‘I’m going to give it to you.'”
The teen told WREG he was confused and hoping someone would see what was happening in broad daylight and help.
“He told me to get up on my knees, and he walked behind me and he was finna get ready and bend me over,” the victim explained.
However, the teenager said Bruce stopped for some reason, pulled up his pants and threw the teen’s clothes over a fence to keep him from following.
Police said Bruce ran away, but they later caught him hiding in someone’s backyard.
“You can’t be safe out here — walking to a friend’s house or nowhere. You can’t be nice to people,” the victim told WREG.
The teenager is still working through the trauma but said he is looking for justice.
“I hope he stays locked up forever,” the teen said.
Marvin Bruce is charged with aggravated rape, aggravated robbery, and kidnapping.
He is being held on a $500,000 bond and expected to be in court on Monday.In his 1944 opus “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive,” the philosopher Johnny Mercer provided some bracing imperatives that, rightly understood, explain why I am supporting Ted Cruz for the presidency of the United States.
“You've got to accentuate the positive,” Mercer argued.
Eliminate the negative Latch on to the affirmative Don't mess with Mister In-Between.
Quite right. These imperatives, while not quite categorical, are sufficiently compelling to command our attention. Ted Cruz is the only candidate who accentuates the positive, who latches on to the affirmative.
1. Executive power. Even many ardent supporters of President Obama have been taken aback by his style of governance, which has increasingly relied on two extra-constitutional expedients: a) executive diktat and b) regulatory hypertrophy.
Regarding the first: Every president, on taking the oath of office, promises to “preserve, protect, and defend” the Constitution and “faithfully execute” the laws. But Barack Obama has conspicuously failed to do this. Item: When enacting some provisions of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) turned out to be politically inexpedient, Obama simply declined to enforce them, “legislating,” as one report put it, “from the White House.” Item: When the state of Arizona sought to enforce immigration laws that were on the books but that Obama did not like, he ordered Border Patrol agents to ignore the law. This is just the beginning of a very long list.
Regarding the second: the Obama administration has vastly expanded the prerogatives of such agencies as the Environmental Protection Agency (just one example), which presides over a budget in excess of $8 billion and a workforce of more than 15,000. Increasingly, this alphabet soup of regulatory agencies, whose minions are unelected and essentially unaccountable to the public, impedes economic growth and harasses citizens with a burdensome regimen of bureaucratic paperwork and often pointless oversight. As Hayek noted in The Road to Serfdom, a low-level government bureaucrat wields much more power over our lives than a billionaire who might happen to be our neighbor or even our employer, for he comes bearing the coercive power of the state.
Ted Cruz is the only candidate, Democrat or Republican, who understands and is prepared to address the twin dangers of executive overreach and the stealth statism of regulatory bloat.
You are always hearing, even from those who do not support him, that Ted Cruz is “a constitutionalist.” In other words, he believes that the governance of this country should be guided by that amazing, 8000-word document the Constitution of the United States. At the center of the Constitution are two ideas: 1) that power should be dispersed and decentralized and 2) the People are sovereign. It is sometimes forgotten that the Constitution is essentially a prophylactic instrument, designed to protect the people from the state. The Founders were careful to frame a government in which the executive exists to execute, not to make the laws. That is why the first thing you come upon, in Article I, is a discussion of Congress, into whose hands the Founders intended to invest the essential law-making power of the government. There is some irony, perhaps, that Ted Cruz wishes to assume the office of the president in order to circumscribe the power of that office. But the fact that something is ironical need not detract from its truth. Barack Obama is the fulfillment of a long process of power consolidation in the hands of the president. He has not governed so much as he has ruled, partly by fiat, partly by intimidation. I believe that Ted Cruz would reverse that decades-long process whereby the president of the Untied States mutated into a sort of imperial bureaucrat. His ambition to limit the scope of presidential ambition would alone be sufficient reason to support Ted Cruz.
But there is more, much more. One of the curiosities of the reign of Barack Obama is that while he has vastly increased the power of the state domestically, when it comes to the world outside, to national security, he has gravely weakened the United States, both physically, in terms of its military strength, and psychologically, in terms of that diffuse but indisputably potent resource, prestige. ISIS rages, Russia buzzes our warships and reconnaissance planes, China militarizes the South China Sea. We do... nothing. Which brings me to...
2. National security. Ted Cruz would reverse the policy of spineless accommodation underwritten by a globalist suspicion of U.S. power that has characterized the Obama administration from the president’s grand “apology tour” in the opening weeks of his administration to the appalling side “deal” he recently made with Iran, funneling billions upon billions of dollars to a regime whose central ambition, apart from the enabling contingency of acquiring nuclear weapons, is the destruction of Israel.
Like Ronald Reagan, Cruz understands the deep truth implicit in the motto “peace through strength.” A strong military may facilitate war; weakness and capitulation tend to precipitate it. Strength keeps the peace; weakness and irresolution invite dangerous adventurism among our rivals and opponents. In pursuit of a stronger United States, Cruz has promised to increase military spending to at least 4 percent of GDP. He has promised to scrap the illicit accommodation with Iran that Obama circumvented the Senate to extend. And he has made it clear that, when he is president, we will no longer have to fear calling Islamic terrorism by its real name. Cruz has furthermore made it clear that in his administration, national self-interest, not a Wilsonian attachment to fostering world democracy, would be the cornerstone of his foreign policy. Such a policy might offer fewer opportunities for grand-sounding utopian rhetoric, but it will do far more to foster the security not only of the United States but also of the rest of the world.
I suspect that national security issues are going to impinge more and more urgently on our lives as the time bombs bequeathed to us by nearly eight years of President Clueless begin to detonate. The people of the United States, and indeed of the world, will thank their lucky stars that the country will be guided by a mature, pro-American patriot who understands the metabolism of power and is not afraid to call things by their real names.
Of course, it is not only on the international scene that Barack Obama has proceeded against American interests like a wrecking ball. There is also the shambles he has made of our economy, from that fiscally incontinent disaster that is Obamacare to the mind-boggling, anti-prosperity agenda that is his energy policy. And that brings me to number...
3. Economic policy. It is no secret that the U.S. economy is stagnant. Growth is the fuel that powers prosperity, but growth on Obama’s watch has been anemic at best. Ted Cruz understands that unfettered capitalism is the most powerful engine for the production of wealth that the world has ever seen. He has set forth in meticulous detail a freedom agenda that would lower taxes and streamline government and its regulatory militia, beginning with the Internal Revenue Service, which he promises to abolish. People scoff at that, thinking it is just hustings hyperbole. I think he is in earnest, and I like it. The current tax code runs to seventy-six thousand pages. It is a bureaucratic monstrosity of historic proportions. The IRS is charged with collecting taxes. Under Obama, it has been weaponized as a battalion of ideological gauleiters, bent on imposing certain left-wing social policies by granting or withholding the oxygen of its approval. Cruz would change all that. He has outlined a compelling and radically simplified tax plan, one of whose signal selling points is a tax form the size of a post card. I write on the eve of tax day 2016. How I would have preferred to file this:
Reining in executive power. Returning sovereignty to the people. Restoring the prestige and capability of the U.S. military. Lowering taxes, abolishing the IRS, and unleashing economic prosperity. I believe that Ted Cruz would actually do these things. His agenda is a pro-growth, pro-American agenda. I believe further that he understands, viscerally as well as intellectually, the fundamental importance of free speech and (what is part of free speech) religious liberty to the integrity of our institutions and our way of life. A couple of years ago, when the Senate Judiciary Committee (then presided over by Democrats) proposed amending the First Amendment in order to circumvent the defense of political free speech enshrined in the Citizens United case, Ted Cruz proposed an alternative. He read aloud on the Senate floor the text of the First Amendment and called for a vote. Every Democrat senator voted against it. Yes, that’s right: they voted against the First Amendment. It has been pointed out to me that some of the senators may not have recognized the text. That is possible, I suppose. I don’t think I would call it reassuring. One of the things you hear in favor of Ted Cruz is that he is a potent debater. I have to say I thought that performance was a master stroke.
The bottom line is this: Ted Cruz stands head and shoulders above anyone else as an affirmative candidate. He accentuates the positive, as Johnny Mercer so eloquently enjoined us to do, and latches on to the affirmative. That’s the task that Ted Cruz set himself. It is up to us, the voters, to eliminate the negative and say goodbye to Mister In-Between.
PJ Media does not endorse candidates, but its columnists are free to do. It is my honor to take this occasion on the veritable eve of the New York primary to endorse Ted Cruz for president. He is an honorable man who has a deep and pragmatic understanding of how the American system of government actually works. More important, he understands the American soul. His critics complain that he does not get on with his Senate colleagues, many of whom, they point out, dislike him. But they dislike him precisely because since assuming office in 2012 he has battled to serve the people, not the Washington establishment. The 19th-century man-of-letters William Dean Howells once pointed out that for a critic, the problem is not making enemies but keeping them. The same should be true of politicians, for whom universal assent usually betokens universal corruption.
Often in politics one finds oneself rooting for the lesser of two evils, a compromise candidate. But in the case of Ted Cruz, we have a candidate who is more energizing and affirmative than anyone since Ronald Reagan. America faces a myriad of problems, foreign and domestic. But America is also blessed with extraordinary resources, from our political institutions to our material assets and geographically protected situation. As Ronald Reagan demonstrated, a forceful and enlightened leader can accomplish extraordinary things in America. Ted Cruz is just such a leader. I do not know what Ted Cruz’s favorite verse from the Bible is. But I am morally certain it is not “An eye for an eye.” More likely, I’d wager, it is something like “You will know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” I hope you’ll bypass the cliches that have accumulated like barnacles upon the reputation of Ted Cruz and see for yourself what he stands for. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.One of the things that Stacy learned when she was in California was that there are some of you out there that refer to her as “The Broth Lady.” I guess that’s understandable. I mean, I’ve named an entire line of soups after her and she does constantly posts photos like this and started the #bonebrothheals hashtag.
Now the reason she’s obsessed with stock is that it is truly a great nourishing and nutrient dense food. Especially since it has collagen building properties due to the gelatin; who doesn’t want glycine, proline and all kinds of awesome amino-acid goodness?! You like healthy joints and skin? That’s why you need gelatin. That’s why we included it as a third phase healing food in 3 Phase Paleo! Plus, with Stacy training to be strong lately the added protein in “on-the-go treat” form is awesome!
But what if you could get gelatin in a fun and even kid friendly way? And what if you could include the probiotic, gut healing properties of fermented kombucha? That’s why we made kombucha gelatin (not to be confused with another house favorite, kombucha & gin)! What’s SO COOL about using kombucha instead of fruit juice is that it’s fizzy and created a really cool foamy texture when it hardens!
Yep, we made fruit snacks! Not unique perhaps, but we had a lot of fun doing it! We decidedly like the kinds with fruit puree in them best, with half the house split between strawberries and citrus as our favorites. The plain kombucha tastes much more like classic jell-0, for those who are interested in that sort of texture. Best part about the Kombucha flavor is that it’s completely unsweetened and 21 Day Sugar Detox approved!
Meanwhile, the other two flavors use only minimal amount of fruit to sweeten them, making it a easily digestible protein-rich form with moderate fiber rich carbs your body could love, even postWOD!
We’ve tried a bazillion gummy recipes. Without some sort of sugar as a sweetener we haven’t been able to achieve that classic chewiness you might want, but we’ve come to love the jello-like texture of making them ourselves with grass-fed gelatin. Between the vitamins and minerals (including fiber) from the fruit puree and the collagen-rich gelatin, we LOVE that these fruit snacks are a nutrient-dense food source that our children beg for.
Print Fruit Snacks – Healthy Nourishing Gummies Ingredients Kombucha Fruit Snacks
1 C kombucha (we like GingerBerry)
1/4 C boiling water
1 Tbsp lemon or lime juice
1/4 C (4 Tbsp) gelatin
1/4 tsp stevia (optional - we didn't use any)
Strawberry Fruit Snacks
1/2 C boiling water
1/2 C (8 Tbsp) gelatin
1 Tbsp lemon or lime juice
1 C kombucha or fruit juice (we used Guava Goddess)
1 C pureed strawberries (thawed from frozen or bruised/overripe and juicy are best)
Vitamin C Gummies
1/2 C boiling water
1/2 C citrus juice (we used mango/orange/pineapple 100% juice blend)
1 Tbsp lemon or lime juice
1 C citrus puree (pineapple or mango thawed from frozen or orange puree with the skins and pithe removed)
1/2 C (8 Tbsp) gelatin Instructions Gather all of your ingredients, as you'll move quickly and you don't want the gelatin setting before you're ready to use it! Put gelatin in a small mixing bowl and set-aside molds or dish gelatin will set-up in. Combine all ingredients, except boiling water, in a food processor or high-speed blender and puree on high. When ready to mix and pour, combine boiling water into small gelatin dish until gelatin is fully dissolved. Quickly add gelatin mixture and blend again until fully incorporated. Pour this mixture into a 9x9 pyrex or molds (no need to oil or powder) and transfer to the refrigerator. Chill at least an hour, overnight preferred, then cut into 1" squares to serve and enjoy! 3.1 http://realeverything.com/gelatin-jigglers-fruit-snacks-healthy-nourishing-gummies/
If you want other ideas for fun gummies to make, try these recipes from Elana’s Pantry, Balanced Bites, Primal Palate and Wellness Mama!
Also, these gum drops from Fed and Fit were an extremely popular guest post you should check out. They’d be great to make with or without a gingerbread house!The curtain has drawn on a dramatic day at Toronto City Hall in which Mayor Rob Ford admitted that he had smoked crack cocaine, though the defiant chief magistrate is making no plans to step down from his job.
Ford made the shocking admission late Tuesday morning and spoke again with reporters hours later, describing his shame at hiding the truth from his family and colleagues.
The admission was "the most difficult and embarrassing thing I have ever had to do," Ford told a crush of media gathered at city hall.
The mayor, speaking in a slow, grave tone and wearing an NFL logos tie, said he was "ashamed" but felt like "1,000 pounds have been lifted off my shoulders" after his earlier admission that he has used crack cocaine.
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford told reporters late Tuesday that publicly admitting he had smoked crack cocaine was the most embarrassing moment of his life. (Chris Young/Canadian Press)
"To the residents of Toronto, I know I have let you down and I can't do anything else but apologize and apologize, and I'm so sorry," he said.
The mayor also absolved his brother, Coun. Doug Ford, of having any knowledge about his substance abuse issues.
"I kept this from my family — especially my brother, Doug — my staff, my council colleagues, because I was embarrassed and ashamed," he said, with his brother standing to his right.
Despite the many calls for him to step down, Ford said he still had a job to do at city hall.
"I was elected to do a job and that’s exactly what I’m going to continue doing," Ford said, telling reporters that voters will decide next year when the municipal election is held if he should keep his job as mayor.
Ford’s admission that he had smoked crack cocaine comes after months of denials.
"Folks, I have nothing left to hide," Ford said.
‘I have smoked crack cocaine’
When Ford made his admission during the midday, he told reporters it probably occurred "in one of my drunken stupors" about a year ago.
"Yes, I have smoked crack cocaine," Ford said.
"But, no — do I? Am I an addict? No. Have I tried it? Um, probably in one of my drunken stupors, probably approximately about a year ago."
The mayor suggested that he hadn’t been lying when reporters previously asked him about his drug use, questions raised after a series of media reports about an alleged video of him smoking crack cocaine.
The mayor had denied that video’s existence, but Toronto police Chief Bill Blair has said it is now in the possession of police. Ford has since called for that video to be released for all to see.
"So, I wasn’t lying. You didn’t ask the correct questions,” Ford said Tuesday, referring to the prior questions he had faced about using drugs.
"No, I’m not an addict and no, I do not do drugs. I made mistakes in the past and all I can do is apologize, but it is what it is and I can’t change the past."
"Yes, I've made mistakes, all I can do now is apologize and move on," the mayor said. "I can apologize to my family, my friends, my colleagues and the people of this great city."
The CBC’s Jamie Strashin reported Tuesday that Ford’s staff members were told about the plans to admit his drug use only minutes before the mayor spoke to reporters.
Ford colleagues react
Ford'sadmission of drug use drew immediate response from colleagues at city hall. Many are calling for the mayor to step aside to sort out his personal issues.
Coun. Jaye Robinson said that Ford does not have even “a shred of credibility,” and she wants to see him take a leave of absence.
Coun. Jaye Robinson says the mayor does not have even 'a shred of credibility,' following his admission that he has smoked crack cocaine. (CBC)
"The real issue is getting the mayor to address his health issues, step aside [and] take a leave of absence, as I’ve been saying for six long months," said Robinson. "And now he’s coming forward and he’s admitting that there is clearly a problem here."
Robinson was previously a member of the mayor’s executive committee, though she was ousted from her position as the chair of the community and recreation development committee after she urged Ford to take a leave of absence.
After the mayor held his second news conference to apologize, Coun. Josh Matlow said that Ford simply needs to go.
The same day that Ford admitted to using crack cocaine, news broke that councillors have prepared at least two separate motions related to his behaviour.
Coun. John Filion represents Ward 23, Willowdale, an area he says is "hugely overpopulated" with condos. (Patrick Morrell/CBC)
One motion from Coun. John Filion seeks to strip the mayor of his ability to hire or fire the deputy mayor, or any of the standing committee chairs.
A second motion from Coun. Denzil Minnan-Wong calls on the mayor to apologize, co-operate with police in their investigation and to take a temporary leave of absence.
"I think it’s time for him to take a break," Minnan-Wong said when speaking with reporters on Tuesday afternoon, about an hour after the mayor admitted to having smoked crack cocaine.
Other councillors tweeted reactions:
Premier Kathleen Wynne said Tuesday that she had heard the mayor’s admission, but left it to the police and the judicial system to "take action."
When speaking with reporters, Wynne said that what has been going at city hall "is of great concern to everyone in the city of Toronto."
The city’s former deputy mayor Doug Holyday said Tuesday that he respects what Ford has accomplished as mayor, but that the mayor must deal with the issues in his personal life.
Holyday won a seat in the provincial legislature during a summer byelection, which led to his recent departure from city hall.
It was unclear Tuesday how Ford's sudden admission of prior drug use will affect his future as Toronto's mayor. There is no legal mechanism to remove him from office for using drugs.
Ford, 44, was elected as the mayor of Toronto three years ago. He still has another year to go in his current term. The mayor has said he intends to run for a second term.Days ago, he predicted that next year’s election campaign is going to be "a bloodbath."
A controversial tenure
During his time as mayor, Ford has consistently drawn headlines both for his work at city hall and his life outside of it.
Alongside the recent questions about his drug use, Ford has also faced questions about the people he associates with in his private life.
Toronto police undertook an investigation into allegations regarding the video, which involved following the mayor and other individuals. Ground and aerial surveillance were used.
That investigation saw police charge Alexander Lisi, also known as Sandro or Alessandro, with extortion.
Ford has said that Lisi, who has served as an occasional driver for the mayor, is a friend.
The drug controversy is not the only high-profile challenge Ford has faced in office.
He faced a conflict-of-interest challenge that saw a judge order him removed from office, but he ended up winning an appeal and hanging onto his job.
Ford also faced a defamation lawsuit that was eventually dismissed.
On a number of occasions, Ford has been accused of acting strangely or inappropriately at public events. During his most recent Sunday radio broadcast, he apologized for "mistakes" he had made, including getting “hammered” at the Taste of the Danforth street festival this year and in letting things get out of control on St. Patrick’s Day last year.
Recently, Ford faced criticism for writing reference letters for Lisi, who also faces drug charges and has been convicted of threatening to kill his girlfriend, as well as for a tow truck driver who is a convicted murderer.About Act
Act is a Retina Display Ready Multipurpose Nonprofit Charity WordPress Theme built with HTML5 & CSS3. It is perfect for nonprofit website that you can use it for any professional company or any small groups,which aim to collect donations.Taking the specific features which is explained comprehesively in the documentation below into consideration,be sure that you are on the right place.
One Click Demo Installation – Creating your website has never been much easier ever. If you would like to have your demo just like ours, all you need to do is just to click the ‘One Click’ demo importer. With the help of the ‘one Click’, your website will be seen like ours saving your time.You can also change easly any elements you wish on your website.
Unlimited Color – you can find any kind of color options you are looking for and can use them at any part of your own webiste.
Woocommerce – Act has the specific features that you can sell your stuff via woocommerce plugin.
Crowdfunding System – We are,as a designer of Act,clearly aware of the fact that it is difficult to find a fund for project.In this regard,you will be able to get the money you need from anyone who care about your website with the help of Crowdfunding System.
Shop Pages – Act allows you to create related beautiful shopping pages in one click.You have the ability to change the number of the shopping pages or add anything you desire to take place on your pages.
Donate Section – You can get any donation on your website from the ones who runs your blog.
Unlimited Google Font – Act has a great number of google font that you can customize any element inluding title,subtitle,body etc. in your website.
Blog Shortcodes – You are able to add any customized visual elements like with the help of shortcode Act has.
Easy Installation and Demo Data - Act presents much more simplicity to you in order to create your own website considering your needs.In this regard,what you exactly need to do is to import your data in o click at first and then just to copy your content into the pre-made templade and finally you get and run the same website in a few minutes.
Easy to Customize – You have the controll over your website because Act presents a simple but comprehensive options including change color or fonts for its clients.
Revolution Slider - If you want to give the ability to your website to be seen fully touch screen,we definitely recommend you to use our great sliders which already exist in Act.You dont have to purchase them from anywhere else.
Translation – Act has the.po files which means you can translate website into any language you like.
Advanced Theme Options Panel – You can build your own layout though the use of amazing page builder of our admin pannel.
Contactform 7 – thanks to the plugin of contact form,you have the capability of establishing a form page with the easy usage of the plugin as you wish and you can get all messages by your clients as an e-mail as well.
Boostrap 3 - The theme built based on the latest version of boostrap which caters your need of standards.
Support – We have a professional and dedicated support team for your all questions regarding our theme.We try to do our best in respect to serving you by replying your question in a great way and on time.So let us know if you any one.
Theme Features
Visual Composer
Revolution Slider
Stripe Donation
Crowdfunding System
Woocommerce Plugin
Color Customization
Shop Pages
Donate Section
Revolution Slider
Event List Page
Events Details Page
Events Calendar
Advanced theme option panel
Blog Ready
Blog Post Type(Audio,Video,Image)
Blog With Sidebar
Blog Layouts
Blog Shortcode
Unlimited Google Fonts
Typograhy Option (Font-family,Font-size,font-color etc.)
Easy Installation and demo data
Supported Contactform 7
Services
Built in Bootstrap 3
Parallax Background
Optimized Code
Mobile Responsive
Tablet Responsive
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Simple & Easy to Use/Customize
Working Contact Form
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Well Documented
Coming Soon
Woocommerce (added)
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Events Details Page(completed)
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Causes Page and Crowdfunding System(completed)
Video Tutorial(completed)
Stripe Donation(completed)
Visual Composer(completed)
changelog v2.8.6 --WPBakery Page Builder plugin has been updated. --The bug was fixed. v2.8.5 --WPBakery Page Builder plugin has been updated. --WooCommerce has been updated. --Theme option has been updated. --The bug was fixed. v2.8.4 --WPBakery Page Builder plugin has been updated. --WooCommerce has been updated. --The bug was fixed. v2.8.3 --WPBakery Page Builder plugin has been updated. --WooCommerce has been updated. --Revolution Slider has been updated. --The bug was fixed. v2.8.2 --Revolution Slider has been updated. --The bug was fixed. v2.8.1 --Visual Composer has been updated. --Woocommerce has been updated. --The problem was fixed. v2.8 --Visual Composer has been updated. --Revolution Slider has been updated. --The problem was fixed. v2.7 --Woocommerce has been updated. --Visual Composer has been updated. --The problem was fixed. v2.6 --Woocommerce has been updated. --Visual Composer has been updated. --Revolution Slider has been updated. --The problem was fixed. v2.5 --Visual Composer has been updated. --Woocommerce has been updated. --Klb Shortcode has been updated. --Fundraise Bar has been updated. --The bug was fixed. v2.4 --Visual Composer has been updated. --Revolution Slider has been updated. --The bug was fixed. v2.3 --Popular posts widget has been added. --Process box has been updated. --Klb Shortcode has been updated. --The bug was fixed. v2.2 --Blog Masonry Type has been added. --Translation options have been updated. --Klb Shortcode plugin has been updated. --Visual Composer has been updated. --Woocommerce has been updated. --Revolution Slider has been updated. --Dropdown problem has been fixed. --The bug was fixed. v2.1 --Portfolio Type Two has been added. --Feature of Portfolio Filter has been added. --Ajax detail page has been added. --Gallery Format has been added in portfolio detail page. --Menu color option has been improved. --Blog meta settings has been added. --Back to list button has been added into the blog detail page. --Blog Gallery format has been added. --Overlay setting has been added into the "Home Image" shortcode. --Date option has been added into the "Latest Events" shortcode. --Visual Composer has been updated. --Revolution Slider has been updated. --Documentation has been updated. --The bug was fixed. v2.0 --A page builder has been added.(Visual Composer) --Stripe donation has been added. --Authorize.net donation has been added. --Offline donation has been added. --Crowdfunding system has been improved. --Fundraise bar has been made automatic. --Feature of animation has been added for columns. --The problem of portfolio description has been fixed. --Theme Options have been improved. --Map marker has been added. --Woocommerce has been updated. --The Events Calendar has been updated. --Customizable has been increased. --Documentation has been updated. --The bugs has been fixed. v1.9.8 --The map problem has been fixed. --Theme Options have been updated. --The plugins have been updated. v1.9.7 --Options of Donate Button has been added. --Link Color Option has been added. --The bug was fixed. v1.9.6 --Feature of One Click Demo has been added. --The bug was fixed. --The Plugins have been updated. v1.9.5 16 February 2016 --Font Awesome Icons were updated. --Woocommerce was updated. --Seamless Donation Plugin was updated. v1.9.4 17 January 2016 --Header Color option was added. --The Events Calendar was updated. --Woocommerce was updated. v1.9.3 3 December 2015 --Unlimited Google Fonts option was added on Theme Options. --Typograhy option was added on Theme Options.(Font-family,Font-size,font-color etc.) --Responsive issue was fixed. --Contact Form 7 was updated. --Woocommerce was updated. v1.9.2 4 September 2015 --Woocommerce was updated --Plugin activation was updated. --Bug was fixed. v1.9.1 6 August 15 --Logo Size Options was added. --Donation Plugin was updated. --Bug was fixed. v1.9 10 July 2015 --PrettyPhoto was updated --Bug was fixed. v1.8 21.04.15 --Blog Post type was added.(Audio,Video,Image) --Theme option was updated. v1.7 21.04.15 --Color setting was added. --Bug was fixed. v1.6 27.03.15 --Crowdfunding system was added. --Documentation was updated. v1.5 21.03.15 --Events List page was added. --Events Detail page was added. --Events Calendar page was added. --Revolution slider and Revolution Slider demo data was added. --Revolution Slider plugin included in the package. --Bug was fixed for menu link. v1.4 16.03.15 --Woocommerce Ecommerce plugin was added. v1.3 09.03.15 --Blog layout settings were added. --Map zoom section was added. --Project video type was added. --Bug was fixed. v1.2 02.03.15 --Footer Widget was added. --Blog posts shortcode was added. v1.1 22.02.15 --Donate button was added.As useful as they are, people still don’t get super excited about watch winders. Well, perhaps most watch winders. The upper echelon of watch winders are incredibly impressive machines that do way more than merely keep your favorite automatic timepieces well-wound. A fun and stimulating example is the Hublot Safe produced by watch winder and safe maker Dottling.
I got to check out this machine hands-on and I must admit that the over-the-top super watch accessory is as appealing as it is priced for people who own more than one yacht. I included the image here of the safe with Markus Dottling and Jean-Claude Biver of Hublot to show you the size scale of the safe.
To start, the Hublot Safe is 180 kilograms in weight. The mostly steel safe is like a large outer cylinder with an inner rotating cylinder. That rotating cylinder has two sides of winders with the capacity to wind 42 watches. In mostly black, the safe has panels of carbon fiber, and you’ll notice that it uses larger versions of Hublot’s signature “H” screws.
The Hublot safe isn’t just a safe and a watch winder – but also a stereo. This seems to be a bit of a trend, where high-end “watch winder furniture” seems to include a stereo. It also includes an iPad. There is an iPad dock at the top of the safe that is used to control all of the safe’s functions as well as unlock it. Each of the winding modules is programmable, and you can control the stereo and other functions. Using WiFi you can control the safe with the iPad off the dock as well. Everything is done via a custom application pre-loaded on the iPad. A cool function is the ability to indicate precisely what each watch is and where it goes to have it receive the right amount of turns per day. You can also apparently hook up the Hublot Safe to your home security system. Presumably the safe will hide the watches if the alarm is triggered. Or perhaps messing with the safe will trip the alarm. Dottling really thinks all this stuff through.
For show, there are changing color LED lights placed behind the winder modules. This means you get a bright light show when the inner cylinder spins into view and your many Big Bangs and King Power watches greet you. It is pure spectacle, but at these prices you better damn demand it. In this skin, the special item is called the Hublot Safe. It is based on the newer Dottling Morphosis watch winder safe which can be ordered in many other styles based on the cylinder architecture. An even higher-security version is available which weights 500 kilograms. Price is around 190,000 Swiss Francs. Unfortunately the cost does not include Mr. Biver personally rolling it into your living room.Craig Mitchell and Dennis Ailor (pictured) — the two men confronted by a pair of cops — say they were causing no disturbance and were simply |
to explain his remarks about my family in numerous interviews, so I believe he has some admiration for them.
In his garbled but sweeping comment that Duke recruits only “black players that were ‘Uncle Toms,’ ” Jalen seems to change the usual meaning of those very vitriolic words into his own meaning, i.e., blacks from two-parent, middle-class families. He leaves us all guessing exactly what he believes today.
I am beyond fortunate to have two parents who are still working well into their 60s. They received great educations and use them every day. My parents taught me a personal ethic I try to live by and pass on to my children.
Read more…Emily Miller of the Washington Times has been on a quest for months: get a handgun in Washington D.C. The process has been long, tiring, frustrating and expensive. Luckily, she has finally received her right to keep arms in the District. She has chronicled her "adventures" and often appears on NRA News' Cam and Company radio show to discuss her progress. Now, Fox News' Shannon Bream has gotten a hold of the story and it turns out, not only is it extremely difficult to get a handgun in Washington D.C., but also in Chicago despite Supreme Court cases overturning handgun bans years ago.
After months of aggravation, hundreds of dollars in fees, countless hours jumping over hurdles, I am now a gun owner and finally exercising my second amendment right to keep arms (bearing arms is still illegal in the nation’s capital).
Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com
But not only has Emily done herself a huge service by getting her gun, she has also forced change in Washington D.C. gun control laws as well.
When I first started the “Emily Gets Her Gun” series, I thought I would be waiting in long lines and filling out lots of paperwork. I never could have imagined that the D.C. gun laws made it so unearthly difficult to get a legal handgun. However, I also never could have believed that this newspaper series would encourage change in Washington's gun laws.
Meanwhile, violent crime in Washington D.C. is on the rise.Food shortages are reported in the northern town of Trizidela do Vale The Brazilian authorities say almost 408,000 people still cannot return home because of floods that began last month in the north of the country. The bad weather is forecast to persist for another fortnight. The government has released more than $435m (£273m) in aid for victims of the flooding in the north and north-east of Brazil. A BBC correspondent says the damage across the region runs into hundreds of millions of dollars. Forty-nine people are said to have died across 12 states and many small farmers say the flooding has devastated this year's crops, the BBC's Gary Duffy reports from Sao Paulo. Nearly 400,000 children are also missing classes either because roads are blocked, classrooms are under water, or schools are being used as shelters to accommodate the homeless, he adds. The situation is said to be most critical in the state of Amazonas, where a quarter of all pupils are affected. Despite the government's emergency aid, there are reports from the worst-affected areas that help is not reaching those who need it most. In the northern town of Trizidela do Vale, food supplies are said to be insufficient to meet demand, despite pleas from local community leaders, our correspondent says. Experts say global warming may be behind the wild climate swings that have brought periods of unprecedented droughts and flooding to the Amazon in recent years. Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. Advertisement
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StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable versionThe day after the Women's March on Washington, I met up with a few friends from my home country of Venezuela for lunch. I was telling them all about the emotional experience of walking with half-a-million people down the streets of D.C.; how invigorating it was, how hopeful it had made me feel after months of worry. One of the women I was eating with had joined in on the peaceful protests that happened in New York on Saturday, but the other had decided to stay home. It wasn’t because she was against the march, she explained, but rather that she no longer had it in her. “I have a complicated relationship with marching,” she said to me. “In Venezuela, we marched and marched, and marched. I got that natural high from seeing all those people around me; I thought nothing could stop us. But now here we are, 15 years later, and nothing changed.”
For those who might not be familiar with the political history of Venezuela, in 1999, Hugo Chávez, a charismatic former military officer with a strong populist message won the presidential election. He promised to end poverty, to bring back socioeconomic equality to the masses, to make Venezuela great again. His socialist revolution, dubbed Chavismo, swept over the country and took over every branch of the government. In less than two decades, Venezuela’s democracy slowly started to mutate into an autocracy. There was an all-out war with the press; networks critical of the government were shut down, newspapers were bought by Chávez sympathizers. Corruption amongst his lackeys went unchecked. Elections were no longer free, nor fair. Opposition leaders were thrown into jail. Hundreds of thousands of people, myself and my friends included, frequently took to the streets to protest. Eventually we all left the country.
The Women’s March on Washington certainly reminded me of the manifestations that had taken place back in Caracas. But it was actually Kellyanne Conway’s now infamous appearance on Meet the Press that really triggered my PTSD panic button: During the interview, Chuck Todd asks Conway why President Trump’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, lied about the crowd size at his inauguration. Conway, in her signature roundabout manner, first issues a warning: “If we’re going to keep referring to our press secretary in those types of terms, I think that we’re going to have to rethink our relationship here. I want to have a great, open relationship with our press,” she says. When Todd asks her to answer the question, while noting that a misinformation campaign fronted by the White House Press Secretary could undermine the future credibility of the institution, Conway hits back: “No it doesn’t. Don’t be so overly dramatic about it. You’re saying it’s a falsehood... Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts.”
For many Americans, Conway’s introduction of that Orwellian-like term was disturbing, and perhaps a bit embarrassing. But for many Venezuelans, Conway’s mental gymnastics were straight out of Chávez’s playbook. Conway and Todd’s exchange couldn’t help but remind me of a 2010 press conference with Chávez that once went viral. In the clip, a journalist from Radio France asks whether or not gerrymandering took place in a recent congressional election. Chávez’s response was the following:
“Radio France. A while ago, I made some critiques about them, I’m still waiting for them to respond. You remember that, right? You guys like to spread lies, rumors, and then you don’t respond. I even hope you respond, but nobody does. You guys stay silent, you spread lies, and then, shhh, silence. That’s when I say, hey, it’s time to reflect. Let’s be honest, let’s have some integrity, let’s have some ethics! Ethics! [Radio France], well, what can I say. I hope that you—where are you from? Venezuela? Do you know the constitution? I ask because sometimes you journalists don’t know. I don’t think you know it, because the answer is there.”
The journalist then tells him it’s irrelevant whether or not she knows the constitution and presses him once again to answer the question. Again, Chávez twists and turns and evades having to respond:
“This is the way you guys protect yourselves. When I encroach you, when I debate you on something, then it’s irrelevant whether or not you know the constitution? Of course it’s relevant to me! As it should be to you! And for the people who listen to you! How are you going to say that it’s irrelevant? What are the people who listening to you going to think? You’re saying knowing the constitution is irrelevant! I say this to you, for you to reflect, if you want. I’m sure you know the truth. I want to believe you know the truth.”
And so it goes, on and on, this back and forth between them. The clip on YouTube lasts nine-and-a-half minutes. Chávez never answers the question.
Tamoa Calzadilla, a Venezuelan investigative journalist who left the country in 2015, has also been getting a bad case of déjà vu these days. After one of Trump’s press conferences in January, Calzadilla wrote a piece for Univision on the many similarities she saw between Trump’s open hostility toward the press and her experiences as a reporter during Chávez’s regime. “The threats to litigate against the press, when he revoked _The Washington Post’_s credentials during his campaign, when he yelled at Jim Acosta that he was ‘fake news’—those were the moments that most troubled me,” she said over the phone from Miami, where she now lives. “Even the unfiltered use of Twitter at all hours of the day. That was a very Chávez way of governing.”
And about Twitter: When Chávez joined the social media platform in 2010, he quickly became the most followed person in Venezuela. Much like Trump today, Chávez would announce policy changes on Twitter, retweet praise from his fans, and enthusiastically embrace the exclamation point. His last post, before he died of cancer in 2013, reads: “Still holding on to Christ and confident in my doctors and nurses. To victory always!! We will live and we will win!!!” Sound familiar?
I decided to call up Francisco Toro, the founder of the news and opinion blog Caracas Chronicles, for his thoughts on what’s been going on in the U.S. Toro has been living in Montréal since 2009—a pinned tweet from January 11 on his Twitter page reads: “If I hadn’t already moved to Canada, I’d move to Canada.” During our conversation, Toro was hesitant to draw too many parallels between Chávez’s rule and Trump’s string of bizarre press conferences. “It’s hard because I’m an analyst; I’m meant to think about these things. But for the last few days I haven’t been thinking about the news, I’ve been feeling the news,” he said. “The truth is, I don’t know. It’s okay to just be afraid.”
When it came to giving advice, Toro did warn against the impulse to back down into our thought bubbles and further polarize the country. “In a way, depolarization is not our gift. For a long time in Venezuela, we didn’t really get it, and when we did, it was already too late. The narrative [from the government] of the evil media had become congealed and hermitically sealed,” he explained. “You see that in the U.S. really clearly, too. Once people are convinced that everything in the mainstream media is a lie, then they become like Trump and never have to face a fact that they don’t like because they always have permission to say it’s not true.” (As I was writing this, Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist and who ran Breitbart News for many years, gave an interview to The New York Times in which he said that the “humiliated” media is “the opposition party” and should “keep its mouth shut,” adding that the media “don’t understand this country. They still do not understand why Donald Trump is the president of the United States.”)
Of course, as many similarities as there are between Chávez and Trump, there are just as many striking differences. Chávez was an ex-military man, mentored by Fidel Castro, who dreamed of leading a socialist revolution across Latin America. Trump is a capitalist billionaire who deferred from the draft five times, and whose campaign was built on building walls to keep America’s neighbors out. More importantly for our purposes, Venezuela had a history of dictatorships and a fragile democracy that easily crumbled under Chávez’s rule. Calzadilla, who doesn’t feel like emigrating once again, likes to calm herself down by reminding herself of the ample checks and balances in American government and its long history of democracy. Not that it always works. “For many years in Venezuela, we would always say to ourselves, ‘No, I don’t think that will happen,’ ” she remembered. “Is he really going to close down that TV network? No, I don’t think that will happen—and he did. Is the government really going to take over private businesses? No, I don’t think that will happen. And they did. What scares me now is that I find myself saying that a lot again these days. No, I don’t think that will happen here.”Click to viewIf you ever wondered how former Lions #2 overall pick Charles Rogers turned out to be such a bust, Jemele Hill of ESPN got the answer from him: Construda. Construda AY-DAY.
In the sneak peek of the interview released by ESPN, Rogers tells Hill he smoked marijuana on a daily basis, then became addicted to painkillers after breaking his collarbone twice, in 2003 and 2004. Wow, weed AND painkillers? Just call him Ricky Favre.
In 2005, Rogers flunked his third drug test with the NFL, and was obligated to return $10 million of his $14.2 million signing bonus to the Lions. Rogers was cut by the Lions in 2006 and never played in the NFL again, going to jail last December for violating probation stemming from a domestic violence arrest. Watch this interview even casually, and it would appear as though Rogers is STILL baked. In fact, the geniuses over at Tirico Suave have already noticed this and parodied it in record time with the video below.
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The funniest part of the interview is when they cut to that fucking retard shitbox Matt Millen. "Something clearly was wrong." Think so, Einstein?Today I lectured about the Hydra game by Laurence Kirby and Jeff Paris (Accessible Independence Results for Peano Arithmetic, Kirby and Paris, Bull. London Math. Soc. 1982; 14: 285-293). For the occasion I implemented the game in Java. I am publishing the code for anyone who wants to play, or use it for teaching.
About the game
A hydra is a finite tree, with a root at the bottom. The object of the game is to cut down the hydra to its root. At each step, you can cut off one of the heads, after which the hydra grows new heads according to the following rules:
If you cut off a head growing out of the root, the hydra does not grow any new heads.
Suppose you cut off a head like this:
Delete the head and its neck. Descend down by 1 from the node at which the neck was attached. Look at the subtree growing from the connection through which you just descended. Pick a natural number, say 3, and grow that many copies of that subtree, like this:
My program grows $n$ copies at step $n$ of the game, which is one possible variant of the game. There are spoilers ahead, so before you read on you should play the game with the Hydra applet (your browser must support Java) and try to win. Is it possible to win? How should you play to win?
Here is a surprising fact:
Theorem 1: You cannot lose!
The proof uses ordinal numbers. To each hydra we assign an ordinal number:
A head gets the number $0$.
Suppose a node $x$ has sub-hydras $H_1, \ldots, H_n$ growing from it. To each sub-hydra we assign its ordinal recursively and order the ordinals in descending order: $\alpha_1 \geq \alpha_2 \geq \ldots \geq \alpha_n$. The ordinal assigned to the node $x$ is $\omega^{\alpha_1} + \omega^{\alpha_2} + \cdots + \omega^{\alpha_n}$. For example, the ordinal corresponding to the hydra from the first picture above is $\omega^{\omega^3 + 1} + 1$. The hydra in the second picture gets the ordinal $\omega^{\omega^2 \cdot 4 + 1} + 1$.
By chopping off a head we strictly decrease the ordinal. Because there are no infinite strictly descending sequences of ordinals, the hydra will eventually die, no matter how you chop off heads.
But Theorem 1 is not the punchline. The punchline is this:
Theorem 2 (Kirby and Paris): Any proof technique that proves Theorem 1 is strong enough to prove that Peano arithmetic is consistent.
Consistency of Peano arithmetic is Hilbert’s second problem, which was solved by Gentzen in 1936.
Download the program
The program is written in Java and is available freely under the BSD License. You may:This approach—lining up one new, killer product after another—seems almost impossible, even for Apple. But the company’s latest announcement points toward a new way of culturing attention, one that’s much more subtle than just getting people to buy or rent a glass rectangle year after year.
Attention is a strange thing. It’s often thought that the way to retain power or influence is to hold onto people’s attention—to keep it active, front and center. That’s how iPhone rose to prominence, after all: by ripping a hole in popular understanding of mobile telephony and introducing a totally new paradigm.
But over time, active attention recedes into the background. It has to. Extraordinary events, products, and ideas cannot survive as wild curiosities. They must be made ordinary. Such is the fate of every influential media form, from the electric light to the automobile to the refrigerator to the television to the smartphone.
Media’s true power comes from this habituation. When everyone relies on electricity. When everyone unloads a dishwasher. When everyone commutes by personal automobile. When everyone connects and reads and works and plays on a smartphone.
* * *
Apple’s announcement revealed two new approaches to manage its fall into habituation. One is technical and one is social.
The first approach changes the way an iPhone turns on. Apple’s new, flagship smartphone, the iPhone X, has an OLED display from bezel to bezel, supplanting the home button from the device’s front. To replace TouchID, the fingerprint sensor that provided security for device use and payment, Apple has introduced a new facial recognition technology called Face ID.
Its technical implementation is impressive, using a front-facing camera and dot projector to map and model an iPhone user’s facial features. Apple claims that it's secure and reliable, with one in a million odds of being cracked.
But to invoke Face ID to unlock a phone, the user must look at the device, so that the phone can see its owner’s eyes. This has a convenient side effect: People must pay deliberate attention to their iPhones again. No longer can one fail to notice the fact of the iPhone as a device mediating life in the background, even if it is about to be put to that use. First, the user must acknowledge it in the foreground. iPhone, see me. Recognize me, as I recognize you doing so.
It’s a small thing—a setup, perhaps, for something yet to come. But temporarily, at least, it reactivates the iPhone as a thing that demands and receives active, rather than just passive, attention.
The second approach is far stranger. Angela Ahrendts, Apple’s senior vice president of retail, announced that the company would rebrand its retail locations. Instead of stores, they would become “town squares, because they are gathering places.” She’s creating “plazas” in Apple’s largest stores, adding “boardrooms” for entrepreneurs, and recasting aisles as “avenues,” which are “like shop windows around a town square.” Apple’s Fifth Avenue store in Manhattan will become such a town square, as will a new one in the Carnegie Library in Washington D.C.—a controversial use of an architectural landmark that once served as a real public sphere rather than one remixed out via capitalism.The old wisdom goes that defences win you titles. Yet it is a theory that Liverpool are testing to destruction this season.
For all its undoubted talent, it is fair to say that Liverpool’s rotating back five will not go down as one of history’s great defences. Simon Mignolet, Kolo Toure and Daniel Agger have all had patchy seasons; Glen Johnson, Mamadou Sakho and Jon Flanagan have been good but rarely exceptional; Martin Skrtel has been as notable for scoring goals as stopping them; while the less said about Aly Cissokho, the better.
It is one of the season’s great paradoxes: this is a defensive cast that should be nowhere near the Premier League trophy, and yet there is a strong chance that all these players will be lifting it in a few weeks’ time. How could this be?
Liverpool
793
Crystal Palace
784
Southampton
750
Stoke
737
Everton
693
Aston Villa
692
One of Liverpool’s most impressive traits this season is the way they have defended from the front, their “three-quarter press” aggressively hassling the opposition all the way up the pitch. “If we concede, it is because we are not pressing well enough at the other end,” manager Brendan Rodgers said earlier this season.
Most tackles by attacking midfielders/forwards, 2013/14 Premier League
Player
Club
Tackles
Philippe Coutinho
Liverpool
70
Jason Puncheon
Crystal Palace
68
Oscar
Chelsea
63
Patijm Kasami
Fulham
59
Adam Lallana
Southampton
57
Kevin Nolan
West Ham
55
In itself, there is nothing new in this, as anyone who saw Rafa Benitez’s Liverpool side demolish Real Madrid 4-0 in 2009 would attest. But Rodgers has been able to take the principle further than ever before.
In Luis Suarez, so lauded for his goalscoring, Rodgers has at his disposal probably the best “defensive attacker” in world football, along with his fellow Uruguayan striker Edinson Cavani at Paris St Germain. Suarez’s work rate and aggression when out of possession have set new standards.
Suarez vs other leading Premier League forwards
Name
Tackles
Interceptions
Fouls
Blocked shots
Aguero
9
3
14
0
Eto'o
13
2
14
0
Giroud
30
19
44
6
Lukaku
7
3
23
2
Rooney
29
29
30
5
Suarez
35
11
50
3
Unlike many strikers, Suarez seeks not just to contain the opposition defence but actively win the ball back, by whatever means. He has committed more fouls than any other attacking player in the Premier League this season, an indication of his tenacity and sharpness. In the final third of the pitch, a foul is often a clever way of preventing a counter-attack.
Most fouls by attacking midfielders/forwards, 2013/14 Premier League
Player
Club
Fouls
Luis Suarez
Liverpool
50
Jozy Altidore
Sunderland
48
Robert Snodgrass
Norwich
47
Christian Benteke
Aston Villa
46
Raheem Sterling
Liverpool
45
Marouane Chamakh
Crystal Palace
45
But Suarez has always been a defensive grafter. More impressive still is the way Rodgers has transformed players not naturally attuned to defensive responsibility. Philippe Coutinho arrived with a reputation for feyness, yet he has been transformed into a pint-sized destroyer, making more tackles than any other attacking player in the league. While his winning goal against Manchester City caught the eye last week, of equal value was his immense defensive presence, winning the ball more times than anybody else. “I’ve been trying to improve my intensity, marking and defensive forms in training,” he said recently. In the same category lies Raheem Sterling, whose pressing game has improved beyond recognition.
Look how high up the pitch, and how often, Sterling, Coutinho, Suarez and Sturridge recover the ball against Manchester City.
How has this happened? Partly through Rodgers’ training methods, which from the very start of pre-season have put a premium on aggressive forward pressing. One session sees small-sided games, with goals placed 18 yards apart to encourage forwards to take the initiative in winning the ball back. Another sees three attackers attempting to win the ball from six defenders, before scoring into small goals on each side of the pitch.
But to a large extent, this is about mentality as well, and Rodgers’ insistence that all 11 players share defensive duties equally. “Defending as a team” may be something of a cliché these days, but Rodgers has employed the idea more effectively than any other team this season. In so doing, he may well be overturning one of the oldest maxims in the book: that Premier League titles are won by the five big men at the back.Melinda Liu has reported in China for more than two decades and has been based in the Chinese capital since 1998 as Newsweek's Beijing Bureau Chief.
Student leader Wuer Kaixi was ringed by four concentric circles of “security monitors” in Tiananmen Square when I first met him 25 years ago in a throng of pro-democracy demonstrators. I had to get paper slips bearing the official stamps of protest leaders in order to approach Wuer, who was propped up against a pile of jumbled clothes and bedding and weak from a hunger strike. Known back then to have flashes of arrogance, Wuer gave me an irritated look when I joked, “You guys are as security-conscious as the Politburo.” During those heady days in May 1989, neither of us knew how futile his fresh-faced bodyguards would soon seem, faced with the horrific repression, the gunfire, the screams, the roaring military tanks which took over Beijing’s bloodstained streets on June 4.
We were naïve, confessed Wuer, now a Taiwan-based exile, when I interviewed him last week in a Tokyo coffee shop. “In those days we didn’t even know too much about democracy. Our understanding was superficial. But we knew very well our lack of democracy; we knew very clearly it was something we didn’t have.”
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And what they still don’t. After People’s Liberation Army soldiers opened fire on demonstrators that day a quarter century ago, many Westerners predicted the regime would shortly implode. Chinese society was traumatized, the ruling Communist Party nearly split, the international community aghast. In those years democratic movements were percolating up all over the world; the Tiananmen protests seemed part of an irresistible tide of freedom that eventually engulfed the former Soviet Union, the Eastern bloc nations and other autocratic regimes in East Asia, such as Taiwan, Indonesia and Mongolia.
But the Chinese Communist Party, with a combination of military brutality and political savvy, managed to defy that trend—and today remains proud of that achievement. The party isn’t going to be commemorating the 25th anniversary of the crackdown, of course, but it’s hard to believe that some of the communist mandarins in Beijing won’t stop and reflect, with quiet satisfaction, on one of the most enduring successes in the history of oppression. After the regime killed at least 1,000 Tiananmen protesters—no one knows exactly what the death toll was—it effectively co-opted the survivors with an even more powerful weapon than tanks: astonishing economic growth, which continued steadily for the next 25 years. To inspire fresh loyalty to the party, the regime also disseminated a new ideology to replace communism: fervent nationalism.
Indeed, it is possible to draw a direct line between the regime’s successful suppression of the Tiananmen generation then and the assertive China we see today. Thanks in large part to the policies the regime adopted during and after Tiananmen, China is now widely perceived as an aggressive rising power, cracking down on its people while picking maritime fights with its neighbors in the East and South China Seas, even challenging the United States for influence in the Pacific.
What’s not well understood is that the Communist Party leadership believes it has to behave in this bullying manner abroad, in part as a way of satisfying the patriotic sentiments it set in motion to quell Tiananmen-era discontent. Thus, Americans and other foreigners who are wary of China’s future power would do well to observe this anniversary, if only as a way of comprehending the roots of China’s new confidence. And that means understanding how an acutely defensive regime used nationalism, a growing mastery of public opinion and social safety valves such as social media to help regain its footing.(H/T of credit goes to Ed Morrissey who’s report on this subject is most excellent.)
From the Bureau of Labor:
Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 148,000 in September, and the unemployment rate
was little changed at 7.2 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.
Employment increased in construction, wholesale trade, and transportation and warehousing.
[….]
In September, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more)
was little changed at 4.1 million. These individuals accounted for 36.9 percent of the
unemployed. The number of long-term unemployed has declined by 725,000 over the past
year. (See table A-12.) Both the civilian labor force participation rate, at 63.2 percent, and the employment-
population ratio at 58.6 percent, were unchanged in September. Over the year, the labor
force participation rate has declined by 0.4 percentage point, while the employment-
population ratio has changed little. (See table A-1.) The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to
as involuntary part-time workers) was unchanged at 7.9 million in September. These
individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they
were unable to find a full-time job. (See table A-8.) In September, 2.3 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, down from
2.5 million a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals
were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a
job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they
had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. (See table A-16.) Among the marginally attached, there were 852,000 discouraged workers in September,
essentially unchanged from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.)
Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe
no jobs are available for them. The remaining 1.5 million persons marginally attached
to the labor force in September had not searched for work for reasons such as school
attendance or family responsibilities. (See table A-16.)
Ed Morrissey as always, provides some excellent analysis:
The jobless rate declined to 7.2%, but that’s not coming from an employment explosion. In order to keep up with population growth, the US economy has to add around 150K jobs net each month, which means we did slightly worse than tread water in September. Both the U-3 and the U-6 number declined in this case by a tenth of a point, with U-6 now at 13.6%. Before the Great Recession really got into high gear in the fall of 2008, U-6 was at 10.8%, and it was at 14.2% when Barack Obama took office. This month, 136,000 people left the workforce in the population survey, which is almost the same number as the net jobs added in the establishment survey. The number of employed in the same population survey only increased 133,000. It’s a real demonstration of the continuing stagnation, and another indication of the decreasing value of the jobless rate as an economic indicator.
The business friendly media saw this and called it the following (Via CNBC):
Today’s blistering jobs report has quickly reminded America that our economic problems are getting worse, despite talking point reassurances from Federal Reserve officials,” said Todd Schoenberger, managing partner at LandColt Capital. The report likely will do little to move the needle on monetary policy. Most market-watchers now expect the Federal Reserve to continue its $85 billion a month bond-buying program until well into 2014. Consensus sentiment is now that the central bank won’t even start easing back on, or “tapering,” the purchases until the spring. “You would think by now you would be consistently creating over a couple hundred-thousand jobs a month, at least,” said Brad Levitt, senior economist for Oppenheimer Funds. “The Fed wants to see over 200,000 jobs a month on a consistent basis before a change of policy.” [….] In short, the demand isn’t there and the money to pay additional workers isn’t there,” Kathy Bostjancic, director of macroeconomic analysis for the Conference Board, said in a statement. “Both job and income growth remain stuck in neutral.”
Okay, now it is time for me to rant a little here; after all the domain name here, and the former name of this blog was “Thoughts and Rantings” at one point. Now before I begin; please keep in mind that I have never been much of a partisan blogger. I have my political convictions and all, but I am not, nor have I ever been a “Republican” blogger. I am a Paleoconservative, a Pat Buchanan type. Basically, when it comes to matters like this here, Free Trade, and somewhat wall street —- I am still pretty much a populist, not a progressive populist, but still very much a populist.
You see my friends, this here is what you get when you put in a Neoconservative President for eight years, who puts America into a war. This is what happens when you put in neoconservatives in congress that spend like drunken sailors. This is what happens when Democrats come in, take over congress and promise the moon and the stars and proceed to do absolutely nothing! What did they do? Continued the damned spending, just like the Republicans did under Dennis Hastert.
All the Democrats did, when they were campaigning, was carp on about ending the war, not once did they ever say anything about the jobs situation. Then, finally, after they won the election, and routed out the Republicans; did they change anything? Did they stop the war? Did they even bother to slow down spending, did they bring the fed’s printing of money under control? Did they try to lighten the burden of taxes to the big and small businesses, did they try to clear some of the idiotic regulations for small businesses, so that job growth could actually happen? Hell no, they didn’t!
Now look what we have to show for it, Republicans and Democrats. A pure crap-hole for an economy! As for those job numbers; those numbers are a damn farce. When you add in the people, like myself, who have basically given up on trying to look for work, and have been out of the workforce for longer than say, six months; the numbers are much, much, higher. Some say, if you factor in ALL unemployed people, the number is as high as 30%. I believe if the United States Government would actually stop trying to fake the damned numbers on unemployment, and take a real damned survey; the numbers would be shocking and would plunge Wall Street into a full on panic.
The bottom line: The United States of America’s economy and jobs situation is an absolute disaster; and the United States Government continues under this neo-liberal Presidential administration to cover up the fact that America’s unemployment problem is extremely severe. Just like the previous neoconservative President did. The solution to this problem is to end the free trade deals, and get the federal reserve under control. This is when real economic reforms can begin.
Others:Street-level mapping now lets users go back in time to see how cities, neighbourhoods and attractions have changed since 2007
Google has turned its Google Maps Street View into a time machine to let users travel back in time and see how places have changed.
The new feature will let users track changes in landscape, buildings, roads and entire neighbourhoods from around the world since the Street View mapping program began in 2007.
Users can now click on a new clock icon that will appear in the corner of the screen when using Street View on Google Maps on a desktop or laptop computer, firing up scrollbar-controlled time machine, changing the year and even season of the area or building they are currently looking at to see how it has changed over time.
'A time traveller like Doc Brown'
"If you've ever dreamt of being a time traveller like Doc Brown, now's your chance," said Google Street View product manager Vinay Shet in a blog post. "We've gathered historical imagery from past Street View collections dating back to 2007 to create this digital time capsule of the world."
Facebook Twitter Pinterest This image shows what a building in Singapore looked like in October 2008, upper left, against a more recent photo. (AP Photo/Google) Photograph: Uncredited/AP
Google's Street View uses car-mounted cameras to capture street-level photos of the world, stitching the images together into a virtual representation of the real world overlaid on Google's maps. Google's cars have driven across most of the world, but this is the first time the search giant has made more than one version of the resulting images available to the public.
"Now with Street View, you can see a landmark's growth from the ground up, like the Freedom Tower in New York city or the 2014 World Cup stadium in Fortaleza, Brazil," said Shet.
'A digital timeline of recent history'
"This new feature can also serve as a digital timeline of recent history, like the reconstruction after the devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Onagawa, Japan. You can even experience different seasons and see what it would be like to cruise Italian roadways in both summer and winter," he said.
Street View has primarily been used as a way of visualising directions to help users find and identify locations they are looking for, but the service has become increasingly popular among "armchair explorers", who have used Street View to discover far away parts of the world without ever leaving home.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest This image shows what a neighborhood in Japan looked like in July |
... void gameScreen() {... drawRacket();... }... void drawRacket(){ fill(racketColor); rectMode(CENTER); rect(mouseX, mouseY, racketWidth, racketHeight); }
We defined the color, width and height of the racket as a global variable, we might want them to change during gameplay. We implemented a method drawRacket() which does what its name suggests. We set the rectMode to center, so our racket is aligned to the center of our cursor.
Now that we created the racket, we have to make the ball bounce on it.
... int racketBounceRate = 20;... void gameScreen() {... watchRacketBounce();... }... void watchRacketBounce() { float overhead = mouseY - pmouseY; if ((ballX+(ballSize/2) > mouseX-(racketWidth/2)) && (ballX-(ballSize/2) < mouseX+(racketWidth/2))) { if (dist(ballX, ballY, ballX, mouseY)<=(ballSize/2)+abs(overhead)) { makeBounceBottom(mouseY); // racket moving up if (overhead<0) { ballY+=overhead; ballSpeedVert+=overhead; } } } }
And here is the result:
So what watchRacketBounce() does is it makes sure that the racket and the ball collides. There are two things to check here, which is if the ball and racket lined up both vertically and horizontally. The first if statement checks if the X coordinate of the right side of the ball is greater than the X coordinate of the left side of the racket (and the other way around). If it is, second statement checks if the distance between the ball and the racket is smaller than or equal to the radius of the ball (which means they are colliding). So if these conditions meet, makeBounceBottom() method gets called and the ball bounces on our racket (at mouseY, where the racket is).
Have you noticed the variable overhead which is calculated by mouseY - pmouseY? pmouseX and pmouseY variables store the coordinates of the mouse at the previous frame. As the mouse can move very fast, there is a good chance we might not detect the distance between the ball and the racket correctly in between frames if the mouse is moving towards the ball fast enough. So, we take the difference of the mouse coordinates in between frames and take that into account while detecting distance. The the faster mouse is moving, the greater distance is acceptable.
We also use overhead for another reason. We detect which way the mouse is moving by checking the sign of overhead. If overhead is negative, the mouse was somewhere below in the previous frame so our mouse (racket) is moving up. In that case, we want to add an extra speed to the ball and move it a little further than regular bounce to simulate the effect of hitting the ball with the racket. If overhead is less than 0, we add it to ballY and ballSpeedVert to make the ball go higher and faster. So the faster the racket hits the ball, the higher and faster it will move up.
Processing Tutorial Step #4: Horizontal Movement & Controlling the Ball
In this section, we will add horizontal movement to the ball. Then, we will make it possible to control the ball horizontally with our racket. Here we go:
... // we will start with 0, but for we give 10 just for testing float ballSpeedHorizon = 10;... void gameScreen() {... applyHorizontalSpeed();... }... void applyHorizontalSpeed(){ ballX += ballSpeedHorizon; ballSpeedHorizon -= (ballSpeedHorizon * airfriction); } void makeBounceLeft(float surface){ ballX = surface+(ballSize/2); ballSpeedHorizon*=-1; ballSpeedHorizon -= (ballSpeedHorizon * friction); } void makeBounceRight(float surface){ ballX = surface-(ballSize/2); ballSpeedHorizon*=-1; ballSpeedHorizon -= (ballSpeedHorizon * friction); }... void keepInScreen() {... if (ballX-(ballSize/2) < 0){ makeBounceLeft(0); } if (ballX+(ballSize/2) > width){ makeBounceRight(width); } }
And the result is:
The idea here is the same as what we did for vertical movement. We created a horizontal speed variable, ballSpeedHorizon. We created a method to apply horizontal speed to ballX and take away the air friction. We added two more if statements to the keepInScreen() method which will watch the ball for hitting the left and right edges of the screen. Finally we created makeBounceLeft() and makeBounceRight() methods to handle the bounces from left and right.
Now that we added horizontal speed to the game, we want to control the ball with the racket. As in the famous Atari game Breakout and in all other brick breaking games, the ball should go left or right according to the point on the racket it hits. The edges of the racket should give the ball more horizontal speed whereas the middle shouldn’t have any effect. Code first:
void watchRacketBounce() {... if ((ballX+(ballSize/2) > mouseX-(racketWidth/2)) && (ballX-(ballSize/2) < mouseX+(racketWidth/2))) { if (dist(ballX, ballY, ballX, mouseY)<=(ballSize/2)+abs(overhead)) {... ballSpeedHorizon = (ballX - mouseX)/5;... } } }
The result is:
Adding that simple line to the watchRacketBounce() did the job. What we did is we determined the distance of the point that the ball hits from the center of the racket with ballX - mouseX. Then, we make it the horizontal speed. The actual difference was too much, so I gave it a few tries and figured that one-tenth of the value feels the most natural.
Processing Tutorial Step #5: Creating the Walls
Our sketch is starting to look more like a game with each step. In this step, we will add walls moving towards the left, just like in Flappy Bird:
... int wallSpeed = 5; int wallInterval = 1000; float lastAddTime = 0; int minGapHeight = 200; int maxGapHeight = 300; int wallWidth = 80; color wallColors = color(0); // This arraylist stores data of the gaps between the walls. Actuals walls are drawn accordingly. // [gapWallX, gapWallY, gapWallWidth, gapWallHeight] ArrayList<int[]> walls = new ArrayList<int[]>();... void gameScreen() {... wallAdder(); wallHandler(); }... void wallAdder() { if (millis()-lastAddTime > wallInterval) { int randHeight = round(random(minGapHeight, maxGapHeight)); int randY = round(random(0, height-randHeight)); // {gapWallX, gapWallY, gapWallWidth, gapWallHeight} int[] randWall = {width, randY, wallWidth, randHeight}; walls.add(randWall); lastAddTime = millis(); } } void wallHandler() { for (int i = 0; i < walls.size(); i++) { wallRemover(i); wallMover(i); wallDrawer(i); } } void wallDrawer(int index) { int[] wall = walls.get(index); // get gap wall settings int gapWallX = wall[0]; int gapWallY = wall[1]; int gapWallWidth = wall[2]; int gapWallHeight = wall[3]; // draw actual walls rectMode(CORNER); fill(wallColors); rect(gapWallX, 0, gapWallWidth, gapWallY); rect(gapWallX, gapWallY+gapWallHeight, gapWallWidth, height-(gapWallY+gapWallHeight)); } void wallMover(int index) { int[] wall = walls.get(index); wall[0] -= wallSpeed; } void wallRemover(int index) { int[] wall = walls.get(index); if (wall[0]+wall[2] <= 0) { walls.remove(index); } }
And this resulted in:
Even though the code looks long and intimidating, I promise there is nothing hard to understand. First thing to notice is ArrayList. For those of you who don’t know what an ArrayList is, it is just an implementation of list that acts like an Array, but it has some advantages over it. It is resizeable, it has useful methods like list.add(index), list.get(index) and list.remove(index). We keep the wall data as integer arrays within the arraylist. The data we keep in the arrays are for the gap between two walls. The arrays contain the following values:
[gap wall X, gap wall Y, gap wall width, gap wall height]
The actual walls are drawn based on the gap wall values. Note that all these could be handled better and cleaner using classes, but since the use of Object Oriented Programming (OOP) is not in the scope of this Processing tutorial, this is how we’ll handle it. We have two base methods to manage the walls, wallAdder() and wallHandler.
wallAdder() method simply adds new walls in every wallInterval millisecond to the arraylist. We have a global variable lastAddTime which stores the time when the last wall was added (in milliseconds). If the current millisecond millis() minus the last added millisecond lastAddTime is larger than our interval value wallInterval, it means it is now time to add a new wall. Random gap variables are then generated based on the global variables defined at the very top. Then a new wall (integer array that stores the gap wall data) is added into the arraylist and the lastAddTime is set to the current millisecond millis().
wallHandler() loops through the current walls that is in the arraylist. And for each item at each loop, it calls wallRemover(i), wallMover(i) and wallDrawer(i) by the index value of the arraylist. These methods do what their name suggests. wallDrawer() draws the actual walls based on the gap wall data. It grabs the wall data array from the arraylist, and calls rect() method to draw the walls to where they should actually be. wallMover() method grabs the element from the arraylist, changes its X location based on the wallSpeed global variable. Finally, wallRemover() removes the walls from the arraylist which are out of the screen. If we didn’t do that, Processing would have treated them as they are still in the screen. And that would have been a huge loss in performance. So when a wall is removed from the arraylist, it doesn’t get drawn on subsequent loops.
The final challenging thing left to do is to detect collisions between the ball and the walls.
void wallHandler() { for (int i = 0; i < walls.size(); i++) {... watchWallCollision(i); } }... void watchWallCollision(int index) { int[] wall = walls.get(index); // get gap wall settings int gapWallX = wall[0]; int gapWallY = wall[1]; int gapWallWidth = wall[2]; int gapWallHeight = wall[3]; int wallTopX = gapWallX; int wallTopY = 0; int wallTopWidth = gapWallWidth; int wallTopHeight = gapWallY; int wallBottomX = gapWallX; int wallBottomY = gapWallY+gapWallHeight; int wallBottomWidth = gapWallWidth; int wallBottomHeight = height-(gapWallY+gapWallHeight); if ( (ballX+(ballSize/2)>wallTopX) && (ballX-(ballSize/2)<wallTopX+wallTopWidth) && (ballY+(ballSize/2)>wallTopY) && (ballY-(ballSize/2)<wallTopY+wallTopHeight) ) { // collides with upper wall } if ( (ballX+(ballSize/2)>wallBottomX) && (ballX-(ballSize/2)<wallBottomX+wallBottomWidth) && (ballY+(ballSize/2)>wallBottomY) && (ballY-(ballSize/2)<wallBottomY+wallBottomHeight) ) { // collides with lower wall } }
watchWallCollision() method gets called for each wall on each loop. We grab the coordinates of the gap wall, calculate the coordinates of the actual walls (top and bottom) and we check if the coordinates of the ball collides with the walls.
Processing Tutorial Step #6: Health and Score
Now that we can detect the collisions of the ball and the walls, we can decide on the game mechanics. After some tuning to the game, I managed to make the game somewhat playable. But still, it was very hard. My first thought on the game was to make it like Flappy Bird, when the ball touches the walls, game ends. But then I realised it would be impossible to play. So here is what I thought:
There should be a health bar on top of the ball. The ball should lose health while it is touching the walls. With this logic, it doesn’t make sense to make the ball bounce back from the walls. So when the health is 0, the game should end and we should switch to the game over screen. So here we go:
int maxHealth = 100; float health = 100; float healthDecrease = 1; int healthBarWidth = 60;... void gameScreen() {... drawHealthBar();... }... void drawHealthBar() { // Make it borderless: noStroke(); fill(236, 240, 241); rectMode(CORNER); rect(ballX-(healthBarWidth/2), ballY - 30, healthBarWidth, 5); if (health > 60) { fill(46, 204, 113); } else if (health > 30) { fill(230, 126, 34); } else { fill(231, 76, 60); } rectMode(CORNER); rect(ballX-(healthBarWidth/2), ballY - 30, healthBarWidth*(health/maxHealth), 5); } void decreaseHealth(){ health -= healthDecrease; if (health <= 0){ gameOver(); } }
And here is a simple run:
We created a global variable health to keep the health of the ball. And then created a method drawHealthBar() which draws two rectangles on top of the ball. First one is the base health bar, other is the active one that shows the current health. The width of the second one is dynamic, and is calculated with healthBarWidth*(health/maxHealth), the ratio of our current health with respect to the width of the health bar. Finally, the fill colors are set according to the value of health. Last but not the least, scores:
... void gameOverScreen() { background(0); textAlign(CENTER); fill(255); textSize(30); text("Game Over", height/2, width/2 - 20); textSize(15); text("Click to Restart", height/2, width/2 + 10); }... void wallAdder() { if (millis()-lastAddTime > wallInterval) {... // added another value at the end of the array int[] randWall = {width, randY, wallWidth, randHeight, 0};... } } void watchWallCollision(int index) {... int wallScored = wall[4];... if (ballX > gapWallX+(gapWallWidth/2) && wallScored==0) { wallScored=1; wall[4]=1; score(); } } void score() { score++; } void printScore(){ textAlign(CENTER); fill(0); textSize(30); text(score, height/2, 50); }
We needed to score when the ball passes a wall. But we need to add maximum 1 score per wall. Meaning, if the ball passes a wall than goes back and passes it again, another score shouldn’t be added. To achieve this, we added another variable to the gap wall array within the arraylist. The new variable stores 0 if the ball didn’t yet pass that wall and 1 if it did. Then, we modified the watchWallCollision() method. We added a condition that fires score() method and marks the wall as passed when the ball passes a wall which it has not passed before.
We are now very close to the end. The last thing to do is implement click to restart on the game over screen. We need to set all the variables we used to their initial value, and restart the game. Here it is:
... public void mousePressed() {... if (gameScreen==2){ restart(); } }... void restart() { score = 0; health = maxHealth; ballX=width/4; ballY=height/5; lastAddTime = 0; walls.clear(); gameScreen = 0; }
Let’s add some more colors.
Voila! We have Flappy Pong!
The full Processing game code can be found here.
Porting the Processing Game Code to the Web Using p5.js
p5.js is a JavaScript library with a very similar syntax to that of the Processing programming language. It is not a library that is capable of simply running existing Processing code; instead, p5.js requires writing actual JavaScript code—similar to the JavaScript port of Processing known as Processing.js. Our task is to convert Processing code into JavaScript using the p5.js API. The library has a set of functions and a syntax similar to Processing, and we have to do certain changes to our code to make them work in JavaScript—but since both Processing and JavaScript share similarities with Java, it’s less of a leap than it sounds. Even if you are not a JavaScript developer, the changes are very trivial and you should be able to follow along just fine.
First of all, we need to create a simple index.html and add p5.min.js to our header. We also need to create another file called flappy_pong.js which will house our converted code.
<html> <head> <title>Flappy Pong</title> <script tyle="text/javascript" src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/p5.js/0.4.19/p5.min.js"></script> <script tyle="text/javascript" src="flappy_pong.js"></script> <style> canvas { box-shadow: 0 0 20px lightgray; } </style> </head> <body> </body> </html>
Our strategy while converting the code should be copying and pasting all our code into flappy_pong.js and then making all the changes. And that’s what I did. And here are the steps I took to update the code:
Javascript is an untyped languages (there are no type declarations like int and float ). So we need to change all the type declarations to var.
There is no void in Javascript. We should change all to function.
We need to remove the type declarations of arguments from function signatures. (ie. void wallMover(var index) { to function wallMover(index) { )
There is no ArrayList in JavaScript. But we can achieve the same thing using JavaScript arrays. We make the following changes: ArrayList<int[]> walls = new ArrayList<int[]>(); to var walls = []; walls.clear(); to walls = []; walls.add(randWall); to walls.push(randWall); walls.remove(index); to walls.splice(index,1); walls.get(index); to walls[index] walls.size() to walls.length
Change the declaration of the array var randWall = {width, randY, wallWidth, randHeight, 0}; to var randWall = [width, randY, wallWidth, randHeight, 0];
Remove all public keywords.
Move all color(0) declarations into function setup() because color() will not be defined before setup() call.
Change size(500, 500); to createCanvas(500, 500);
Rename function gameScreen(){ to something else like function gamePlayScreen(){ because we already have a global variable named gameScreen. When we were working with Processing, one was a function and the other was an int variable. But JavaScript confuses these since they are untyped.
Same thing goes for score(). I renamed it to addScore().
The full JavaScript code covering everything in this Processing tutorial can be found here.
Processing Game Code: You Can Do It Too
In this Processing tutorial, I tried to explain how to build a very simple game. However, what we did in this article is just the tip of the iceberg. With the Processing programming language, just about anything can be achieved. In my opinion, it’s the best tool to program what you’re imagining. My actual intention with this Processing tutorial was rather than teaching Processing and building a game, to prove that programming isn’t that hard. Building your own game isn’t just a dream. I wanted to show you that with a little effort and enthusiasm, you can do it. I really hope these two articles inspire everyone to give programming a shot.BANG ON TARGET: US gun sales have boomed in the past four months, boosting profits at gun-maker Smith & Wesson Co, whose stock price has more than tripled.
US gun sales have boomed in the past four months, boosting profits at gun-maker Smith & Wesson Co, whose stock price has more than tripled.
"I have been in business for years, and (gun sales are) a lot higher than at other times," said gun-shop owner Darrin Green, who owns Double Eagle Firearms Inc in Arkansas City, Kansas. Green said sales of handguns at his store have risen about 80 percent since November.
"I don't have any in stock -- I can't keep them in stock."
Eric Wold, an analyst with Merriman Curhan Ford, said the trend would translate directly into benefits for Smith & Wesson, the U.S. leader in handguns.
"The boost is really because people still don't know what the Obama administration will do," Wold said. "So instead of trying to guess, you just buy anything while you can."
Last Thursday, Smith & Wesson reported a higher-than-expected profit for the quarter ended January 31, helped by a 62 percent growth in sales of handguns and tactical rifles.
Green said he has a backlog of more than 50 orders for Smith & Wesson handguns, compared with an inventory of 200 guns in November.
Recent data from the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) show background checks for firearm sales jumped 24 percent in January and 23.3 percent in February compared with a year earlier.
NICS background checks are necessary for individuals buying firearms from federally licensed retailers, and are a strong indicator of the number of actual sales.
Some experts also think that the unsettled economic conditions make people more concerned about increased crime rates, thus boosting gun sales.
"There hasn't been any unrest, there hasn't been any increase in crime, but concerns about that potential is one reason" for the higher sales, Wold said.
HITTING THE BULLSEYE
"Smith & Wesson's product mix makes it a winner," Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Rommel Dionisio said.
The areas that are hottest within the firearms industry, such as high-capacity rifles, are the areas where Smith & Wesson tends to have a large presence, he said.
The 157-year-old company launched several new models in January and expects demand to rise for at least the next couple of quarters.
For the third quarter, sales of both Smith & Wesson pistols and revolvers were up around 45 percent, while sales of tactical rifles doubled.
Analysts also see Smith & Wesson benefiting from the recently enacted economic stimulus bill, which steers $4 billion to state, local and tribal law enforcement.
"Over the past couple of years, the company has been winning more than 80 percent of every law-enforcement and pistol contract coming up for bid," Wold said.
Combining the potential benefits from hiring additional police officers and an accelerated gun-replacement cycle, Wold estimates incremental revenue of as much as $45 million to $147 million in the next two years for the company.
STRAW-MAN VILLAIN?
However, opinions vary on whether stricter laws are in the offing.
The four-million-member National Rifle Association is convinced they are, and vows to fight any attempt to curb gun ownership.
"We believe that the Obama administration will try to make gun laws in this country more restrictive," National Rifle Association spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said. "We will do what we have done all along, which is to fight for the rights of law-abiding Americans."
But others think such fears are overblown.
"I think the industry has set up a straw-man villain -- the possibility of major policy changes, when that's not likely to happen," Garen Wintemute, director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California's Davis School of Medicine, said.
"Guns are consumer products, and this is just one more case of follow the money."Lauren | Published on July 17th, 2018
I gulped and slowly backed away towards the door. I wanted so badly to run, but I was too scared to even flinch. I closed my eyes and let the waves of nausea wash over me for a few minutes, gritting my teeth and clenching my sweaty palms behind my back.
I can do this.
Gradually, I opened my eyes to peer out at the hundreds of demonic beings facing me. Teeth bared, hackles raised, they all snarled viciously in my direction. They could sense my fear and I watched in horror as one by one they took turns to launch themselves at the fragile wire fencing – the only thing that separated them from me.
My eyes widened in horror and I prepared myself for my impending death.
“Ahn Nyeong Hah Seh Yo!”, sings a beaming Korean teenager as she rushes over to open the metal fence.
She giggled as she playfully shooed away the ten dogs that were surrounding her and excitedly led myself and my friend to a free table.
As we sat down, I slowly exhaled and let out a nervous, foreign-sounding laugh. I was still alive.
I was at the dog cafe in Seoul and I have a huge phobia of dogs.
Given the somewhat misleading name, the dog cafe is not a restaurant where you go to pick out that evening’s dinner. It is, in fact, a small coffee shop in the Hongdae district where people in Seoul go to grab a drink and hang out with friends, all while spending a few hours relaxing in the company of their new canine friends.
The owner of the cafe purchased twenty dogs of all different breeds to fill the cafe during the day and visitors are also encouraged to bring their own dogs along with them so that they can all play happily together.
As you can imagine, this rarely happens and the cafe frequently descends into complete and utter chaos.
Although it may sound like a fun and exciting way to spend an afternoon, the overpowering scent of urine and the masses of dog hair floating around the cafe don’t exactly make it a particularly pleasant place to hang out.
Even before you reach the street that the dog cafe is on, the sound of barking, squealing and yelping fills the air, causing passersby to look up at the nearby buildings in confusion.
Having said that, I found myself adjusting to the unfamiliar situation remarkably quickly. After I had been there for about five minutes I no longer noticed the intense smell of ammonia and started to find it perfectly normal to have dogs of all shapes and sizes run across the table, jump into my lap and pee all around my feet.
Once I was calm and my anxiety levels were back to normal, I discovered that the dog cafe is actually a fantastic place to people/dog watch. My friend and I ended up staying for over three hours and we were in hysterics for the entire time.
The scenes that unfolded around us were absolutely hilarious.
There was the look of horror on the face of somebody entering the cafe for the first time – especially when they’re bringing their own dog along with them.
There were the terrified girls who had brought along their tiny puppy with them and were surprised to see it getting mauled by a dog two hundred times the size of it.
I especially loved the lady in the corner who had purchased three hundred bags of dog treats and never had less than twenty dogs surrounding her table at any one time.
There was the ridiculously huge yet extremely elegant dog who refused to move for hours:
And then there was the guy who brought along a whole range of outfits with him and spent hours dressing up random dogs and taking photos of them:
Towards the end of my time there I even got over my phobia and held this particularly terrifying dog:
I’ve always been a huge fan of themed restaurants so despite my fears I was never going to say no to having the opportunity to visit the dog cafe. The drinks were extremely overpriced but definitely worth it to sit in a smelly cafe, where it’s too noisy to hear your friend speak while being surrounded by piles of dog hair…
This place is perfect for residents of Korea who own dogs or for dog lovers who are too busy to have their own pet dog in Seoul. There’s even a cat cafe close by if dogs aren’t your cup of tea!
Bau Haus is open from 1.20 pm to 11.30 pm and is located between the subway stations Sangsu and Hongdae.A Georgia woman who is three years into a painful recovery is suing after claiming she received the wrong dosage of a medication that caused her body to burn from the inside out. Khaliah Shaw, 26, spent three weeks in a medically induced coma while her skin slowly peeled off and wants to ensure that other patients are protected from pharmaceutical errors, 11Alive.com reported.
“This did not have to happen,” Shaw, who lives in Snellville, about 30 miles northeast of Atlanta, told 11Alive.com. “This was not just some sort of fluke in my opinion. This happened as a directly (sic) result of somebody’s error.”
CUB SCOUT SAVES CHOKING MOM ONE MONTH AFTER DAD'S TRAGIC DEATH
In 2014, Shaw told her doctors she felt depressed and received a prescription for Lamictal, an anti-seizure medication sometimes used to treat bipolar disorders, the Tech Times reported.
Shaw took the medication for two weeks before she started breaking out in blisters. Shaw told the news outlet that her body felt like it “was on fire.”
Eventually, doctors diagnosed her with Stevens Johnson Syndrome, a rare skin disorder that is typically caused by an adverse reaction to medication, 11Alive.com reported.
“It essentially causes your body to burn from the inside out, and you pretty much just melt,” she told 11Alive.com.
NFL GREAT NICK BUONICONTI DIAGNOSED WITH DEMENTIA: 'I WOULD NOT HAVE PLAYED'
The Palm Beach Post reported that others are also suing pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) for promoting Lamictal without advertising its risks in full. In July 2012, the pharmaceutical company pleaded guilty to criminal negligent charges for allegations of fraud and failure to report product safety data for the drug, the newspaper reported. GSK paid $3 billion total.
As for Shaw, the young woman has come to resemble a burn victim. She has lost her fingernails and sweat glands, and she is slowly going blind, 11Alive.com reported.
“They’re telling me this could happen again, and they’re telling me if it did happen again, that it would be worse,” Shaw told the news outlet.
The lawsuit claims her medical bills total upwards of $3.45 million and are expected to continue to grow as she continues receiving treatment.
'I MADE IT': STUDENT WITH DOWN SYNDROME LEARNS HE'S ACCEPTED TO COLLEGE
“I never heard of Steven Johnson Syndrome until I was in the hospital with my skin melting off my body. That’s when I learned what it was,” she told the news outlet.
Shaw’s attorney told 11Alive.com that alleged errors by pharmacists continue to “happen at an alarming rate,” because staff are too rushed and too busy.
In telling her story, Shaw wants to raise awareness about the dangers of prescription medication errors.
"It is difficult being in the spotlight, but I think it is worth it if it means someone is more educated about the medication that they are taking," Shaw told The Palm Beach Post.Information on fingerprints will now be shared with United States authorities under a new agreement aimed at fighting cross-border crime.
Justice Minister Judith Collins has formalised the agreement, which builds on the co-operation New Zealand already provides through Interpol, as well as mutual assistance legislation between New Zealand and the US.
"Long-standing co-operation between our two nations has been vital in enhancing our security, and protecting New Zealanders from transnational crimes, which can range from drug smuggling to online child sexual abuse," Collins said.
"This agreement recognises that information sharing is essential in the fight against cross-border crime."
The agreement will allow authorities to share information - to the extent permitted by each country's laws - to prevent, detect and investigate crimes with a penalty of a year or more in prison.
Under the agreement, authorities will be allowed to check whether fingerprints related to a specific case are also held by their overseas counterparts.
If there is a match, they can share information about whose fingerprints they are - if there's no match, no information will be shared.
The foreign affairs, defence and trade select committee recommended the Government publicly report how often New Zealand authorities and their US counterparts shared information under the agreement.
Collins confirmed this would happen.
New Zealand is one of 36 countries to sign such agreements with the United States, as part of the US' visa-waiver programme.
Nearly 130,000 New Zealand residents travelled to the US in the year to July 2013.
Legislative changes will be required to incorporate the treaty obligations into domestic law.
Those provisions will be included in the Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Legislation Bill, which is expected to be introduced to Parliament later this year.Oil’s Pipeline to America’s Schools
Jie Jenny Zou Bio Recent Stories
Joe Wertz Bio Recent Stories Joe Wertz is a senior reporter and managing editor at StateImpact Oklahoma. He reports regularly on energy and environment issues for national NPR audiences and other national outlets, and serves as president-elect of Freedom of Information Oklahoma, an open records and government transparency nonprofit. Previously, he worked as a managing editor, assistant editor and staff reporter at several major Oklahoma newspapers. He lives in Oklahoma City, and studied journalism at the University of Central Oklahoma.
Illustration by Eben McCue
Jennifer Merritt’s first-graders at Jefferson Elementary School in Pryor, Oklahoma, were in for a treat. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, the students gathered in late November for story time with two special guests, state Rep. Tom Gann and state Sen. Marty Quinn.
Dressed in suits, the Republican lawmakers read aloud from “Petro Pete’s Big Bad Dream,” a parable in which a Bob the Builder lookalike awakens to find his toothbrush, hardhat and even the tires on his bike missing. Abandoned by the school bus, Pete walks to Petroville Elementary in his pajamas.
[module align=”right” width=”half” type=”aside”]This story is a collaboration with The Center for Public Integrity. Versions of this story also appear in The Guardian US and The Hechinger Report.[/module]
“It sounds like you are missing all of your petroleum by-products today!” his teacher, Mrs. Rigwell, exclaims, extolling oil’s benefits to Pete and fellow students like Sammy Shale. Before long, Pete decides that “having no petroleum is like a nightmare!”
The tale is the latest in an illustrated series by the Oklahoma Energy Resources Board, a state agency funded by oil and gas producers. The board has spent upwards of $40 million over the past two decades on K-12 education with a pro-industry bent, including hundreds of pages of curricula, a speaker series and an afterschool program — all at no cost to educators.
A similar program in Ohio shows teachers how to “frack” Twinkies using straws to pump for cream and advises on the curriculum for a charter school that revolves around shale drilling. A national program whose sponsors include BP and Shell claims it’s too soon to tell if the earth is heating up, but “a little warming might be a good thing.”
Oklahoma Energy Resources Board
Decades of documents reviewed by the Center for Public Integrity reveal a tightly woven network of organizations that works in concert with the oil and gas industry to paint a rosy picture of fossil fuels in America’s classrooms. Led by advertising and public-relations strategists, the groups have long plied the tools of their trade on impressionable children and teachers desperate for resources.
Proponents of programs like the one in Oklahoma say they help the oil and gas industry replenish its aging workforce by stirring early interest in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM. But some experts question the educational value and ethics of lessons touting an industry that plays a central role in climate change and air pollution.
Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, likened industry-sponsored curricula that ignore climate science to advertising. “You’re exploiting that trusted relationship between the student and the teacher,” he said. Leiserowitz — whose research has focused on how culture, politics and psychology impact public perception of the environment — said fossil-fuel companies have a stake in perpetuating a message of oil dependency.
As early as the 1940s, the industry’s largest and most powerful lobby group targeted K-12 schools as a key element of its fledgling marketing strategy. By the 1960s, the American Petroleum Institute was looking to shake its reputation as a “monopoly which reaped excessive profits” and set out to cultivate a network of “thought leaders” that included educators, journalists, politicians and even clergy, according to an organizational history copyrighted by API in 1990.
The idea caught on. Hundreds of oil-and-gas-centric lesson plans are now available at the click of a mouse. The programs occupy a gray area between corporate sponsorship and promotion at a time when climate science has increasingly come under siege at the highest levels of government. On June 1, President Donald Trump, flanked by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator – and former Oklahoma attorney general – Scott Pruitt, announced that the United States would withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.
“Teachers are taking their cues from the political situation around them,” said Glenn Branch of the National Center for Science Education, a nonprofit that advocates for climate-change and evolution education. He pointed to a survey that found teachers in Republican counties and states are less likely to teach the scientific consensus on global warming — regardless of the educator’s politics. “Teachers live in local communities, they’re sensitive to the needs and desires of the people paying their paychecks.”
Branch’s group supports wide-scale adoption |
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There’s been some speculation that Dorgan will take a job promoting the coal industry. In his official statement announcing his retirement, Dorgan wrote, quote, “I would like to do some teaching and would also like to work on energy policy in the private sector.”
I wanted to ask you, Ryan Grim, for one quick comment on the significance of Byron Dorgan leaving.
RYAN GRIM: Right. With all my pessimism about Dodd leaving, what that means legislatively, it also means that Democrats are going to maintain that Senate seat in Connecticut. As far as Dorgan is concerned, that means that they’re going to lose a guy who — it’s probably too much to call on the conscience of the Senate, but he was quite a — you know, quite a liberal senator and from a right-wing state, and he’s going to be replaced, most likely, with a Republican. So that is an electoral problem that is going to face the Democrats in 2010, is his departure.
AMY GOODMAN: Ryan Grim, we want to thank you for being with us, senior correspondent for the Huffington Post.The Gamecocks picked up a major in-state target this evening. OrTre Smith, ranked as the top player in South Carolina, committed to Will Muschamp and USC this evening. The 6’4”, 210-pound wideout becomes the program’s 22nd commit in the class of 2017 and is its third highest-ranked player according to 247Sports’ composite rankings (behind Jamyest Williams and MJ Webb).
Smith was one of the biggest targets on Muschamp’s radar since becoming South Carolina’s head coach. Muschamp rolled out the red carpet during the senior’s visit back in June and had been in frequent contact with him throughout the recruiting process. Now, with the wide receiver in the fold, the Gamecocks’ coach has taken a big step in establishing South Carolina as a destination over Clemson for up-and-coming recruits, especially within the state’s borders.
Last year, Smith rewrote the Wando High record books as he set the school’s record for receptions, receiving yards and touchdowns (84 grabs, 1,319 yards, 16 scores). He is likely one of the final remaining major targets for the Gamecocks in the 2017 cycle as Muschamp and the staff look to finish out the class and begin working aggressively on 2018 recruits. With a player like Smith now on board, South Carolina will certainly be top of mind for some other in-state stars, namely elite end Xavier Thomas and quarterback Dakereon Joyner.Las Vegas Line Movements Las Vegas Movements ·
Offshore Movements Michigan Wolverines @ Michigan State Spartans Game Date: Saturday, October 29, 2016 Game Time: 12:00 PM ATLANTIS LINE MOVEMENTS Money Line Spread Total 1st Half 2nd Half Date Time Fav Dog Fav Dog Over Under Fav Dog Fav Dog 10/24 4:10pm MICH-23 -110 MICHST+23 -110 10/25 1:55pm MICH -23.5 -110 MICHST +23.5 -110 10/26 11:26am MICH -24 -110 MICHST +24 -110 10/26 5:51pm MICH -24.5 -110 MICHST +24.5 -110 10/26 10:06pm MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 54.0 -110 54.0 -110 10/26 10:14pm MICH -2500 MICHST +1100 MICH -24 -110 MICHST +24 -110 54.0 -110 54.0 -110 10/27 12:31pm MICH-2500 MICHST+1100 MICH -24.5 -110 MICHST +24.5 -110 54.0 -110 54.0 -110 10/27 4:15pm MICH-2500 MICHST+1100 MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 54.5 -110 54.5 -110 10/28 10:40am MICH-2500 MICHST+1100 MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 54.0 -110 54.0 -110 10/28 12:17pm MICH-2500 MICHST+1100 MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 54.0 -110 54.0 -110 MICH -14 MICHST +14 10/28 2:25pm MICH-2500 MICHST+1100 MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 53.0 -110 53.0 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/28 10:19pm MICH -2000 MICHST +1000 MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 53.0 -110 53.0 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 10:12am MICH-2000 MICHST+1000 MICH -24 -110 MICHST +24 -110 51.5 -110 51.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 10:25am MICH-2000 MICHST+1000 MICH-24 -110 MICHST+24 -110 51.5 -110 51.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 10:37am MICH -2500 MICHST +1100 MICH -24.5 -110 MICHST +24.5 -110 51.5 -110 51.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 10:41am MICH-2500 MICHST+1100 MICH -25 -110 MICHST +25 -110 51.5 -110 51.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 10:41am MICH-2500 MICHST+1100 MICH-25 -110 MICHST+25 -110 51.5 -110 51.5 -110 MICH -14.5 MICHST+14.5 10/29 11:35am MICH-2500 MICHST+1100 MICH-25 -110 MICHST+25 -110 51.0 -110 51.0 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 10/29 11:36am MICH-2500 MICHST+1100 MICH-25 -110 MICHST+25 -110 51.0 -110 51.0 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 10/29 11:53am MICH-2500 MICHST+1100 MICH-25 -110 MICHST+25 -110 50.5 -110 50.5 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 10/29 11:59am MICH-2500 MICHST+1100 MICH-25 -110 MICHST+25 -110 50.5 -110 50.5 -110 MICH -14 MICHST+14 10/29 1:45pm MICH-2500 MICHST+1100 MICH-25 -110 MICHST+25 -110 50.5 -110 50.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 MICH -13 MICHST +13 10/29 1:47pm MICH-2500 MICHST+1100 MICH-25 -110 MICHST+25 -110 50.5 -110 50.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 MICH -12.5 MICHST+12.5 10/29 1:50pm MICH-2500 MICHST+1100 MICH-25 -110 MICHST+25 -110 50.5 -110 50.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 MICH -13 MICHST+13 10/29 1:54pm MICH-2500 MICHST+1100 MICH-25 -110 MICHST+25 -110 50.5 -110 50.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 MICH-13 MICHST+13 10/29 1:57pm MICH-2500 MICHST+1100 MICH-25 -110 MICHST+25 -110 50.5 -110 50.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 MICH -13.5 MICHST+13.5 CAESARS/HARRAH'S LINE MOVEMENTS Money Line Spread Total 1st Half 2nd Half Date Time Fav Dog Fav Dog Over Under Fav Dog Fav Dog 10/24 2:33pm MICH-22 -110 MICHST+22 -110 10/24 2:35pm MICH -21.5 -110 MICHST +21.5 -110 10/24 3:13pm MICH -23 -110 MICHST +23 -110 10/24 8:18pm MICH -23.5 -110 MICHST +23.5 -110 10/26 11:06am MICH -24 -110 MICHST +24 -110 10/26 3:22pm MICH-24 -110 MICHST+24 -110 54.0 -110 54.0 -110 10/26 9:23pm MICH -24.5 -110 MICHST +24.5 -110 54.0 -110 54.0 -110 10/27 10:22am MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 54.0 -110 54.0 -110 MICH -14 MICHST +14 10/27 4:13pm MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 54.5 -110 54.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/28 2:22pm MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 54.5 -110 54.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/28 2:23pm MICH -25 -110 MICHST +25 -110 52.5 -110 52.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 12:10am MICH -24.5 -110 MICHST +24.5 -110 52.5 -110 52.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 12:14am MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 52.5 -110 52.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 1:55am MICH -25 -110 MICHST +25 -110 52.5 -110 52.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 10:13am MICH-25 -110 MICHST+25 -110 52.5 -110 52.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 10:22am MICH -24 -110 MICHST +24 -110 52.5 -110 52.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 10:36am MICH -24.5 -110 MICHST +24.5 -110 52.5 -110 52.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 10:50am MICH -25 -110 MICHST +25 -110 52.5 -110 52.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 10:51am MICH-25 -110 MICHST+25 -110 52.5 -110 52.5 -110 MICH -14.5 MICHST+14.5 10/29 11:18am MICH -24.5 -110 MICHST +24.5 -110 52.5 -110 52.5 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 10/29 11:20am MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 51.0 -110 51.0 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 10/29 11:29am MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 50.5 -110 50.5 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 10/29 11:34am MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 51.0 -110 51.0 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 10/29 11:36am MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 51.0 -110 51.0 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 10/29 11:39am MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 50.5 -110 50.5 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 10/29 11:50am MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 50.0 -110 50.0 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 10/29 1:44pm MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 50.0 -110 50.0 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 MICH -12.5 MICHST +12.5 10/29 1:45pm MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 50.0 -110 50.0 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 MICH-12.5 MICHST+12.5 10/29 1:47pm MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 50.0 -110 50.0 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 MICH-12.5 MICHST+12.5 10/29 1:56pm MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 50.0 -110 50.0 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 MICH -13 MICHST+13 CG TECHNOLOGY LINE MOVEMENTS Money Line Spread Total 1st Half 2nd Half Date Time Fav Dog Fav Dog Over Under Fav Dog Fav Dog 10/23 11:34am MICH-18 -110 MICHST+18 -110 10/23 12:13pm MICH -19.5 -110 MICHST +19.5 -110 10/23 12:50pm MICH -20 -110 MICHST +20 -110 10/23 1:04pm MICH -21 -110 MICHST +21 -110 10/23 4:39pm MICH XX XX MICHST XX XX 10/24 1:20pm MICH -21 -110 MICHST +21 -110 10/24 1:31pm MICH -23 -110 MICHST +23 -110 10/24 1:34pm MICH -24 -110 MICHST +24 -110 10/24 1:37pm MICH -23.5 -110 MICHST +23.5 -110 10/24 3:23pm MICH -1900 MICHST +975 MICH-23.5 -110 MICHST+23.5 -110 10/24 4:26pm MICH -2000 MICHST +1000 MICH-23.5 -110 MICHST+23.5 -110 10/24 7:43pm MICH-2000 MICHST+1000 MICH -24 -110 MICHST +24 -110 10/24 7:50pm MICH-2000 MICHST+1000 MICH -23.5 -110 MICHST +23.5 -110 10/26 11:09am MICH-2000 MICHST+1000 MICH -24 -110 MICHST +24 -110 10/26 11:10am MICH -2500 MICHST +1100 MICH-24 -110 MICHST+24 -110 10/26 2:02pm MICH -3000 MICHST +1200 MICH -24.5 -110 MICHST +24.5 -110 10/26 3:14pm MICH-3000 MICHST+1200 MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 54.0 -110 54.0 -110 10/26 4:31pm MICH -3500 MICHST +1300 MICH -25 -110 MICHST +25 -110 54.0 -110 54.0 -110 10/27 1:13pm MICH-3500 MICHST+1300 MICH-25 -110 MICHST+25 -110 53.0 -110 53.0 -110 10/27 4:06pm MICH-3500 MICHST+1300 MICH-25 -110 MICHST+25 -110 53.5 -110 53.5 -110 10/27 5:00pm MICH-3500 MICHST+1300 MICH-25 -110 MICHST+25 -110 53.5 -110 53.5 -110 MICH -14.5 MICHST +14.5 10/28 2:21pm MICH-3500 MICHST+1300 MICH-25 -110 MICHST+25 -110 52.5 -110 52.5 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 10/28 2:24pm MICH-3500 MICHST+1300 MICH-25 -110 MICHST+25 -110 52.5 -110 52.5 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 10/28 3:19pm MICH-3500 MICHST+1300 MICH-25 -110 MICHST+25 -110 52.0 -110 52.0 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 10/28 4:29pm MICH-3500 MICHST+1300 MICH-25 -110 MICHST+25 -110 51.0 -110 51.0 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 10/28 4:31pm MICH-3500 MICHST+1300 MICH-25 -110 MICHST+25 -110 51.5 -110 51.5 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 10/29 9:40am MICH-3500 MICHST+1300 MICH-25 -110 MICHST+25 -110 51.5 -110 51.5 -110 MICH -14 MICHST+14 10/29 9:43am MICH -3000 MICHST +1200 MICH -24.5 -110 MICHST +24.5 -110 51.5 -110 51.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 10:01am MICH-3000 MICHST+1200 MICH -24 -115 MICHST +24 -105 51.5 -110 51.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 10:08am MICH-3000 MICHST+1200 MICH-24 -115 MICHST+24 -105 51.5 -110 51.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 10:37am MICH -3500 MICHST +1300 MICH -24.5 -110 MICHST +24.5 -110 51.5 -110 51.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 10:42am MICH-3500 MICHST+1300 MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 50.5 -110 50.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 10:44am MICH-3500 MICHST+1300 MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 51.5 -110 51.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 10:48am MICH-3500 MICHST+1300 MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 51.5 -110 51.5 -110 MICH -14.5 MICHST+14.5 10/29 11:21am MICH-3500 MICHST+1300 MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 50.5 -110 50.5 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 10/29 11:37am MICH-3500 MICHST+1300 MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 50.0 -110 50.0 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 10/29 12:02pm MICHST XX MICH XX MICH XX XX MICHST XX XX XX XX XX XX MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 10/29 12:02pm MICHST XX MICH XX MICHXX XX MICHSTXX XX XX XX XX XX MICH XX MICHSTXX 10/29 1:44pm MICHST XX MICH XX MICHXX XX MICHSTXX XX XX XX XX XX MICHXX MICHSTXX MICH -13 MICHST +13 10/29 1:45pm MICHST XX MICH XX MICHXX XX MICHSTXX XX XX XX XX XX MICHXX MICHSTXX MICH-13 MICHST+13 10/29 1:52pm MICHST XX MICH XX MICHXX XX MICHSTXX XX XX XX XX XX MICHXX MICHSTXX MICH-13 MICHST+13 COASTS LINE MOVEMENTS Money Line Spread Total 1st Half 2nd Half Date Time Fav Dog Fav Dog Over Under Fav Dog Fav Dog 10/24 9:43am MICH-21 -110 MICHST+21 -110 10/24 10:41am MICH -22 -110 MICHST +22 -110 10/24 5:37pm MICH -22.5 -110 MICHST +22.5 -110 10/25 11:08am MICH -23.5 -110 MICHST +23.5 -110 10/26 2:04pm MICH-23.5 -110 MICHST+23.5 -110 54.0 -110 54.0 -110 10/26 4:49pm MICH -24 -110 MICHST +24 -110 54.0 -110 54.0 -110 10/27 9:55am MICH-24 -110 MICHST+24 -110 54.0 -110 54.0 -110 MICH -14 MICHST +14 10/27 1:57pm MICH -24.5 -110 MICHST +24.5 -110 54.0 -110 54.0 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/27 4:12pm MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 54.5 -110 54.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/28 2:20pm MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 53.5 -110 53.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/28 2:21pm MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 53.0 -110 53.0 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/28 2:22pm MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 53.0 -110 53.0 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/28 2:24pm MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 52.5 -110 52.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 6:31am MICH -25 -110 MICHST +25 -110 52.5 -110 52.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 6:42am MICH-25 -110 MICHST+25 -110 52.5 -110 52.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 9:23am MICH -24.5 -110 MICHST +24.5 -110 52.5 -110 52.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 9:36am MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 52.5 -110 52.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 10:05am MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 52.0 -110 52.0 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 10:44am MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 51.0 -110 51.0 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 11:39am MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 51.0 -110 51.0 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 11:49am MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 50.5 -110 50.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 11:49am MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 50.5 -110 50.5 -110 MICH -14.5 MICHST+14.5 10/29 1:45pm MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 50.5 -110 50.5 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 MICH -13 MICHST +13 10/29 1:47pm MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 50.5 -110 50.5 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 MICH-13 MICHST+13 10/29 1:48pm MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 50.5 -110 50.5 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 MICH-13 MICHST+13 10/29 1:53pm MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 50.5 -110 50.5 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 MICH-13 MICHST+13 10/29 2:00pm MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 50.5 -110 50.5 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 MICH -13.5 MICHST+13.5 GOLDEN NUGGET LINE MOVEMENTS Money Line Spread Total 1st Half 2nd Half Date Time Fav Dog Fav Dog Over Under Fav Dog Fav Dog 10/24 3:49pm MICH-23 -110 MICHST+23 -110 10/24 9:13pm MICH -23.5 -110 MICHST +23.5 -110 10/26 11:17am MICH -24 -110 MICHST +24 -110 10/26 3:35pm MICH-24 -110 MICHST+24 -110 54.0 -110 54.0 -110 10/26 4:41pm MICH -24.5 -110 MICHST +24.5 -110 54.0 -110 54.0 -110 10/27 4:12pm MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 54.5 -110 54.5 -110 10/28 10:32am MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 54.5 -110 54.5 -110 MICH -14.5 MICHST +14.5 10/28 2:20pm MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 53.5 -110 53.5 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 10/28 2:23pm MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 53.0 -110 53.0 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 10/28 11:52pm MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 52.5 -110 52.5 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 10/29 9:58am MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 52.5 -110 52.5 -110 MICH -14 MICHST+14 10/29 10:12am MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 51.5 -110 51.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 10:13am MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 51.5 -110 51.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 10:50am MICH -25 -110 MICHST +25 -110 51.5 -110 51.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 11:03am MICH-25 -110 MICHST+25 -110 51.5 -110 51.5 -110 MICH -14.5 MICHST+14.5 10/29 11:24am MICH-25 -110 MICHST+25 -110 50.5 -110 50.5 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 10/29 11:34am MICH-25 -110 MICHST+25 -110 51.0 -110 51.0 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 10/29 11:39am MICH-25 -110 MICHST+25 -110 50.5 -110 50.5 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 10/29 11:56am MICH-25 -110 MICHST+25 -110 49.5 -110 49.5 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 10/29 1:44pm MICH-25 -110 MICHST+25 -110 49.5 -110 49.5 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 MICH -12.5 MICHST +12.5 10/29 1:47pm MICH-25 -110 MICHST+25 -110 49.5 -110 49.5 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 MICH -13 MICHST+13 10/29 1:50pm MICH-25 -110 MICHST+25 -110 49.5 -110 49.5 -110 MICH-14.5 MICHST+14.5 MICH-13 MICHST+13 JERRY'S NUGGET LINE MOVEMENTS Money Line Spread Total 1st Half 2nd Half Date Time Fav Dog Fav Dog Over Under Fav Dog Fav Dog 10/24 2:58pm MICH-23 -110 MICHST+23 -110 10/24 7:01pm MICH -23.5 -110 MICHST +23.5 -110 10/25 3:01pm MICH -24 -110 MICHST +24 -110 10/27 10:13am MICH -24.5 -110 MICHST +24.5 -110 10/28 10:41am MICH -25 -110 MICHST +25 -110 10/28 12:18pm MICH-25 -110 MICHST+25 -110 54.0 -110 54.0 -110 10/28 2:24pm MICH-25 -110 MICHST+25 -110 52.5 -110 52.5 -110 10/28 4:29pm MICH-25 -110 MICHST+25 -110 52.5 -110 52.5 -110 MICH -14 MICHST +14 10/29 9:27am MICH-25 -110 MICHST+25 -110 52.0 -110 52.0 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 9:58am MICH -24 -115 MICHST +24 -105 52.0 -110 52.0 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 10:04am MICH-24 -115 MICHST+24 -105 51.5 -110 51.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 10:38am MICH -24.5 -110 MICHST +24.5 -110 51.5 -110 51.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 10:50am MICH -25 -110 MICHST +25 -110 51.5 -110 51.5 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 11:20am MICH -24.5 -110 MICHST +24.5 -110 51.0 -110 51.0 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 11:35am MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 51.0 -110 51.0 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 11:47am MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 51.0 -110 51.0 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 11:50am MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 50.0 -110 50.0 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 10/29 1:45pm MICH-24.5 -110 MICHST+24.5 -110 50.0 -110 50.0 -110 MICH-14 MICHST+14 MICH -13 MICHST +13 MIRAGE-MGM LINE MOVEMENTS Money Line Spread Total 1st Half 2nd Half Date Time Fav Dog Fav Dog Over Under Fav Dog Fav Dog 10/24 3:51pm MICH-21 -110 MICHST+21 -110 10/24 3:57pm MICH -22 -110 MICHST +22 -110 10/24 4:24pm MICH |
difference, while ugly, is minimal at worst, essentially non-existent at best.
— Sam Richards, regarding Breakpoint Now, if you really are concerned about duplicated media queries, you can still use a tool to merge them such as this gem however I feel like I have to warn you against possible side-effects of moving CSS code around. You are not without knowing that source order is important.
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Variables Variables are the essence of any programming language. They allow us to reuse values without having to copy them over and over again. Most importantly, they make updating a value very easy. No more find and replace or manual crawling. However CSS is nothing but a huge basket containing all our eggs. Unlike many languages, there are no real scopes in CSS. Because of this, we have to pay real attention when adding variables at the risk of witnessing conflicts. My advice would be to only create variables when it makes sense to do so. Do not initiate new variables for the heck of it, it won’t help. A new variable should be created only when all of the following criteria are met: the value is repeated at least twice;
the value is likely to be updated at least once;
all occurrences of the value are tied to the variable (i.e. not by coincidence). Basically, there is no point declaring a variable that will never be updated or that is only being used at a single place. Scoping Variable scoping in Sass has changed over the years. Until fairly recently, variable declarations within rulesets and other scopes were local by default. However when there was already a global variable with the same name, the local assignment would change the global variable. Since version 3.4, Sass now properly tackles the concept of scopes and create a new local variable instead. The docs talk about global variable shadowing. When declaring a variable that already exists on the global scope in an inner scope (selector, function, mixin…), the local variable is said to be shadowing the global one. Basically, it overrides it just for the local scope. The following code snippet explains the variable shadowing concept. // Initialize a global variable at root level. $variable : 'initial value' ; // Create a mixin that overrides that global variable. @mixin global-variable-overriding { $variable :'mixin value'! global ; }. local-scope : : before { // Create a local variable that shadows the global one. $variable : 'local value' ; // Include the mixin: it overrides the global variable. @include global-variable-overriding ; // Print the variable’s value. // It is the **local** one, since it shadows the global one. content : $variable ; } // Print the variable in another selector that does no shadowing. // It is the **global** one, as expected.. other-local-scope : : before { content : $variable ; } // Initialize a global variable at root level. $variable : 'initial value' // Create a mixin that overrides that global variable. @mixin global-variable-overriding $variable :'mixin value'! global. local-scope : : before // Create a local variable that shadows the global one. $variable : 'local value' // Include the mixin: it overrides the global variable. +global-variable-overriding // Print the variable’s value. // It is the **local** one, since it shadows the global one. content : $variable // Print the variable in another selector that does no shadowing. // It is the **global** one, as expected.. other-local-scope : : before content : $variable!default flag When building a library, a framework, a grid system or any piece of Sass that is intended to be distributed and used by external developers, all configuration variables should be defined with the!default flag so they can be overwritten. $baseline : 1em! default ; $baseline : 1em! default Thanks to this, a developer can define their own $baseline variable before importing your library without seeing their value redefined. // Developer’s own variable $baseline : 2em ; // Your library declaring `$baseline` @import 'your-library' ; // $ baseline == 2em ; // Developer’s own variable $baseline : 2em // Your library declaring `$baseline` @import your-library // $ baseline == 2em!global flag The!global flag should only be used when overriding a global variable from a local scope. When defining a variable at root level, the!global flag should be omitted. // Yep $baseline : 2em ; // Nope $baseline : 2em! global ; // Yep $baseline : 2em // Nope $baseline : 2em! global Multiple variables or maps There are advantages of using maps rather than multiple distinct variables. The main one is the ability to loop over a map, which is not possible with distinct variables. Another pro of using a map is the ability to create a little getter function to provide a friendlier API. For instance, consider the following Sass code: /// Z-indexes map, gathering all Z layers of the application /// @access private /// @type Map /// @prop {String} key - Layer’s name /// @prop {Number} value - Z value mapped to the key $z-indexes : ('modal' : 5000, 'dropdown' : 4000, 'default' : 1, 'below' : -1, ); /// Get a z-index value from a layer name /// @access public /// @param {String} $layer - Layer’s name /// @return {Number} /// @require $z-indexes @function z ( $layer ) { @return map-get ( $z-indexes, $layer ); } /// Z-indexes map, gathering all Z layers of the application /// @access private /// @type Map /// @prop {String} key - Layer’s name /// @prop {Number} value - Z value mapped to the key $z-indexes : ('modal' : 5000, 'dropdown' : 4000, 'default' : 1, 'below' : -1, ) /// Get a z-index value from a layer name /// @access public /// @param {String} $layer - Layer’s name /// @return {Number} /// @require $z-indexes @function z ( $layer ) @return map-get ( $z-indexes, $layer )
Extend The @extend directive is a powerful feature that is frequently misunderstood. In general, it makes it possible to tell Sass to style a selector A as though it also matched selector B. Needless to say, this can be a valuable ally when writing modular CSS. However, the true purpose of @extend is to maintain the relationships (constraints) within extended selectors between rulesets. What exactly does this mean? Selectors have constraints (e.g..bar in.foo >.bar must have a parent.foo );
in must have a parent ); These constraints are carried over to the extending selector (e.g..baz { @extend.bar; } will produce.foo >.bar,.foo >.baz );
will produce ); The declarations of the extended selector will be shared with the extending selector. Given that, it’s straightforward to see how extending selectors with lenient constraints can lead to selector explosion. If.baz.qux extends.foo.bar, the resulting selector can be.foo.baz.qux or.baz.foo.qux, as both.foo and.baz are general ancestors. They can be parents, grandparents, etc. Always try to define relationships via selector placeholders, not actual selectors. This will give you the freedom to use (and change) any naming convention you have for your selectors, and since relationships are only defined once inside the placeholders, you are far less likely to produce unintended selectors. For inheriting styles, only use @extend if the extending.class or %placeholder selector is a kind of the extended selector. For instance, an.error is a kind of.warning, so.error can @extend.warning. %button { display : inline-block ; // … button styles // Relationship: a %button that is a child of a %modal %modal > & { display : block ; } }.button { @extend %button ; } // Yep.modal { @extend %modal ; } // Nope.modal { @extend %modal ; >.button { @extend %button ; } } %button display : inline-block // … button styles // Relationship: a %button that is a child of a %modal %modal > & display : block.button @extend %button // Yep.modal @extend %modal // Nope.modal @extend %modal >.button @extend %button There are many scenarios where extending selectors are helpful and worthwhile. Always keep in mind these rules so you can @extend with care: Use extend on %placeholders primarily, not on actual selectors.
primarily, not on actual selectors. When extending classes, only extend a class with another class, never a complex selector.
Directly extend a %placeholder as few times as possible.
as few times as possible. Avoid extending general ancestor selectors (e.g..foo.bar ) or general sibling selectors (e.g..foo ~.bar ). This is what causes selector explosion. It is often said that @extend helps with the file size since it combines selectors rather than duplicating properties. That is true, however the difference is negligible once Gzip has done its compression. That being said, if you cannot use Gzip (or any equivalent) then switching to a @extend approach might be valuable, especially if stylesheet weight is your performance bottleneck. Extend and media queries You should only extend selectors within the same media scope ( @media directive). Think of a media query as another constraint. %foo { content : 'foo' ; } // Nope @media print {.bar { // This doesn't work. Worse: it crashes. @extend %foo ; } } // Yep @media print {.bar { @at-root ( without : media ) { @extend %foo ; } } } // Yep %foo { content : 'foo' ; & -print { @media print { content : 'foo print' ; } } } @media print {.bar { @extend %foo-print ; } } %foo content : 'foo' // Nope @media print.bar // This doesn't work. Worse: it crashes. @extend %foo // Yep @media print.bar @at-root ( without : media ) @extend %foo // Yep %foo content : 'foo' & -print @media print content : 'foo print' @media print.bar @extend %foo-print Opinions seem to be extremely divided regarding the benefits and problems from @extend to the point where many developers including myself have been advocating against it, as you can read in the following articles: What Nobody Told you About Sass Extend
Why You Should Avoid Extend
Don’t Over Extend Yourself That being said and to sum up, I would advise to use @extend only for maintaining relationships within selectors. If two selectors are characteristically similar, that is the perfect use-case for @extend. If they are unrelated but share some rules, a @mixin might suit you better. More on how to choose between the two in this write-up. Thanks to David Khourshid for his help and expertise on this section.
Mixins Mixins are one of the most used features from the whole Sass language. They are the key to reusability and DRY components. And for good reason: mixins allow authors to define styles that can be reused throughout the stylesheet without needing to resort to non-semantic classes such as.float-left. They can contain full CSS rules and pretty much everything that is allowed anywhere in a Sass document. They can even take arguments, just like functions. Needless to say, the possibilities are endless. But I feel I must warn you against abusing the power of mixins. Again, the keyword here is simplicity. It might be tempting to build extremely powerful mixins with massive amounts of logic. It’s called over-engineering and most developers suffer from it. Don’t over think your code, and above all keep it simple. If a mixin ends up being longer than 20 lines or so, then it should be either split into smaller chunks or completely revised. Basics That being said, mixins are extremely useful and you should be using some. The rule of thumb is that if you happen to spot a group of CSS properties that always appear together for a reason (i.e. not a coincidence), you can put them in a mixin instead. The micro-clearfix hack from Nicolas Gallagher deserves to be put in a (argumentless) mixin for instance. /// Helper to clear inner floats /// @author Nicolas Gallagher /// @link http://nicolasgallagher.com/micro-clearfix-hack/ Micro Clearfix @mixin clearfix { & : : after { content : '' ; display : table ; clear : both ; } } /// Helper to clear inner floats /// @author Nicolas Gallagher /// @link http://nicolasgallagher.com/micro-clearfix-hack/ Micro Clearfix @mixin clearfix & : : after content : '' display : table clear : both Another valid example would be a mixin to size an element, defining both width and height at the same time. Not only would it make the code lighter to type, but also easier to read. /// Helper to size an element /// @author Hugo Giraudel /// @param {Length} $width /// @param {Length} $height @mixin size ( $width, $height : $width ) { width : $width ; height : $height ; } /// Helper to size an element /// @author Hugo Giraudel /// @param {Length} $width /// @param {Length} $height =size ( $width, $height : $width ) width : $width height : $height For more complex examples of mixins, have a look at this mixin to generate CSS triangles, this mixin to create long shadows or this mixin to polyfill CSS gradients for old browsers. Argument-less mixins Sometimes mixins are used only to avoid repeating the same group of declarations over and over again, yet do not need any parameter or have sensible enough defaults so that we don’t necessarily have to pass arguments. In such cases, we can safely omit the parentheses when calling them. The @include keyword (or + sign in indented-syntax) already acts as a indicator that the line is a mixin call; there is no need for extra parentheses here. // Yep.foo { @include center ; } // Nope.foo { @include center (); } // Yep.foo +center // Nope.foo +center () Arguments list When dealing with an unknown number of arguments in a mixin, always use an arglist rather than a list. Think of arglist as the 8th hidden undocumented data type from Sass that is implicitly used when passing an arbitrary number of arguments to a mixin or a function whose signature contains.... @mixin shadows ( $shadows... ) { // type-of($shadows) == 'arglist' // … } =shadows ( $shadows... ) // type-of($shadows) == 'arglist' // … Now, when building a mixin that accepts a handful of arguments (understand 3 or more), think twice before merging them out as a list or a map thinking it will be easier than passing them all one by one. Sass is actually pretty clever with mixins and function declarations, so much so that you can actually pass a list or a map as an arglist to a function/mixin so that it gets parsed as a series of arguments. @mixin dummy ( $a, $b, $c ) { // … } // Yep @include dummy ( true, 42, 'kittens' ); // Yep but nope $params : ( true, 42, 'kittens' ); $value : dummy ( nth ( $params, 1 ), nth ( $params, 2 ), nth ( $params, 3 )); // Yep $params : ( true, 42, 'kittens' ); @include dummy ( $params... ); // Yep $params : ( 'c' : 'kittens', 'a' : true, 'b' : 42, ); @include dummy ( $params... ); =dummy ( $a, $b, $c ) // … // Yep +dummy ( true, 42, 'kittens' ) // Yep but nope $params : ( true, 42, 'kittens' ) $value : dummy ( nth ( $params, 1 ), nth ( $params, 2 ), nth ( $params, 3 )) // Yep $params : ( true, 42, 'kittens' ) +dummy ( $params... ) // Yep $params : ( 'c' : 'kittens', 'a' : true, 'b' : 42, ) +dummy ( $params... ) For more information on whether it is best to use multiple arguments, a list or an argument list, SitePoint has a nice piece on the topic. Mixins and vendor prefixes It might be tempting to define custom mixins to handle vendor prefixes for unsupported or partially supported CSS properties. But we do not want to do this. First, if you can use Autoprefixer, use Autoprefixer. It will remove Sass code from your project, will always be up-to-date and will necessarily do a much better job than you at prefixing stuff. Unfortunately, Autoprefixer is not always an option. If you use either Bourbon or Compass, you may already know that they both provide a collection of mixins that handle vendor prefixes for you. Use those. If you cannot use Autoprefixer and use neither Bourbon nor Compass, then and only then, you can have your own mixin for prefixing CSS properties. But. Please do not build a mixin per property, manually printing each vendor. // Nope @mixin transform ( $value ) { -webkit-transform : $value ; -moz-transform : $value ; transform : $value ; } // Nope =transform ( $value ) -webkit-transform : $value -moz-transform : $value transform : $value Do it the clever way. /// Mixin helper to output vendor prefixes /// @access public /// @author HugoGiraudel /// @param {String} $property - Unprefixed CSS property /// @param {*} $value - Raw CSS value /// @param {List} $prefixes - List of prefixes to output @mixin prefix ( $property, $value, $prefixes : ()) { @each $prefix in $prefixes { - #{ $prefix } - #{ $property } : $ value ; } #{ $property } : $ value ; } /// Mixin helper to output vendor prefixes /// @access public /// @author HugoGiraudel /// @param {String} $property - Unprefixed CSS property /// @param {*} $value - Raw CSS value /// @param {List} $prefixes - List of prefixes to output =prefix ( $property, $value, $prefixes : ()) @each $prefix in $prefixes - #{ $prefix } - #{ $property } : $value #{ $property } : $value Then using this mixin should be very straightforward:.foo { @include prefix ( transform, rotate ( 90deg ), ( 'webkit','ms' )); }.foo +prefix ( transform, rotate ( 90deg ), ( 'webkit','ms' )) Please keep in mind this is a poor solution. For instance, it cannot deal with complex polyfills such as those required for Flexbox. In that sense, using Autoprefixer would be a far better option.
Conditional statements You probably already know that Sass provides conditional statements via the @if and @else directives. Unless you have some medium to complex logic in your code, there is no need for conditional statements in your everyday stylesheets. Actually, they mainly exist for libraries and frameworks. Anyway, if you ever find yourself in need of them, please respect the following guidelines: No parentheses unless they are necessary;
Always an empty new line before @if ;
; Always a line break after the opening brace ( { );
); @else statements on the same line as previous closing brace ( } ).
statements on the same line as previous closing brace ( ). Always an empty new line after the last closing brace ( } ) unless the next line is a closing brace ( } ). // Yep @if $support-legacy { // … } @else { // … } // Nope @if ( $support-legacy == true ) { // … } @else { // … } // Yep @if $support-legacy // … @else // … // Nope @if ( $support-legacy == true ) // … @else // … When testing for a falsy value, always use the not keyword rather than testing against false or null. // Yep @if not index ( $list, $item ) { // … } // Nope @if index ( $list, $item ) == null { // … } // Yep @if not index ( $list, $item ) // … // Nope @if index ( $list, $item ) == null // … Always put the variable part on the left side of the statement, and the (un)expected result on the right. Reversed conditional statements often are more difficult to read, especially to unexperienced developers. // Yep @if $value == 42 { // … } // Nope @if 42 == $value { // … } // Yep @if $value == 42 // … // Nope @if 42 == $value // … When using conditional statements within a function to return a different result based on some condition, always make sure the function still has a @return statement outside of any conditional block. // Yep @function dummy ( $condition ) { @if $condition { @return true ; } @return false ; } // Nope @function dummy ( $condition ) { @if $condition { @return true ; } @else { @return false ; } } // Yep @function dummy ( $condition ) @if $condition @return true @return false ; // Nope @function dummy ( $condition ) @if $condition @return true @else @return false
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Loops Because Sass provides complex data structures such as lists and maps, it is no surprise that it also gives a way for authors to iterate over those entities. However, the presence of loops usually implies moderately complex logic that probably does not belong to Sass. Before using a loop, make sure it makes sense and that it actually solves an issue. Each The @each loop is definitely the most-used out of the three loops provided by Sass. It provides a clean API to iterate over a list or a map. @each $theme in $themes {.section- #{ $theme } { background-color : map-get ( $colors, $theme ); } } @each $theme in $themes.section- #{ $theme } background-color : map-get ( $colors, $theme ) When iterating on a map, always use $key and $value as variable names to enforce consistency. @each $key, $value in $map {.section- #{ $key } { background-color : $value ; } } @each $key, $value in $map.section- #{ $key } background-color : $value Also be sure to respect those guidelines to preserve readability: Always an empty new line before @each ;
; Always an empty new line after the closing brace ( } ) unless the next line is a closing brace ( } ). For The @for loop might be useful when combined with CSS’ :nth-* pseudo-classes. Except for these scenarios, prefer an @each loop if you have to iterate over something. @for $i from 1 through 10 {.foo :nth-of-type ( #{ $i } ) { border-color : hsl ( $i * 36, 50%, 50% ); } } @for $i from 1 through 10.foo :nth-of-type ( #{ $i } ) border-color : hsl ( $i * 36, 50%, 50% ) Always use $i as a variable name to stick to the usual convention and unless you have a really good reason to, never use the to keyword: always use through. Many developers do not even know Sass offers this variation; using it might lead to confusion. Also be sure to respect those guidelines to preserve readability: Always an empty new line before @for ;
; Always an empty new line after the closing brace ( } ) unless the next line is a closing brace ( } ). While The @while loop has absolutely no use case in a real Sass project, especially since there is no way to break a loop from the inside. Do not use it.
Warnings and Errors If there is a feature that is often overlooked by Sass developers, it is the ability to dynamically output warnings and errors. Indeed, Sass comes with three custom directives to print content in the standard output system (CLI, compiling app…): @debug ;
; @warn ;
; @error. Let’s put @debug aside since it is clearly intended to debug SassScript, which is not our point here. We are then left with @warn and @error which are noticeably identical except that one stops the compiler while the other does not. I’ll let you guess which does what. Now, there is a lot of room in a Sass project for warnings and errors. Basically any mixin or function expecting a specific type or argument could throw an error if something went wrong, or display a warning when doing an assumption. Warnings Take this function from Sass-MQ attempting to convert a px value to em, for instance: @function mq-px2em ( $px, $base-font-size : $mq-base-font-size ) { @if unitless ( $px ) { @warn 'Assuming #{ $px } to be in pixels, attempting to convert it into pixels.' ; @return mq-px2em ( $px + 0px ); } @else if unit ( $px ) == em { @return $px ; } @return ( $px / $base-font-size ) * 1em ; } @function mq-px2em ( $px, $base-font-size : $mq-base-font-size ) @if unitless ( $px ) @warn 'Assuming #{ $px } to be in pixels, attempting to convert it into pixels.' @return mq-px2em ( $px + 0px ) @else if unit ( $px ) == em @return $px @return ( $px / $base-font-size ) * 1em If the value happens to be unitless, the function assumes the value is meant to be expressed in pixels. At this point, an assumption may be risky so the user should be warned that the software did something that could be considered unexpected. Errors Errors, unlike warnings, prevent the compiler from going any further. Basically, they stop the compilation and display a message in the output stream as well as the stack trace, which is handy for debugging. Because of this, errors should be thrown when there is no way for the program to keep running. When possible, try to work around the issue and display a warning instead. As an example, let’s say you build a getter function to access values from a specific map. You could throw an error if the requested key does not exist in the map. /// Z-indexes map, gathering all Z layers of the application /// @access private /// @type Map /// @prop {String} key - Layer’s name /// @prop {Number} value - Z value mapped to the key $z-indexes : ('modal' : 5000, 'dropdown' : 4000, 'default' : 1, 'below' : -1, ); /// Get a z-index value from a layer name /// @access public /// @param {String} $layer - Layer's name /// @return {Number} /// @require $z-indexes @function z ( $layer ) { @if not map-has-key ( $z-indexes, $layer ) { @error 'There is no layer named ` #{ $layer } ` in $z-indexes.'+ 'Layer should be one of #{ map-keys ( $z-indexes ) }.' ; } @return map-get ( $z-indexes, $layer ); } /// Z-indexes map, gathering all Z layers of the application /// @access private /// @type Map /// @prop {String} key - Layer's name /// @prop {Number} value - Z value mapped to the key $z-indexes : ('modal' : 5000, 'dropdown' : 4000, 'default' : 1, 'below' : -1, ) /// Get a z-index value from a layer name /// @access public /// @param {String} $layer - Layer's name /// @return {Number} /// @require $z-indexes @function z ( $layer ) @if not map-has-key ( $z-indexes, $layer ) @error 'There is no layer named ` #{ $layer } ` in $z-indexes.'+ 'Layer should be one of #{ map-keys ( $z-indexes ) }.' @return map-get ( $z-indexes, $layer ) For more information on how to use @error efficiently, this introduction about error handling should help you.
Too Long; Didn’t read These guidelines are quite long and sometimes it is good to have them summed up in a shorter version. Below is this summary. Key principles Having a styleguide is all about consistency. If you disagree with some rules from Sass Guidelines, fair enough as long as you are consistent. ↩
. If you disagree with some rules from Sass Guidelines, fair enough as long as you are consistent. ↩ Sass should be kept as simple as it can be. Avoid building complex systems unless absolutely necessary. ↩
Keep in mind that sometimes KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) is better than DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself). ↩ Syntax & formatting An indentation is made of two (2) spaces, no tabs. ↩
Lines should be, as much as possible, shorter than 80 characters. Feel free to split them into several lines when necessary. ↩
CSS should be properly written, possibly following the CSS Guidelines from Harry Roberts. ↩
Whitespace is free, use it to separate items, rules and declarations. Do not hesitate to leave empty lines, it never hurts. ↩ Strings Declaring the @charset directive on top of the stylesheet is highly recommended. ↩
directive on top of the stylesheet is highly recommended. ↩ Unless applied as CSS identifiers, strings should be quoted using single quotes. URLs should also be quoted. ↩ Numbers Sass makes no distinction between numbers, integers, floats so trailing zeros (0) should be omitted. However, leading zeros (0) help readability and should be added. ↩
A zero (0) length should not have a unit. ↩
Units manipulation should be thought as arithmetic operations, not string operations. ↩
In order to improve readability, top-level calculations should be wrapped in parentheses. Also, complex math operations might be splitted into smaller chunks. ↩
Magic numbers dramatically hurt code maintainability and should be avoided at all time. When in doubt, extensively explain the questionable value. ↩ Colors Colors should be expressed in HSL when possible, then RGB, then hexadecimal (in a lowercase and shortened form). Color keywords should be avoided. ↩
Prefer mix(..) instead of darken(..) and lighten(..) when lightening or darkening a color. ↩ Lists Unless used as a direct mapping to space-separated CSS values, lists should be separated with commas. ↩
Wrapping parentheses should also be considered to improve readability. ↩
Inlined lists should not have a trailing comma, multi-line lists should have it. ↩ Maps Maps containing more than a single pair are written on several lines. ↩
To help maintainability, the last pair of a map should have a trailing comma. ↩
Map keys that happen to be strings should be quoted as any other string. ↩ Declaration sorting The system used for declaration sorting (alphabetical, by type, etc.) doesn’t matter as long as it is consistent. ↩ Selector nesting Avoid selector nesting when it is not needed (which represents most of the cases). ↩
Use selector nesting for pseudo-classes and pseudo-elements. ↩
Media queries can also be nested inside their relevant selector. ↩ Naming conventions It is best to stick to CSS naming conventions which are (except a few errors) lowercase and hyphen-delimited. ↩ CSS is a tricky language; do not hesitate to write very extensive comments about things that look (or are) fishy. ↩
For variables, functions, mixins and placeholders establishing a public API, use SassDoc comments. ↩ Variables Do use the!default flag for any variable part of a public API that can be safely changed. ↩
flag for any variable part of a public API that can be safely changed. ↩ Do not use the!global flag at root level as it might constitue a violation of Sass syntax in the future. ↩ Extend Stick to extending placeholders, not existing CSS selectors. ↩
Extend a placeholder as few times as possible in order to avoid side effects. ↩Opinion
Kevin Spacey is another ‘everyone knew’ — who else does Hollywood know about?
As with Harvey Weinstein, it seems plenty in Hollywood knew all about Kevin Spacey.
And even though they kept their mouths shut — ensuring nothing but more entitlement, more boldness, and likely more victims — some of those speaking up are oddly self-righteous.
“We all knew about u,” Rosie O’Donnell tweeted Monday morning. “I hope more men come forward.”
As far back as 2005, Seth MacFarlane — who made a knowing joke about Weinstein’s predation while announcing Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominees in 2013 — inserted a joke speculating about Spacey’s now-alleged pedophilia in his animated hit series “Family Guy.”
MacFarlane had Stewie, the baby of the family, run through a public space shouting, “Help! I’ve escaped from Kevin Spacey’s basement! Help me!”
Unlike Weinstein, who’s been destroyed by multitudes, Spacey’s been taken down by just one. Shortly after Anthony Rapp accused Spacey of coming on to him when he was 14, the elder actor attempted to spin the narrative on Twitter.
“This story has encouraged me to address other things about my life,” Spacey writes. How lovely that the trauma endured by a child barely into his teens, one that remains ever-present to the now-46-year-old Rapp, has been such a positive in Spacey’s life. Now, Spacey writes, he has the courage to admit the other worst-kept industry secret about himself: He’s gay.
“I want to deal with this honestly and openly,” he writes, “and that starts with examining my own behavior.”
Some media outlets initially bought Spacey’s cynical spin — a dangerous one that conflates gay men with pedophilia. But public outrage online quickly changed those stories from feel-good liberal moment — a 58-year-old actor comes out — to damning indictment.
Still, the fact remains: Just as Hollywood knew all along that Weinstein was a sexual predator, it seems many also knew about Spacey.
Whom else does the industry know about and protect? It’s hard to recall a time when the cultural landscape has shifted so dramatically. More than ever, the general public is inclined to believe self-reporting victims. More than ever, we are inclined to demand that the accused speak, that guilt be met with real consequence.
The next tipping point is one Hollywood may not see coming: Public disgust with those in power who know and do nothing, who knew and still deny knowing. Just ask Matt Damon and George Clooney, who spent all last week denying they knew about Harvey Weinstein (except when they did), only for the public to call out their blatant hypocrisy and reject their new movie “Suburbicon,” which flatlined at the box office. By week’s end, both actors pulled out of their scheduled public appearances. Wonder why.
The old ways no longer work. The entertainment media, as a single organism, should refuse publicist demands to keep questions about these scandals off the table. And those who know should speak up now, before it’s too late.
Related VideoSCHEMES
Introducing DULHAN for providing financial assistance of Rs.50,000/- (Rupees Fifty Thousand only) to each girl belonging to the Minority at the time of Marriage residing at Andhra Pradesh State
Eligibility Criteria : (a) The unmarried girl shall belong to the minority community. (b) The unmarried girl shall be a resident of AP State. (c) The unmarried girl should have completed 18 years of age and the Bridegroom should have completed 21 years at the time of Marriage. (d) The Income of the Bride Parents shall not exceed Rs.1,00,000/- per annum.
Procedure : The candidates should contact the Ex-Officio District Manager, APSCMFC {District Minority Welfare Officer (DMWO)/Executive Director (ED)} and submit a application along with following documents.
White Ration Card
In case, White Ration Card is not available, income certificate from the Tahsildar
Certificate from Priest of the Church for Marriage.
Baptism Certificate from the Pastor
As per the latest instructions received, at present this scheme is being implemented and supervised by Commissioner of Minorities Welfare, Hyderabad.
Pre Matric scholarships are sanctioned to the students studying from class 6th to 10th.
As per the latest instructions received, at present this scheme is being implemented and supervised by Commissioner of Minorities Welfare, Hyderabad.
Post Matric Scholarships (Government of AP)
The post matric scholarships are sanctioned to the students of Intermediate, Graduation, Post Graduation and Professional Courses.
As per the latest instructions received, at present this scheme is being implemented and supervised by Commissioner of Minorities Welfare, Hyderabad.
Reimbursement of Tuition Fee (Government of AP)
Tuition fee reimbursement is sanctioned to the students at post Matric level courses for Convener quota i.e., 'A' category seats only.
Procedure for Pre, Post and Reimbursement of Tuition Fee of Government of AP Scholarships:
Government of Andhra Pradesh Pre, Post and Fee Reimbursement scholarships are sanctioned to the students whose parent's/guardian's income is below Rs 1.00 lakh per annum only. The eligible Pre and Post Matric students should submit their application through online(http://epass.cgg.gov.in/). The hard copy of the filled in application form along with documents shall be submitted to the DMWO of the concerned districts through the Head Master/Principal of the concerned School/College. The scholarship amount is released to the student's bank account directly from the DMWO Office. Tuition fee is released to the College/Institution directly. For renewal the students need to apply online http://epass.cgg.gov.in/ using the token number. Latest income certificate issued by Tahsildar and passport size photo should be uploaded through online.
Documents to be attached:
Income Certificate issued by Tahasildar from M |
violate anyone's rights. Once we have an area that shows a high crime rate or a high call volume, it is our duty and obligation to find out why this is occurring and what we can do to prevent the trend from continuing. Therefore, identifying subjects in those problem areas help us solve crimes, and hopefully to prevent future crimes. Paragould Mayor Mike Gaskill and Police Chief Todd Stovall announced the severe measures at a Thursday town hall meeting at the West View Baptist Church.Dozens of residents listened while Stovall outlined the plan to deal with the city's high crime rate. Starting next year, the police department will roll out a new street crimes unit consisting of officers in SWAT gear armed with AR-15 assault rifles."If you're out walking, we're going to stop you, ask why you're out walking, check for your ID," Stovall warned. The police chief acknowledged that some citizens might be alarmed or offended by this paramilitary policing strategy but said they shouldn't be worried."Anyone who's out walking, because of the crime and the fear factor" could be stopped and interrogated, he said."We're going to do it to everybody," Stovall promised. "Criminals don't like being talked to."Mayor Gaskill wholeheartedly endorsed the plan, which seems to shred Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination and the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of due process."[Residents] may not be doing anything but walking their dog, but they're going to have to prove it," Gaskill said.Tellingly, Chief Stovall admitted that city officials did not consult any attorneys while drafting their draconian plan. Stovall even admitted that there isn't much, if any, difference between his plan and martial law."I don't know that there's a difference," he confessed."This fear is what's given us the reason to do this," Stovall explained. "Once I have stats and people saying they're scared, we can do this."On Friday, Stovall again cited "fear" and "statistics" to justify the city's controversial plan."To ask for your ID, I have to have a reason," he told the Paragould Daily Press. "Well, I've got statistical reasons that say I've got a lot of crime right now, which gives me probable cause to ask what you're doing out. Then when I add that people are scared... then that gives us even more [reason] to ask why you are here and what you are doing in this area."Paragould, a city of 26,500 residents located in the northeastern part of Arkansas about 88 miles northwest of Memphis, Tennessee, does suffer from higher-than-average crime rates. Although there was only one murder in the years 2000-2010 and the overall violent crime rate is nearly 10 percent below the national average, certain types of crimes have soared. The assault rate has increased fivefold since 2000. Burglaries and thefts are up fourfold, reflected in a property crime rate 2.5 times the national average. There are also twice as many rapes per capita as the national average.What would happen to those Paragould residents who refuse to cooperate with the new paramilitary policing plan?"I'm hoping we don't run across any of that," Chief Stovall told the Daily Press. "Will there be people who buck us? There may be. But we have a right to be doing what we're doing," he insisted. "We have zero tolerance. We are prepared to throw your high-end in jail, OK? We're not going to take a lot of flack."As this story has gained national attention, Stovall and Gaskill have attempted to paint a rosier picture of their controversial plan."The only people who are really going to be impacted by this are mostly the unknowns," Mayor Gaskill told the Daily Press on Friday. "We just want to make a presence out there for the criminal element. And we want to make a presence for the people who are concerned and give them a sense of security."Paragould residents reacted to the news of the city's plan with a mixture of approval and shock."Sorry, but I agree with the police," Mary Davis wrote to the Daily Press. "You cannot even walk to your car without scumbags making threats. We have to do something. The thugs are winning because they use the law against us."Stanley L. Garner agreed. "I would love for the PPD to patrol my area," he wrote. "Maybe they can hinder the thumping and bumping around B Street and stop some of the thieves around this area. If I'm outside, stop me by all means to find out if I live where I say. Thank the PPD and Mayor's office."Others were not so enthusiastic about what they perceive as a police state plan."Not only will this give Paragould a bad name and ruin our reputation for new businesses to come, but it will scare the hell out of our children," a local father of two named Joe wrote to the Daily Press. "The problem with the crime rate will not be fixed by creating a foot clan of crooked cops dressed in SWAT gear carrying AR-15s.""This is going to look like the Brown Shirts patrolling Munich in 1939," an unidentified resident wrote to the paper. "Scale it back. Armed police on a bike might be a better solution. This will likely get the Friendly City on CNN's 'Ridiculist.'""This isn't East Berlin, it's Arkansas," Tommy Carter told Opposing Views. "I don't care how much crime there is, you have no right to infringe on my rights without a warrant. Period!"Curiously, the Paragould Police Department's own website proudly claims that the city was recently named the safest in Arkansas with a population over 20,000.PPD issued a statement on its website attempting to allay concerns about violations of citizens' rights. It reads, in part: More about paragould arkansas, Police state, paragould crime, paragould police, mayor mike gaskill More news from paragould arkansas Police state paragould crime paragould police mayor mike gaskill chief todd stovallEros International Media Limited, the Indian subsidiary of Bollywood distributor and financier Eros International, has unveiled a slate of 50 movies for production in 2017-18.
The expansion of its production and finance operations is a move in a direction opposite to that taken by Disney-UTV and by Balaji, which last year both slashed Indian film making. Eros said that it will also selectively acquire third party titles.
“We continue to see great opportunity in nurturing talent, creating IP in-house and remain focused on delivering our promise to provide wholesome entertainment to audiences with the right mix of popular and content driven cinema,” said EIML managing director Sunil Lulla in a statement.
Productions flow from a partnership with Colour Yellow Production, NextGen Films and Trinity Pictures, Eros’ in-house franchise label.
Eight films with Colour Yellow include producer Aanand L. Rai’s directing superstar Shah Rukh Khan, and “Mukkebaz” and “Manmarziyaan,” which will both be directed by Anurag Kashyap. Among Rai and Colour Yellow’s previous collaborations with Eros are “Raanjhanaa” and “Tanu Weds Manu Returns.”
Related Sony India Readies 'Major' Tale of Mumbai Siege Hero Pakistan Bans Indian Films as Asian Neighbors Talk of War
Eros’ slate includes five films from NextGen Films. They include “Munna Michael,” from the blockbuster actor-director duo, Tiger Shroff and Sabbir Khan, and Sushant Singh Rajput’s space odyssey Chandamama Door Ke, directed by Sanjay Puran Singh.
Trinity has five potential franchises in its lineup. They include a spy-superhero film, “Sniff” directed by Amole Gupte, a live action bilingual (Hindi and Tamil) elephant film to be directed by Prabhu Solomon, and two previously announced Indo-China co-productions: Kabir Khan’s travel drama; and a cross-cultural romantic comedy by Siddharth Anand.
The slate also includes “Sarkar 3,” the third instalment of Ram Gopal Varma’s Sarkar franchise, Vikram Motwane’s vigilante drama Bhavesh Joshi with Phantom Films.
A sequel to hit political thriller drama Nayak – Nayak 2 – written by K.V. Vijayendra Prasad (“Baahubali,” “Bajrangi Bhaijaan”) will enter production this year.
While the group is best known for its Bollywood (Hindi-language) activities, the upcoming slate will also include two Telugu-language projects, four Marathi films, and others in Tamil and Malayalam. It will also make its first titles in Kannada.
The huge slate will help feed Eros’s online distribution business as well as its traditional theatrical releasing business in India and international markets. Its Eros Now online platform last month claimed that it had built up to 2 million paying subscribers.
“This film slate demonstrates two fundamental strengths, firstly (Eros’) firm footing on a dominant market leadership position built on the pillar of a wide, diverse portfolio of films and secondly its ability to foresee market trends and adapt swiftly to step up its own production and co-production model over the content acquisition model,” said Jyoti Deshpande, Group CEO, Eros International, in a statement.
“While the demonetization in India was a temporary cloud over the business affecting footfalls in the short run, we see great opportunities including a cashless economy driving accelerated adoption of Eros Now.”As drum-major instructor for Ohio State University's marching band, Stewart Kitchen convinced a 19-year-old freshman that his coaching and influence would land her a spot on the drum-major training squad.
As drum-major instructor for Ohio State University's marching band, Stewart Kitchen convinced a 19-year-old freshman that his coaching and influence would land her a spot on the drum-major training squad.
On Wednesday, the woman stood in a Franklin County courtroom and delivered an emotional,10-minute statement about how Kitchen abused that trust and forever altered her lifeby luring her to his apartment and sexually assaulting her in April 2015.
"My life for the past 14 months has been on hold," she said. "I've had to sit here as my life, who I was, the strong, the confident, the girl I knew, falls away from me. My innocence, my confidence, my safety, my worth, my happiness, my life, it's all damaged... I sit here broken, my life taken, dismantled by this man's decision to do this to me."
Kitchen, who pleaded guilty last month to one count of sexual battery, was eligible for probation, but the victim and Assistant Prosecutor Robert Letson said he deserved prison.
Common Pleas Judge Laurel Beatty agreed, imposing three years. Kitchen also must registeras asex offender every 90 days for the rest of his life.
He will be eligibleto apply for judicial release after serving six months in prison.
"Mr. Kitchen, I think you recruited this young woman and then you abused your power and betrayed her trust," the judge told him.
Kitchen, 29, showed little emotion during the hearing but appeared to choke up briefly as he turned and apologized to the victim for "tarnishing" her experience at Ohio State.
"She's not at fault in this," he said. "This was my fault."
The Dispatch does not identify the victims of sexual assault without their permission.
The womansaid shewas unaware of theuniversity's drum-major training squad,known as D-Row, until Kitchen sent her a Facebook message andencouraged her to apply.
After repeated efforts to arrange practice time, she accepted hisinvitation to discuss the programon thenight of April 15, 2015. He took her to a bar and bought her alcohol, but she said sheconsumed less than onefull drink.
Kitchen eventually told her he was too drunk to driveher home and suggested that they walk to his apartment on Indiana Avenue. After they arrived, he rejected her requests for a ride home and assaulted her, she said.
"That night I laid there, frozen in fear and trauma, as my coach disobeyed my requests and raped me," she told the judge. "I said 'no.' No means no. I said, 'Take me home.' That means take me home. I said, 'I'm not comfortable with this.' I said, 'Do not have sex with me.'"
Afterward, in a phone call monitored by Columbus police, Kitchen tried to convince her tosay thatthe sex was consensual.
Under the plea agreement, prosecutors dismissed two counts of rape and a misdemeanor charge ofviolating underage alcohol laws. Kitchen, who served as OSU's drum major in 2006 and 2007, had a part-time contract with the university that expiredshortly after his arrest.
After the hearing, the woman said she was "incredibly grateful that there is some sort of punishment he is receiving."
She left Ohio State after the incident andbegins classesat another university in the fall, she said.
"I will prevail from this," she told the judge. "I will go forward and my life will go on.But it will never be the same."
jfutty@dispatch.com
@JohnFuttyBut the philosophy has its best-known advocate in Mrs. Bachmann, whose bid for the presidency has exposed a wider audience of Americans to views long espoused by social conservative scholars.
On the campaign trail, she bills herself as a “constitutional conservative,” and holds that judges must limit themselves to the text and original understanding of the Constitution, rather than regard it as a living document whose meaning can evolve. At a forum last month in South Carolina, she criticized President Obama ’s policies on health care, immigration and education as unconstitutional, saying the 2012 election would turn on how candidates interpret “that sacred document.”
Here, Mrs. Bachmann worked as a research assistant to John Eidsmoe on his 1987 book, “Christianity and the Constitution: The Faith of Our Founding Fathers,” which argues that “religion and politics cannot be totally separated” and that “America was and to a large extent still is a Christian nation.“ She studied “legal institutions and values” with Herb Titus, a Harvard -trained lawyer who hears his philosophy in Mrs. Bachmann’s words.
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“Her belief is consistent with a biblical and a Christian understanding of the Constitution,” Mr. Titus said.
It took Mrs. Bachmann seven years to graduate; she took a four-year hiatus that began before the birth of her first child. And the school itself was short-lived; it ran out of money and closed in 1986. The future congresswoman’s tenure spanned its entire existence, a time of great ferment among Christian conservatives who, buoyed by the political rise of Ronald Reagan, were flexing their political muscles.
Mrs. Bachmann, who declined to be interviewed for this article, was among them. As a student here, she put her legal skills to use working with Chris Klicka, another Oral Roberts graduate, who helped found the Home School Legal Defense Association. Together, Mrs. Bachmann told an evangelical Christian audience earlier this year, they researched state laws on home schooling, favored by many Christian parents (including, later, Mrs. Bachmann and her husband, Marcus) as an alternative to public education. That kind of activism was promoted.
“We were encouraged to make a difference,” said Rich Gradel, an Oral Roberts law graduate and solo practitioner in Tulsa. “A lot of us could have gone elsewhere. We came here because we felt — not everybody, but a whole lot of us — felt like God led us here.”
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‘Mind, Body and Spirit’
With its 30-ton bronze sculpture of praying hands and 200-foot prayer tower offering a panoramic view of the 263-acre campus, Oral Roberts University was chartered in 1963 as an educational home for charismatic Christians. It placed a “particular emphasis,” its literature says, on “the Spirit-given ability to speak in tongues,” which Mr. Gradel and others said was common in chapel services here.
By the time Mrs. Bachmann arrived, the school was expanding. Chancellor Roberts, as he is still known here, envisioned an array of graduate schools — in medicine, nursing, dentistry, business, theology and law. He hoped for “cross-pollination,” so that budding lawyers, businessmen, theologians and health professionals could talk about how to carry God’s message “into every person’s world.”
The O. W. Coburn School of Law, financed largely by an Oklahoma businessman by that name (the father of Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma), opened in September 1979 with one dean, three professors (including Mr. Titus) and a law librarian. Byron R. White, the Supreme Court justice, spoke at the dedication ceremony.
The facilities were a big draw, former students say. There was a mock courtroom with an ornate wooden jury box, and a 150,000-volume law library. Classes were held in the Learning Resources Center, a huge diamond-shaped building with soaring arches and metallic gold trim designed to evoke Solomon’s Temple in ancient Jerusalem. To get to their classrooms, students walked past one of Oral Roberts’s favorite sayings in huge gold lettering: “Lawyers can be healers.”
Law students were held to the same strict standards as undergraduates. Physical education classes were mandatory; students had to maintain activity logs, in keeping with Mr. Roberts’s insistence on building “mind, body and spirit.” There was a dress code: modest skirts and dresses for women, shirts and ties for men. Beards were forbidden; a man’s hair could be no longer than halfway down the ear. Twice-weekly chapel attendance was required.
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The school was not Mrs. Bachmann’s first choice. She had applied to a secular law school in her home state of Minnesota. But she told an evangelical Christian audience earlier this year that her husband had heard about “a new Christian law school” and encouraged her to attend. Records show both enrolled; Marcus Bachmann took classes for one semester toward a master of divinity degree.
In many respects, former professors and students say, O. W. Coburn was just like any secular law school, teaching students the nuts and bolts of torts, property law, contracts, and civil and criminal procedure. “We used the same kind of textbooks they used,” said Tim Harris, the Tulsa County district attorney, who graduated a few years ahead of Mrs. Bachmann. “We used the same Socratic method.”
But where secular law professors tend to analyze court decisions in the context of the Constitution, legislative actions and judicial precedent, professors here prodded students to also consider how biblical principles and Scripture would apply. In interviews, graduates say they infuse their Christian faith into their work in a variety of ways, perhaps counseling couples to avoid a divorce, or encouraging a businessman to honor a contract. Some are active in causes important to conservative Christians, like opposing abortion.
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“As a criminal prosecutor, I look at the Ten Commandments — thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not murder,” Mr. Harris, the district attorney, said. “You’ve got law given to Moses by God and we have included that in our scheme of criminal law. We were challenged often to ask: Is there a biblical basis from which this came?”
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Fight for Acceptance
That did not sit well with the American Bar Association, which at first refused to accredit the school. The association balked at the university’s requirement that students sign an honor code in which they recognized that “our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is the Whole Man,” and pledged to “follow in his footsteps.” (The wording of the code is slightly altered today.)
“The A.B.A.’s argument was too much emphasis on the Christian aspect and not enough on the law,” said Roger Tuttle, a former professor and dean. The university sued on First Amendment grounds and won in 1981. But that first crop of students like Mrs. Bachmann, he said, “took a real gamble” in enrolling. Had the university lost its accreditation fight, they would have been ineligible to take the bar exam.
Classmates of Mrs. Bachmann recall her as bright, personable and engaged — “a pretty eager, keen student,” said Mark Stewart, a commercial litigator in Toronto. “Real bubbly” and “politically interested,” Mr. Gradel said. But after her second semester, in the spring of 1980, she and Marcus Bachmann left. Mike King, a Tulsa lawyer who was her study partner, said he suspected that she could no longer afford the tuition.
In 1982, Mrs. Bachmann gave birth to her son Lucas, the first of her five biological children, in Winona, Minn. (She eventually took in 23 foster children as well.) By the time she moved back to Tulsa to re-enroll for the 1984-85 academic year, a new professor had joined the faculty: Anita Hill.
Ms. Hill, who would later make headlines when she accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings, was hired to address the bar association’s complaints that the faculty was overwhelmingly white and male, Mr. Tuttle said. Though the university would not release Mrs. Bachmann’s transcripts, Lucas Bachmann said he believed that Ms. Hill had been one of his mother’s professors. Ms. Hill, now at Brandeis University, declined to be interviewed.
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Now Mrs. Bachmann was juggling motherhood and school. The family lived in graduate student housing, a complex of boxy apartments behind what is now a Wal-Mart. Marcus Bachmann worked as an activities coordinator at a nursing home — “We did a lot of bingo and buffets,” Lucas Bachmann said — while Michele hit the books.
She was on staff at the law review, where her duties included soliciting and editing articles, according to the journal’s editor, H. Wayne House. But her most powerful experience seems to have been her association with Mr. Eidsmoe, a minister, retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and author who, she told a Christian audience in March, “had a great influence on me” and “taught me so much about our godly heritage.”
A Big Influence
It was Mr. Eidsmoe, she said, who first exposed her to the idea of home schooling, and who introduced her to the writings of David Barton, a self-taught evangelical historian whose organization, Wall Builders, promotes the idea that the United States was founded as a Christian nation. (Last year, Mrs. Bachmann provoked a brief uproar on Capitol Hill when she proposed that Mr. Barton teach classes on the Constitution to incoming Republican freshmen.)
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Mr. Eidsmoe, who has since run into controversy over remarks he made to an Alabama secessionist group, declined to be interviewed. Years after Mrs. Bachmann left Oral Roberts, he and Mr. Titus defended Judge Roy S. Moore, the Alabama chief justice who lost his seat for his refusal to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the courthouse. As a Minnesota lawmaker, Mrs. Bachmann took up the cause, boasting that she kept a copy of the Ten Commandments on her office wall.
“They’re teaching children that there is separation of church and state, and I am here to tell you that’s a myth — that’s not true,” she told an evangelical Christian audience while running for Congress in 2006. She went on: “The only reason we’ve been a great nation — guess why? Because at our founding we established everything we did on the lordship of Christ.”
In 1986, Mrs. Bachmann graduated from law school and passed the Minnesota bar. That spring, Oral Roberts University turned its law school over to Christian Broadcasting University, now Regent University, founded by another televangelist, Pat Robertson. The law library was packed up and shipped off to the Regent campus in Virginia Beach. Mr. Titus became Regent’s founding dean.
Mrs. Bachmann went on to get her tax law certificate and join the I.R.S., for five years, handling run-of-the-mill tax cases, which mostly settled out of court. She tried just two cases, including one involving an American Indian who argued that treaties exempted him from paying taxes. (He lost.)
Mr. Titus says he can find a Christian perspective to tax law — “Go back to Romans: 13,” he said. “You only pay the government what the government is due” — although it appears that Mrs. Bachmann took the job mostly to help support her family.
She did not practice law after that; today, the congresswoman’s law license is no longer active. In Tulsa legal circles, O. W. Coburn graduates speak with “with a little tinge of pride” about her, Mr. Gradel said, and perhaps a hint of wistfulness that she does not do more to advertise her time here.
“She doesn’t tout our school, obviously — she touts William and Mary, and you and I can understand why she does that,” he said. “If you run for public office, people say, ‘Where did you go to school?’ They’d like to see that your alma mater is still around.”The election of Sepanta Niknam, a Zoroastrian, as a city council member in the central Iranian town of Yazd has become the topic of hot debate on the country’s political stage. While the Guardian Council says religious minorities cannot be representatives of Muslim-majority constituencies, the administration of President Hassan Rouhani and the parliament think otherwise.
It should be noted that Niknam has already served one full term as city councilor in Yazd from 2013-2017. However, following his re-election in the May 19 municipal polls, a defeated conservative candidate filed a complaint on the grounds of Niknam's religion, arguing that it was against Iran's constitution for a member of a religious minority to make decisions on behalf of the whole population of a Muslim-majority city. The complaint prompted the Court of Administrative Justice to issue an order suspending Niknam’s membership to the city council, basing its decision on an earlier letter by Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, the ultra-conservative head of the Guardian Council, which is the clerical body that vets candidates for elections.
So where did the story begin? On April 15, about one month before Iran’s local and presidential elections, Jannati issued a directive demanding that non-Muslims be disqualified from running in the then-upcoming city and village council elections in localities where most of the population are Muslims. His order was met with different reactions from Iran’s political groups, with many voicing opposition to such a measure.
However, since city council elections — contrary to presidential and parliamentary polls — are not supervised by the Guardian Council and a parliamentary delegation oversees the vetting of the candidates for these elections, Jannati’s directive was never implemented. Thus, many religious minorities participated in the May 19 municipal vote and won, including Niknam.
A few months later, on Oct. 9, Yazd City Council Chairman Gholamali Sefid said he had been ordered by the governor of Yazd to suspend Niknam’s membership to the city council in accordance with a ruling by the Court of Administrative Justice. However, Sefid announced his refusal to implement the order two days later, on Oct. 11, and insisted that he would resign from his post if the suspension was not revoked.
Reformists strongly criticized the Guardian Council decision, calling it illegal. Many political figures asked that parliament step in and revoke Jannati’s order. Even parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani, himself a Principlist, opposed the decision.
In a meeting with Yazd city councilors on Oct. 18, Larijani said, “I said from the start that we do not approve of this method. In my talks with Ayatollah [Ahmad] Jannati, the honorable secretary of the Guardian Council, I emphasized that local councils should be handled according to the law. … The Court of Administrative Justice getting involved in the matter has not been a timely move either, and I mentioned this point to the judiciary as well.” Larijani added, “If this matter is not resolved, we have no choice other than to refer it to the Expediency Council for a final resolution.”
Also on Oct. 18, Guardian Council spokesman Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei said that Jannati’s ruling was unchangeable and its implementation mandatory: “Anytime one of the Guardian Council jurists sees a measure that is against Islamic law [Sharia], he can step in and say so. Those who object to this have no knowledge of the laws and want to look at the issue from an expediency perspective.”
This was not the end of the story. On Oct. 24, hard-line cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, Iran’s former judiciary chief (1989-99) and a current member of the Guardian Council, announced that “the jurists in the [Guardian] Council have unanimously voted for the suspension of Sepanta Niknam, the Zoroastrian member of the Yazd City Council. This is a decision that is lawful, in accordance with Islamic laws, definite and nonretractable. No one can revoke this law.” He then warned that any attempts to overturn this ruling would be “a fight against the principle of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which the establishment surely would not tolerate.”
According to the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, followers of Judaism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism are each allowed to have a representative in parliament. But what does the Iranian Constitution say about city councils? Based on Article 91 of the constitution, the Guardian Council is responsible for examining the compatibility of the legislation passed by the Islamic Consultative Assembly (parliament) with Islam. However, Article 94 of the constitution sets a time frame for how long the Guardian Council has the liberty to comment on a piece of legislation. Based on this article, “All legislation passed by the Islamic Consultative Assembly must be sent to the Guardian Council. The Guardian Council must review it within a maximum of 10 days from its receipt with a view to ensuring its compatibility with the criteria of Islam and the constitution. If it finds the legislation incompatible, it will return it to the assembly for review. Otherwise, the legislation will be deemed enforceable.” This is while city council elections were held on May 19, 2017, with results being announced a few days after.
With rising controversy, the Rouhani administration was soon pulled into the issue as well. On Oct. 25, Shahindokht Molaverdi, the president’s special aide on citizens’ rights, said, “There is no legal prohibition against Sepanta Niknam’s membership of the Yazd City Council — neither from a citizen’s rights point of view nor in regard to any other law.”
Presidential adviser Hesamodin Ashna also criticized the measure on Oct. 26 through a post on his Telegram channel: “Those who base Sepanta’s suspension on Islamic laws [Sharia] or legal reasons are now faced with a difficult challenge. They must clarify their position regarding the three-dimensional identity of ‘Islamic, Republic, Iranian.’ The words and logic of some Guardian Council jurists, their legal and Sharia discussions have become too common. The quality and political approach adopted to deal with this phenomenon will determine the future of what [our] national identity means and the effectiveness of citizens’ rights in Iran.”
Now, while the Yazd City Council has issued a “temporary leave of absence” for Niknam, differences over whether or not he should be allowed to maintain his post in the council continue to remain in place with various political entities in Iran.EAST PALO ALTO – Police are investigating a Sunday night shooting in East Palo Alto that killed one person and sent four people to the hospital.
Emergency crews responded around 11:40 p.m. to a shooting at Purdue Avenue and Georgetown Street, across from Costano Elementary School.
Responding emergency crews pronounced one person deceased at the scene and transported four people suffering from wounds to the hospital, according to the Menlo Park Fire Protection District.
The slain man was later identified as Nazario Barajas, 18, of East Palo Alto.
Fire officials said the East Palo Alto Police Department is continuing to investigate the shooting.
Copyright © 2014 by Bay City News, Inc. … Republication, re-transmission or reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.Buy Photo Phillip Dearner, left, and Joel Halbleib will be the new owners at Goodwood which will be operating out of the former BBC location at Clay and Main in downtown Louisville. April 6, 2015 (Photo: Alton Strupp/The Courier-Journal)Buy Photo
Almost daily, the Bluegrass Brewing Company production brewery gets calls for reservations.
But the brewery's taproom doesn't take reservations. In fact, it's not even part of the same-named company customers would make reservations at — the separately-owned Bluegrass Brewing Company, with three brewpubs across the city.
Are you confused? It's OK, a lot of people are. But the production brewery's owners hope you won't be soon, once they define the brewery as a separate company through a rebranding initiative that will introduce new products, consistent logos, a remodeled taproom and, maybe most importantly, a new name: Goodwood Brewing Company.
"We're going in a direction that we want to go into and just being who we want to be," said production brewery president Phil Dearner.
The new branding comes about 10 years after the production brewery's current owners bought the facility, located at the corner of Clay and Main streets.
Buy Photo The bar area inside the former BBC location at Clay and Main will be renovated and operating under the Goodwood brand. April 6, 2015 (Photo: Alton Strupp/The Courier-Journal)
The facility was originally owned by Pipkin Brewery, but it changed hands in 2001 after that company went defunct. At that time, BBC co-owner Pat Hagan and a group of investors — separate from a group that owned the BBC brewpubs — purchased the brewery and began leasing the BBC name in order to distribute BBC products.
When the production brewery's current owners purchased the facility in 2005, they discussed changing the name and brand but ultimately decided to keep the arrangement, CEO Ted Mitzlaff said.
"We should have changed it when we bought it, truthfully, but we were kind of wading into uncharted territory," Mitzlaff said. "No one in our investment group really knew much about the brewing industry."
The idea has remained in the owners' minds, and over the past two years, they've worked with ad agency Doe-Anderson to develop a new name and brand. Dearner said the company hopes to introduce the changes, along with the remodeled taproom, in May.
The change means the company will stop distributing the Heritage Collection — featuring the Nut Brown Ale, American Pale Ale and Dark Star Porter, which are recipes owned by BBC. But they'll add other recipes that highlight the company's skill.
The Goodwood name derives from the company's desire to be the country's premier wood aging brewery, with every product touching wood either through barrel-aging or adding wood chips in the fermentation process, Dearner said.
Buy Photo Outside the space at the former BBC at Clay and Main which will be the home of the new Goodwood Brewery. April 6, 2015 (Photo: Alton Strupp/The Courier-Journal)
"The big demand is our barrel-aged product," Mitzlaff said, including the Bourbon Barrel Stout. "Everybody's got pale ale. We have wonderful products, but the real difference is our superior barrel-aged programs."
Once introduced, the Goodwood beers will be sold at the brewery's taproom and through distributors to restaurants and liquor stores, Dearner said.
The taproom, located at 636 E. Main St., will be closed shortly for the remodeling, which includes adding seating space, building a new cooler, redoing the bar and changing the atmosphere, Dearner said.
"It's not going to feel like your grandpa's basement," he said. "We're going to do our best to make it into a really cool space to hangout in."
Dearner and Mitzlaff said the idea of changing their brand is scary, but it will help the company continue efforts to better its beer. In the past two years, the company has also purchased new equipment, stepped up quality control and started searching for a second production facility.
"We've never made better beer than we are today," Dearner said.
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GOODWOOD BREWING COMPANY
The Bluegrass Brewing Company production brewery, at 636 E. Main St., will soon re-brand as the Goodwood Brewing Company. Follow the company's changes at www.facebook.com/BBCBEERPIMP.
Read or Share this story: http://cjky.it/1FxLKCTPony Canyon began streaming 30- and 15-second commercials for the television anime of Asato Mizu's Denki-Gai no Honya-san (Electric Town Bookstore Worker) manga on Wednesday. The videos feature Ayana Taketatsu's opening theme song "Kajirikake no Ringo" (A Half-Bitten Apple).
The cast includes:
Natsumi Takamori as Hiotan
Minami Tsuda as Sensei
Ayana Taketatsu as Fu Girl
Mai Aizawa as Kameko
Yu Kobayashi as G Men
Satomi Satou as Tsumorin
Yoshitsugu Matsuoka as Kantoku
Takahiro Tomita as Sommelier
Ryota Ohsaka as Umio Natsumi Takamori as HiotanMinami Tsuda as SenseiAyana Taketatsu as Fu GirlMai Aizawa as KamekoYu Kobayashi as G MenSatomi Satou as TsumorinYoshitsugu Matsuoka as KantokuTakahiro Tomita as SommelierRyota Ohsaka as Umio
The |
end of the day? “Taxes must be paid where the value was created” — that is the principle espoused by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and increasingly adopted by nations. If a location-independent entrepreneur creates a company in Estonia but lives in Singapore, the company is not benefiting from Estonia’s roads, its educational system, its healthcare or any of the other services it provides its residents. The person is using the Singaporean educational system and driving on Singaporean roads, so it is logical that he or she should contribute taxes to the functioning and development of that state’s physical environment.
The solution is transparency reporting between Estonia’s tax authority and the Singaporean one. The Estonian Tax and Customs Board has the capability to offer such information and transparency. Potentially, the Estonian side could even collect the taxes and send the money to Singapore.
So why is Estonia doing it? The more people and companies that are engaged with the Estonian business environment, the more clients there are for Estonian companies. E-residents will not only establish companies, but they will also likely start using the services of other Estonian companies. They will need bank accounts, international payment service providers, accounting support, legal advice, auditors, asset management, investment opportunities, etc.
The more clients Estonian companies gain, the bigger their growth potential will be and therefore also the growth potential of the Estonian economy.
Country as a service is the new reality. For example, if the U.K. says unequivocally that it will not issue a secure, government-backed digital identity to its subjects, or if states fail to greatly simplify the machinery of bureaucracy and make it location-independent, this becomes an opportunity for countries that can offer such services across borders.
As a small state, Estonia has learned over the years to serve primarily small and micro businesses. To do so profitably, processes must be maximally digitized and automated, and not just in the private sector, but in the public one as well. Estonia’s model is location-independent, which makes it easy to scale without overextending resources. Estonia is a nation of 1.3 million people and its vision is to acquire at least 10 million digital residents (e-residents), in a way that is mutually beneficial by the nation-states where these people are tax residents.
Taavi Kotka is the government of Estonia’s CIO, the founder of the e-residency program, and one of Computerworld’s Premier 100 IT Leaders of 2016.AP Images
Before the NFL combine, the biggest knock on Clemson defensive end Vic Beasley was his size.
Therefore, it was a surprise that Beasley ultimately measured at 6'3", 246 pounds at his combine weigh-in. When you couple his measurements with his outstanding performances in the drills, it's easy to understand why Beasley's stock has risen sharply.
You must be wary of any prospect whose stock takes a large jump because of the combine. The combine is a useful tool, but in reality, it is a smaller piece of the evaluation puzzle.
What Beasley did on the field in college is much more indicative of what he will do in the NFL than what he did at the combine. Fortunately, his combine performance was about answering concerns about his transition to the NFL rather than establishing his ability. He had already established his ability with his performances on game days; the combine simply solidified his status as a top prospect.
The 22-year-old played four seasons in college. He compiled 33 total sacks during that time, including 25 over his final two seasons, and 52.5 tackles for loss, including 44.5 over the last two years.
Beasley may not ever be more than an adequate run defender in the NFL, but that is all he needs to be. That is because he projects to be an outstanding pass-rusher if he can develop properly once he's drafted. His skill set should be valuable in a passing league.
Much like Robert Quinn of the St. Louis Rams, Beasley's pass rush is largely built on his speed.
Credit: Draftbreakdown.com
As the above image highlights, Beasley was regularly the farthest lineman downfield during his time at Clemson. He can be inconsistent anticipating the snap, so he is much faster off the line at times. But even when he doesn't anticipate the snap well, he's explosive enough to get positioning against offensive tackles.
On this play he is facing Cameron Erving, a potential first-round pick in the 2015 draft.
Erving isn't quick for an offensive tackle, so Beasley is taking advantage of a relatively weak spot for him. However, he is still an impressive athlete for the college level, and he is a player who could be drafted as an offensive tackle, even though he is more likely to be drafted as a center.
After only a couple of steps, Beasley gets level with Erving. Critically, Erving's feet are facing the sideline when he contacts the defensive end, so he's forced to abandon his drop to an extent to contain Beasley. This is how Beasley's speed at the snap can affect NFL tackles.
When you watch the play through, the speed and hand usage stand out.
Credit: Draftbreakdown.com
Beasley understands how to use his hands to put himself in position to leverage his weight through contact. Erving is a strong blocker who can be effective against much bigger defensive ends than Beasley. Yet he can't overcome Beasley's combination of speed and strength when he is trying to recover his positioning.
Speed alone isn't enough to be an effective pass-rusher in the NFL; you need to understand and be able to take advantage of the benefits it provides.
Credit: Draftbreakdown.com
On this play from the same game against the same offensive tackle, Beasley shows aggressive hands as Erving attempts to engage him. Erving appears to hesitate when Beasley makes that aggressive move, so the defensive end actually makes no contact with the offensive tackle.
The impact is the same, though.
Beasley gets past Erving and to a point where the offensive tackle can't push him out of the play. It's important that Beasley shows off the resilience, body control and strength to fend off Erving's desperate attempt to push him to the ground/past his quarterback.
When Beasley's hands and feet are working in concert, it's very difficult to prevent him from penetrating the pocket.
Credit: Draftbreakdown.com
Credit: Draftbreakdown.com
His burst from a standing start, his hand usage, balance and fluidity coming off the edge make him a terror to handle when he does so. Beasley doesn't necessarily need a lot of space to excel, but when he gets it, his sheer talent will cause even the best offensive tackles in the NFL problems.
Even though Beasley had great measurements and workouts at the combine, he is likely still going to end up as a 3-4 outside linebacker instead of a 4-3 defensive end.
That doesn't mean he can't be a 4-3 defensive end. He could easily fit in the Chris Clemons role as a defensive end for Gus Bradley's Jacksonville Jaguars. That would require the Jaguars to select him third overall unless a trade partner became available.
If the Jaguars do draft Beasley, they may want to adjust their approach to take advantage of his ability to drop into coverage.
Credit: Draftbreakdown.com
Dropping high-quality pass-rushers into coverage is typically a bad idea, but it's still valuable to have a player who can do it effectively. A high-quality pass-rusher who can drop into space comfortably adds another dimension to his defense's blitz packages. His presence alone helps to create a layer of doubt in the mind of the opposing quarterback.
At the combine, Beasley said (via Chase Goodbread of NFL.com), "A lot of teams see me as a 3-4 outside linebacker. I am willing to play defensive end in a 4-3 at the next level, but the majority of teams want me to play outside linebacker and I'm fine with that."
A coach such as Dick LeBeau, who is now with the Tennessee Titans, previously made good use of an excellent pass-rusher who could drop into space: James Harrison. Harrison and LaMarr Woodley were a great pass-rushing duo, but Woodley primarily only covered backs in the flat when he was in coverage.
Harrison was more like Beasley during his prime. Harrison had the fluidity, quick feet, awareness and balance to move around the field and carry out different assignments. Whoever drafts Beasley should use the blueprint that LeBeau created with Harrison all those years ago.
Beasley's value against the pass is largely unquestioned. His ability against the run is somewhat understated, though.
Although he won't dominate double-teams or always get the better of offensive tackles on the edge, Beasley shows off good awareness and strength at the point of contact. He wasn't simply brushed out of plays when he faced double-teams in college, and he showed the ability to penetrate his way toward backs with his strength.
Credit: Draftbreakdown.com
One thing is for sure, offenses can't block Beasley out of plays with the average tight end. He is strong enough (35 bench press reps) and smart enough to punish inadequate blockers, even those plying their trade at the NFL level.
The combine didn't make Vic Beasley. It just erased the remaining doubts about his quality.
He won't be the consensus top pass-rusher because this class offers plenty of variety and quality for analysts, coaches and scouts to choose from. Beasley should go in the top 10 of the draft, though, and the team that acquires him won't rely on an athlete who needs to develop into a football player.
Beasley is a natural pass-rusher with the physical talent to be a star in the NFL. NFL teams desperately search for that kind of player every offseason. The scarcity of those players should make him one of the more sought-after prospects in the draft this year.
He may not become Robert Quinn, but Quinn is at the ceiling of edge defenders in the NFL. Beasley can reach a few rungs below the St. Louis Rams defensive end and still become a superstar.Kiev
Before he was Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort worked for the president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych started out as a petty thief in the bleak Soviet city of Donetsk. He stole fur hats from men using its outside toilets. He would reach over the door as they squatted, defenceless, and flee while their trousers were still around their ankles. Even among the criminals of Donetsk, this was thought low behaviour. ‘It’s hard to imagine now that we had such a character as a president of the country,’ said Alex Kovzhun, a Ukrainian political consultant. Kovzhun joyfully put this story on thousands of mock newspaper front pages during the 2004 presidential campaign. Yanukovych lost that election and, Kovzhun told me, decided then to get expert help with his image. He had been using Russian political consultants; he thought he needed an American. Enter Paul Manafort.
The sophisticated American ‘bedazzled’ Yanukovych. ‘Manafort did wonders for him. He created a classical Soviet persona: the older, good-looking guy in a suit with a fatherly smile… They taught him, you have to smile when you shake hands. It became a Pavlovian reflex. Shake hands, smile. Shake hands, smile.’ With Manafort’s help, Yanukovych won the presidency. ‘Yanukovych was a violent crime figure who brought all the knowhow from the crime world to the state. He organised a system of absorbing money from the country, and scaring everybody shitless.’
Yanukovych got rich. He lived in a luxury dacha outside Kiev with his mistress and his two Thai masseuses. The house has been a museum ever since he fled to Moscow in 2004, a monument to bad taste and excess. There is a garage with 50 luxury cars; a painting depicts Yanukovych in heroic pose as a rally driver. There’s a stuffed lion and a grinning alligator, suits of armour and parakeets, marble and mahogany, Swarovski crystal and Persian carpets.
The man who helped make all this possible, Paul Manafort, liked the good things in life, too, if his indictment in the US this week is any guide: $934,000 on antique carpets; $1.3 million on home entertainment systems; a tailor’s bill of $849,000… the indictment states that $18 million was secretly funnelled into the United States and never declared to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). It claims that $75 million from Manafort’s businesses passed through offshore accounts in Cyprus and the Caribbean. This is the first indictment brought by Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating (alleged) Russia interference in the US election.
On the face of it, none of the charges relate to what Manafort did then. Instead, he is accused of tax evasion, money laundering, and failing to register as a lobbyist for Ukraine. The President tweeted, gleefully: ‘Sorry, but this is years ago, before Paul Manafort was part of the Trump campaign… why aren’t Crooked Hillary & the Dems the focus?????’
Mueller has been looking at a lobbying firm run by a prominent Democrat, Tony Podesta, brother of John Podesta, chairman of Hillary’s campaign. The firm is referred to, though not by name, in the Manafort indictment. Trump’s base got a whiff of Democrat blood in the water when Tony Podesta resigned from the firm to concentrate on answering Mueller’s questions about his work for Ukraine. Trump’s friend and adviser Roger Stone has long been pushing a story that the other Podesta — John, the campaign chairman — is guilty of laundering Russian money through the Clinton foundation.
But for Trump’s future, the crucial issue is where exactly Manafort’s millions came from. Can the money be traced back to Kremlin loyalists in Ukraine? In August 2016, the New York Times published pages from a ledger belonging to Yanukovych’s Party of the Regions. Next to Manafort’s name was a figure: $12.5 million. Days later, he resigned as Trump’s campaign manager. In Kiev last week, I met a senior official who has seen the secret report into this produced by Ukraine’s domestic intelligence service, the SBU. His job is so sensitive that he has to log any meetings arranged with foreigners. We had to ‘accidentally’ bump into one another in a park, like characters in a Cold War spy novel.
He told me there were three ledgers, representing three separate ‘black’ funds being run by the Party of the Regions. In each case, he said, the money was actually supplied by a different oligarch, all with ties to Moscow. This may be the story that Mueller and his team are trying to prove: Russian money in Ukrainian politics buying influence with Manafort and through him with Donald Trump. The SBU managed to infiltrate Manafort’s operation, I was told. They say they can show that Manafort was paid $600,000 a month over four years, $28.8 million in total. This was far more than claimed in the original New York Times story — and it is the figure from just one of the three funds. They believe the final total was higher still. The FBI has all this information.
Manafort’s lawyer says the documents have been forged, while a former member of his team in Ukraine told me such sums were what you would expect to be paid for a big political operation. I spoke to Manafort himself a year ago, when I first learned he was under investigation. He sounded wounded. ‘I was just trying to bring Ukraine closer to the West,’ he told me. In Washington, a friend of Hillary Clinton’s scoffed at that. The Russians must have known Manafort was hiding millions offshore, he said, and could have used this knowledge to blackmail him. ‘The suspicion would naturally be that they were a driving force behind his volunteering to serve the Trump campaign for free. Their objective would have been to gain a foothold deep inside the Trump camp.’
This is far ahead of anything in this week’s indictment, which was a tax fraud and money laundering case. The White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, declared from the podium: ‘Today’s announcement has nothing to do with the President.’ One of Trump’s lawyers, Jay Sekulow, told CNN: ‘I’m not concerned about this at all, and no one else is either.’ The President’s team sounded almost relieved. The White House had long known the Manafort indictment was coming. The media strategy was clear: ‘Nothing to see here.’ Trump himself tweeted: ‘There is NO COLLUSION!’ Then Mueller delivered a sucker punch.
The special counsel announced that a young adviser to the campaign, George Papadopoulos, had admitted lying to the FBI about his contacts with various Russians. His plea agreement makes it clear that the campaign knew about the hacking of Democratic party emails a month before it was publicly revealed. Suddenly ‘collusion’ was back in what they call ‘the conversation’ in Washington. ‘Mueller perfectly understands how to play the Washington DC media game,’ said Rick Wilson, a political consultant. ‘He’s been around it for 40 years. They kept Papadopoulos concealed and basically turned him into a guided missile. That’s going to ramp up their [the Trump team’s] already extreme paranoia into the stratosphere.’
Wilson is a Republican but also a fierce critic of Trump. ‘The guy doesn’t understand what exactly is happening to him. It’s like a Greek tragedy.’ Trump’s supporters had ‘actually come to believe that when Donald Trump tweets something, it’s real’. But: ‘The tempo of the game is going to be decided by Bob Mueller… Mueller doesn’t care about Donald Trump’s tweets except so far as they incriminate Donald Trump. He ignores the static, and presses on towards the target.’
Another Washington insider told me: ‘What you have to understand about Bob Mueller is that he is the ultimate Wasp. He believes in the rules and God help you if you break them. I wouldn’t like to have him after me.’ Trump’s friend Roger Stone told a conservative website that the President’s ‘only chance for survival’ in office was to neutralise Mueller. Speculation is rife in Washington that Trump will try to fire Mueller, a night of the long knives to eclipse the one in Watergate. That, or start a war with North Korea.
Ominously for Trump, Papadopoulos was described in his plea deal as an ‘active co-operator’. The American media took this to mean that he had been wearing a wire. That thought may have some members of the Trump campaign team in a cold sweat. Papadopoulos, once described by Trump as an ‘excellent guy’, was trashed by the President on Twitter as ‘a proven liar’.
Papadopoulos says he went to the Russians to get ‘dirt’ on Hillary Clinton. Trump’s eldest son, Donald Jr, has already admitted he held a meeting with a Russian lawyer with a similar aim in mind. Mueller is surely investigating that. It may also be significant that the Manafort indictment makes no mention of his work for the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. Manafort’s emails, now turned over to investigators, show him offering ‘private briefings’ to Deripaska during the campaign. Mueller is surely looking at this too. All of this is about ‘collusion’, not just money.
Mueller appears then to be moving steadily, relentlessly closer to Trump. No one expects that this week’s indictments will be the last in the Russia investigation.Press release, 14 December 2012 Fertile soil doesn't fall from the sky. The contribution of bacterial remnants to soil fertility has been underestimated until now
Leipzig. Remains of dead bacteria have far greater meaning for soils than previously assumed. Around 40 per cent of the microbial biomass is converted to organic soil components, write researchers from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), the Technische Universität Dresden (Technical University of Dresden), the University of Stockholm, the Max-Planck-Institut für Entwicklungsbiologie (Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology) and the Leibniz-Universität Hannover (Leibniz University Hannover) in the professional journal Biogeochemistry. Until now It was assumed that the organic components of the soil were comprised mostly of decomposed plant material which is directly converted to humic substances. In a laboratory experiment and in field testing the researchers have now refuted this thesis. Evidently the easily biologically degradable plant material is initially converted to microbial biomass which then provides the source material to soil organic matter.
Soil organic matter represent the largest fraction of terrestrially bound carbon in the biosphere. The compounds therefore play an important role not only for soil fertility and agricultural yields. They are also one of the key factors controlling the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Climatic change can therefore be slowed down or accelerated, according to the management of the soil resource.
The electron micrograph shows bacteria (Hyphomicrobium sp;. Yellow) growing up partly on solid surfaces, floors and sediment grains. During growth whatsoever cells die and deformed or fragmenting cell envelopes remain. Small-scale fragments of these shells (red) then set the microparticulate matrix in soils and sediments.
Photo: Burkhard Schmidt-Brücken, Institute of Material science/TU Dresden
Colored by: Christian Schurig/ UFZ
CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/de/)
In laboratory incubation experiment, the researchers initially labelled model bacteria with the stable isotope 13C and introduced the bacteria to soil deriving from the long-term cultivation experiment "Ewiger Roggenbau" in Halle/Saale. Following the incubation time of 224 days the fate of the carbon of bacterial origin was determined. "As a result we found fragments of bacterial cell walls in sizes of up to 500 x 500 nanometres throughout our soil samples. Such fragments have also been observed in other studies, but have never been identified or quantified", declares Professor Matthias Kästner of the UFZ. The accumulation of the bacterial cell wall fragments appears to be supported by peptides and proteins from the liquid interior of the cells, which remain to a greater extent in the soil than other cell components. These materials enable the formation of a film of organic molecules on the mineral components of the soil, on which the carbon from the dead bacteria is accumulated and stabilised. When the fragments of the bacterial cell walls dry out, they may lose their rubber-like properties and can harden like glass. If the soil subsequently becomes moist again, however, under certain circumstances they cannot be re-wetted – an important prerequisite for their degradation by other bacteria. This would provide the simplest explanation for the stabilisation of theoretically easily degradable carbon compounds in soil. "This new approach explains many properties of organic soil components which were previously viewed as contradictory", says Matthias Kästner. In the late 1990s, Kästner and his team arrived at this idea on the basis of earlier investigations on the degradation of environmental contaminants like anthracene in polluted soils of former gas work sites. In these investigations, isotopic analyses revealed bound carbon residues which have been of bacterial origin. With the support of the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft; DFG), from 2000 on they began to follow up this clue within the scope of two joint research programmes.
In the course of the last 150 years glacier has retreated by around one kilometre. In its place granite rock remained behind, which was gradually recolonised by living organisms accompanied by soil development. Following the formation of new soil the first plants, such as mosses and grasses, were followed by bushes and, later, also by trees.
Photo: Christian Schurig/ UFZ
CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/de/)
Following the laboratory experiment, the hypothesis was tested in field research. In summer of 2009 the researchers took soil samples in the forefield of the Damma Glacier in the Swiss Canton Uri. In the course of the last 150 years glacier has retreated by around one kilometre. In its place granite rock remained behind, which was gradually recolonised by living organisms accompanied by soil development. Following the formation of new soil the first plants, such as mosses and grasses, were followed by bushes and, later, also by trees. In the meantime, the Damma Glacier, on which a broad range of studies is being conducted, has therefore become an important outdoor laboratory not only for climate researchers, but for ecologists as well. The soil investigated with the samples was between 0 and 120 years old and thus allowed insight into early processes of soil development. Scanning electron microscopic investigations which followed at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen also indicated that the covering of the soil mineral particles by a film comprised of bacterial cell wall residues had increased with the soil age. The results of the outdoor investigations therefore confirmed the hypothesis and the laboratory results. This new knowledge was ultimately made possible by recent advances in scanning electron microscopy, which in the meantime enable the identification and evaluation of the soil nano-components.
The Damma Glacier, on which a broad range of studies is being conducted, has become an important outdoor laboratory not only for climate researchers, but for ecologists as well. The soil investigated with the samples was between 0 and 120 years old and thus allowed insight into early processes of soil development.
Photo: Christian Schurig/ UFZ
CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/de/)
The predominant share of the plant debris in fertile soil is thus rapidly processed by micro-organisms, e.g. bacteria, leading to more bacteria and, in turn, also to more cell fragments. This then results in more organic material in the soil. "Even though the greatest part of the organic carbon in the eco-systems is definitively produced primarily by plants, we were able to show that a large part of the organic material is actually comprised of residues of bacteria and fungi. This underscores the importance of bacteria as organisms in all types of soil", summarises Matthias Kästner. Furthermore, they are important for the global climate: The degradation of these organic material results, in mineralisation products and the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO 2 ). According to estimates from Great Britain the amount of CO 2 escaping annually to the atmosphere due to the degradation of organic material in the soils of England and Wales is in the order of magnitude by which greenhouse gas emissions are annually reduced there. This means that no rigorous progress in climate protection may be accomplished without first protecting the soil. Tilo Arnhold
Publications: Christian Schurig, Rienk H. Smittenberg, Juergen Berger, Fabio Kraft, Susanne K. Woche, Marc-O. Goebel, Hermann J. Heipieper, Anja Miltner, Matthias Kaestner (2012): Microbial cell-envelope fragments and the formation of soil organic matter: a case study from a glacier forefield. Biogeochemistry. published online:DOI: 10.1007/s10533-012-9791-3 The investigations were supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) within the scope of the SPP1315 DynaCarb project and the European Union within the scope of the ModelPROBE project.
Anja Miltner, Petra Bombach, Burkhardt Schmidt-Brücken, Matthias Kästner (2012). SOM genesis – Microbial biomass a significant source. Biogeochemistry, in press; published online: DOI 10.1007/s10533-011-9658-z The investigations were supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) within the scope of the SPP1090 BioRefrak project and the European Union within the scope of the ModelPROBE project.
Further information: Professor Matthias Kästner/ Dr. Anja Miltner/ Dr. Christian Schurig Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) Telephone: 0341-235-1235 http://www.ufz.de/index.php?de=4459 http://www.ufz.de/index.php?de=4530 http://www.ufz.de/index.php?de=18888 or from Tilo Arnhold (UFZ press office) Telephone: 0341-235-1635 http://www.ufz.de/index.php?de=640
Related links: EU project ModelPROBE: http://www.ufz.de/modelprobe/index.php?en=18269 DFG project DynaCarb: http://www.spp1315.uni-jena.de/
UFZ core topic water / soil: http://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=20167Mar 24, 2017-
Data analysis of air quality monitoring stations set up last year in five places across the country shows that Lumbini is the most polluted city followed by Chitwan, Ratnapark (Kathmandu), Pulchowk (Lalitpur) and Dhulikhel (Kavrepalanchok).
Data collected from the air quality monitoring stations between October and February showed presence of PM2.5 (fine particulate matter) in Lumbini five times higher than the World Health Organisation standard of 25 microgram per cubic metre (ug/m3) in a period of 24 hours. Nepal’s national air pollution standard is 40 ug/m3.
For the month of January, PM2.5 in Lumbini was measured at 173.035 ug/m3 followed by 113.32 ug/m3 in Chitwan and 109.08 ug/m3 in Ratnapark of Kathmandu.
“Brick kilns and cement factories in the Lumbini-Bhairahawa Corridor produce pollutants,” said Arnico Panday, senior atmospheric scientist at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). Coal burning and burning of other stuff like tyres and tubes add to the problem.”
In 2013, 62 percent of air pollution in Lumbini was due to the flow of toxic air originated in India, while 24 percent of air pollution was created within Nepal. Polluted air from Bangladesh and Pakistan also played a crucial role in increasing pollution in the Tarai, according to data maintained by ICIMOD.
There are around 1,000 brick kilns in Nepal and around 30,000 in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, two large bordering states in India. Toxic fumes produced by these brick kilns are collected in the skies and the wind blowing from those places bring about more fumes to the trans-border area making it tremendously polluted.
Biomass, garbage burning, agricultural residue fires, forest fires are other agents that add to air pollution.
As far as Kathmandu is concerned, air pollution varies depending upon the time of the day.
Pollution level during early mornings and evenings in Kathmandu shoots up dramatically, while it decreased in the afternoons. Also, Kathmandu tends to choke on pollution during winter months.
According to Shankar Prasad Poudel, senior divisional chemist at the Department of Environment, the government is monitoring 30 brick kilns of the Valley to analyse their contribution to air pollution in the Valley.
The ongoing road-widening driving and Melamchi pipeline laying work to have been contributing to the Capial’s air pollution.
Published: 24-03-2017 09:01Countryfile is my guilty secret. On a Sunday evening, when I want to sit back and not think too much, BBC1 offers me an hour of alternative reality. It offers a Britain that is beautiful yet real, hard-working yet leisured, a place without streets, housing estates or crowds, yet unmistakably British. Its star presenter, Adam Henson, does not lie in the grass contemplating the view with a piece of straw in his mouth. He works. But round him people are allowed to play.
This year, Countryfile broke through 8 million viewers, putting it in the same league as Downton Abbey and Strictly Come Dancing. The appeal of the programme to Britain’s overwhelmingly urban population is undeniable. But is it what Henson claimed this weekend, that Countryfile offers not only space, a skyline, less light pollution, livestock, hills and mountains but also a “rural idyll”, somehow a place apart?
Watching a child deliver a lamb is captivating and gruesome
I have no doubt why the show works for me. It portrays the countryside as beautiful, but it shows a harder edge. The beauty has been manufactured by humans over centuries. This continues to require hard work, often yielding clashes and controversy. The landscape is awash not only with farmers but with conservationists, walkers, cyclists, field-sports enthusiasts and birdwatchers. Henson is himself a one-man Archers.
I like that roughly half the items in each programme are devoted to how farmers make money, and half to how others enjoy the product of their labours. There is always a running tension between these two. Watching a child deliver a lamb is captivating and gruesome. An item on the subsidy scandal of anaerobic digestion pulls no punches. The upland “rewilding” lobby is given a fair crack of the whip, as are both sides in the beaver and badger debates.
Farmers look after the landscape, but they can do immense damage. They should be held to account. And not only farmers. Some years ago, the programme put David Cameron on the spot, eliciting from him a pledge to protect the countryside as if it were his “own family”. Since his chaotic planning reforms have done more harm to the countryside than any policy in recent times, I was glad to see the programme rerun that interview and review subsequent performance. If Cameron indeed treats his family like he treats the countryside, I fear for his family.
The British countryside has never had it so bad Read more
The programme has faults. Its down-market pace, the constant chopping and changing for fear of losing audience, is irritating. Farmers are treated too kindly, their complaints indulged and that dreaded word – subsidy – too little mentioned (especially to sheep farmers).
But the secret of the programme’s success, I am sure, is as a window on a Britain that most viewers have forgotten exists. Britons take more holidays abroad than any other big nation. If they travel at home, it is by train or motorway between urban settlements.
As a result, the political consensus holds that there is no constituency for the rural landscape. It holds that people resent farm subsidies and feel that food could be more cheaply imported; if people want homes, build over the countryside.
This view of public opinion is clearly misguided. In survey after survey, “the countryside” rates with the monarchy, the NHS and Shakespeare among the most admired features of the national personality. Countryfile shows that this admiration is not an abstraction. It is indeed escapist, but that of a desire for relief from the confines of the city. It is escapism with attitude.
The explosion of countryside TV helping treat our ‘nature deficit disorder’ Read more
The countryside is today being extensively reworked to suit the demands of townspeople – variously for leisure, open air and wildlife. It is not so much a place where a small minority of the population works. It is where a majority of townspeople enjoy themselves. The Peak District national park is the second most-visited in the world. The Lake District and the Pennines are the lungs of the north-west. The Chilterns and Downs confine London in its basin, a constraint but also a blessed relief. All this must be recognised by farmers.
Britain after the second world war was the inventor and master practitioner of “town and country planning”. Today, its guardianship of historic buildings is relatively successful. Its guardianship of the rural landscape is deplorable. Cameron has put green belts up for grabs. Rural settlements are no longer allowed to grow organically, but are besieged by estates. Distribution sheds proliferate amid a wilderness of wind turbines and agribusiness. Their siting is no longer planned and regulated. It is let rip.
Amid all this, Countryfile is a political warning. It suggests that the countryside carries clout, not from the farming lobby but from a new group – a wider British public introduced to its qualities of beauty and delight. This is the most political programme I know.Bert Spector is associate professor of international business and strategy at the D'Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University.
Throughout the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump made much of his business experience, claiming he’s been “creating jobs and rebuilding neighborhoods my entire adult life.”
The fact that he was from the business world rather than a career politician was something that appealed to many of his supporters.
It’s easy to understand the appeal of a president as CEO. The U.S. president is indisputably the chief executive of a massive, complex, global structure known as the federal government. And if the performance of our national economy is vital to the well-being of us all, why not believe that Trump’s experience running a large company equips him to effectively manage a nation?
Instead of a “fine-tuned machine,” however, the opening weeks of the Trump administration have revealed a White House that’s chaotic, disorganized and anything but efficient. Examples include rushed and poorly constructed executive orders, a dysfunctional national security team, and unclear and even contradictory messages emanating from multiple administrative spokesmen, which frequently clash with the tweets of the president himself.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) succinctly summed up the growing sentiment even some Republicans are feeling: “Nobody knows who’s in charge.”
So why the seeming contradiction between his businessman credentials and chaotic governing style?
Well for one thing, Trump wasn’t a genuine CEO. That is, he didn’t run a major public corporation with shareholders and a board of directors that could hold him to account. Instead, he was the head of a family-owned, private web of enterprises. Regardless of the title he gave himself, the position arguably ill-equipped him for the demands of the presidency.
[Trump wants to manage the economy by personally running every business. He can’t.]
Several years ago, I explored the distinction between public and private companies in detail when the American Bar Association invited me to write about what young corporate lawyers needed to understand about how business works. Based on that research, I want to point to an important set of distinctions between public corporations and private businesses, and what it all means for President Trump.
Public corporations are companies that offer their stock to pretty much anyone via organized exchanges or by some over-the-counter mechanism. To protect investors, the government created the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which imposes an obligation of transparency on public corporations that does not apply to private businesses like the Trump Organization.
The SEC, for example, requires the CEOs of public corporations to make full and public disclosures of their financial positions. Annual 10-K reports, quarterly 10-Q’s and occasional special 8-K’s require disclosure of operating expenses, significant partnerships, liabilities, strategies, risks and plans.
Additionally, an independent firm overseen by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board conducts an audit of these financial statements to ensure thoroughness and accuracy.
Finally, the CEO, along with the chief financial officer, is criminally liable for fals |
ONS of damage in a shorter amount of time. The no limit to lucent beams on one target means someone is likely to die. Don't believe me? Let's do some math. Disregarding magic resistance, a Level 3 ultimate with Aghs will deal 5400 damage in 5.1 seconds. With the talent upgrade you can get up to 6120. Not too shabby. Level 15: +40 Lucent Beam damagePerhaps not the most common pickup on Luna, which is why you see the dip in the rankings. But this Aghs is still insanely powerful. Being able to cast it on an initiator or just an area of your choosing is pretty sweet. It also deals TONS of damage in a shorter amount of time. The no limit to lucent beams on one target means someone is likely to die. Don't believe me? Let's do some math. Disregarding magic resistance, a Level 3 ultimate with Aghs will deal 5400 damage in 5.1 seconds. With the talent upgrade you can get up to 6120. Not too shabby.
34 51 51 Zeus Zeus New Skill (Nimbus) Grants Zeus a new ability named Nimbus (creates a cloud anywhere on the map for 35 seconds that will cast Lightning Bolts on nearby enemies. Cooldown is also 35 seconds. CHANGES No longer increases Thundergod's Wrath damage. Now grants Zeus a new ability named Nimbus Talent Synergies Level 20 +0.5s Lightning Bolt ministun SUNSfan's Notes Zeus' old Aghs was super boring and generally considered awful (despite pub players building it all the time). Nowadays, it seems the opinion has shifted. This is yet another great team fight skill with global range at Zeus' disposal. If you're not physically there to push out a wave, just simply use this skill instead. It does an admirable job. The +.5s Lightning Bolt also synergizes directly with this skill. Go team NIMBUS! PS: Refresher Nimbus with that talent is legitimately hilarious. No longer increases Thundergod's Wrath damage. Now grants Zeus a new ability named NimbusLevel 20 +0.5s Lightning Bolt ministunZeus' old Aghs was super boring and generally considered awful (despite pub players building it all the time). Nowadays, it seems the opinion has shifted. This is yet another great team fight skill with global range at Zeus' disposal. If you're not physically there to push out a wave, just simply use this skill instead. It does an admirable job. The +.5s Lightning Bolt also synergizes directly with this skill. Go team NIMBUS! PS: Refresher Nimbus with that talent is legitimately hilarious.
33 6 Faceless Void Faceless Void Chronosphere Decrease cooldown (100 ⇒ 60) Talent Synergies Level 20: +120 Gold/Min. Level 25: +600 Time Walk Cast Range SUNSfan's Notes This is a difficult item to fit on a carry Void, but absolutely core on offlane. The cooldown reduction is pretty huge for a spell of this magnitude. It essentially means you'll have this up for every team fight & skirmish. Level 20: +120 Gold/Min. Level 25: +600 Time Walk Cast RangeThis is a difficult item to fit on a carry Void, but absolutely core on offlane. The cooldown reduction is pretty huge for a spell of this magnitude. It essentially means you'll have this up for every team fight & skirmish.
Tier 5: Purge's Picks (Seems Good)
DISCLAIMER: Not actually approved by Purge
REWORKED 32 57 57 Outworld Devourer Outworld Devourer Astral Imprisonment Grants 2 charges of Astral Imprisonment with a 12 second replenish time. Increases range (450 ⇒ 750) and damage areas stack CHANGES Old Scepter used to cast Astral Imprisonment on all enemies hit with Sanity's Eclipse. Talent Synergies Level 25: +8% Spell Amplification SUNSfan's Notes It's funny. I was almost done with my Aghs list when this latest patch came out and I really flamed the crap out of OD's Aghs, because it still hadn't been changed. I'm happy to say that this is no longer the worst Aghs in the game! At first glance, I know a lot of people's reaction concerning this was underwhelming. But, I think this is actually preetty powerful in the right hands. The stats of Aghs have always been very good on OD, and having two Astrals is terrific, especially considering the damage can stack. I think for lower levels of play this is probably not the best item though. I feel Astral in general is one of the higher skill cap abilities in the game (in team fights). I think higher skill players will love this item, but only time will tell. Old Scepter used to cast Astral Imprisonment on all enemies hit with Sanity's Eclipse.Level 25: +8% Spell AmplificationIt's funny. I was almost done with my Aghs list when this latest patch came out and I really flamed the crap out of OD's Aghs, because it still hadn't been changed. I'm happy to say that this is no longer the worst Aghs in the game! At first glance, I know a lot of people's reaction concerning this was underwhelming. But, I think this is actually preetty powerful in the right hands. The stats of Aghs have always been very good on OD, and having two Astrals is terrific, especially considering the damage can stack. I think for lower levels of play this is probably not the best item though. I feel Astral in general is one of the higher skill cap abilities in the game (in team fights). I think higher skill players will love this item, but only time will tell.
31 4 Witch Doctor Witch Doctor Death Ward Bounces up to 4 times & provides True Strike to Death Ward CHANGES Scepter provides True Strike to Death Ward. Talent Synergies Level 25: +175 Death Ward Attack Range SUNSfan's Notes Let's rephrase the description on this one. Death Ward now deals 5 times more damage. Of course, we know that isn't completely accurate. The enemies have to all be in the vicinity, and it's always difficult to keep this spell channeled for very long. This is an interesting one though. Witch Doctors can actually farm pretty well, so you see this item a decent amount. But you also need more farm to ensure you can actually keep it channeled, whether it be a glimmer cape, bkb, or in some cases linkens. If you can get THAT much farm, then yeah this upgrade works as advertised. Even without it, the threat is there for you to do massive damage. This is one of the few Aghs on a support that lives up to the hype. Scepter provides True Strike to Death Ward.Level 25: +175 Death Ward Attack RangeLet's rephrase the description on this one. Death Ward now deals 5 times more damage. Of course, we know that isn't completely accurate. The enemies have to all be in the vicinity, and it's always difficult to keep this spell channeled for very long. This is an interesting one though. Witch Doctors can actually farm pretty well, so you see this item a decent amount. But you also need more farm to ensure you can actually keep it channeledIf reporting guidelines and checklists are the answer, what is the problem? That’s easy: their development was motivated by the realization that critical information was vague, missing, or misreported in an unacceptably high proportion of published medical research papers. Reporting guidelines take aim at this problem by specifying a minimum set of items that should be included in a published study report. These, of course, depend upon the study type, so there are different checklists for different sorts of research. The grand-daddy of them all is the CONSORT checklist, developed in 1996 to guide reporting of randomized controlled trials.
A typical checklist, such as this one, includes a list of numbered topics to be covered in the report, accompanied by a brief description of what is expected. In most cases, there is also a line following each item where the author is supposed to indicate the page number in the paper where the required information can be found. Most reporting checklists have come to be known by their acronyms, at least among the cognoscenti, for whom “STROBE” does not indicate a type of lighting nor “SQUIRE” a minor nobleman. CONSORT, for example, stands for “Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials.”
Once CONSORT was out, the rush was on. No field of research was so arcane that it did not seem to need its very own checklist. Qualitative research? You want the COREQ checklist (Consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research). But if you are synthesizing qualitative research, you need ENTREQ. (That’s short for Enhancing Transparency in Reporting the Synthesis of Qualitative Research). CONSORT itself spawned numerous extensions, which aimed to adapt CONSORT to specialized sorts of trials: Consort Harms, Consort Herbal, and Consort Non-inferiority, to name a few. There are so many checklists that keeping track of them is a full time job and there is a special website, the useful EQUATOR network, devoted to keeping things organized.
The virtues of checklists are extolled by everyone from Atul Gawande in his popular book The Checklist manifesto to aviation and anesthesia safety authorities. Their value stems from the simple fact that no matter how expert you are, it is easy to forget to do things that should be done. Unless, that is, you have a list and use it every time. This idea has face validity. Who has not ruined an ostensibly memorized recipe by forgetting to add salt or some other crucial ingredient? Good evidence shows that checklists, wisely used, improve medical care and save lives. They also improve the quality of research reporting.
Because of this, research checklists are a staple of editorial life at The BMJ and other journals. If a researcher submits a study without a checklist, we send it back with instructions to complete the relevant form. The BMJ is not alone in requiring authors to submit checklists. Most high impact journals endorse and require them, and smaller subspecialty journals increasingly are following suit.
All of this is well intentioned, but is the good that reporting checklists do unalloyed, or are there harms, burdens, or unintended consequences that have been overlooked? My nonsystematic searches of Pubmed and Google turned up no serious research into possible harms, but did identify lots of theoretical problems. One author wrote that checklists could be taken too far and noted that “… many aspects of modern life suffer from too many checklists. Teachers, for example, are shackled to lists and protocols that prevent them from doing their jobs properly…” Too many checklists, he suggested, are a form of excessive bureaucracy that work against spontaneity, imagination, and creativity. In an essay titled “Reality Check for Checklists” Peter Pronovost and colleagues warned of the “the risk that checklists may lead to complacency and a false sense of security” since they are only simple reminders and must be “coupled with attitude change” to be anything other than just “a great story.”
Some of these charges ring true. Several times a week I field questions from beleaguered authors who are trying to submit their research paper to The BMJ but cannot find a research checklist that seems right. Despite a seeming plethora of checklists, there sometimes isn’t one that clearly applies to the specific work a particular author has done. This is most often the case with journalology or other meta-research studies. We must then choose either to do without a checklist or adapt an existing one as best we can. I usually suggest to authors that they should do their best to complete the checklist that seems most relevant to their study, simply writing “not applicable” for items that do not apply. This is not entirely satisfactory.
Some checklists are not easy for beginners to interpret, which is a problem because their completion is often assigned to a very junior member of the research team. It is surprisingly common to find that the wrong checklist has been submitted with a paper. I recently handled a report of a randomized controlled trial that had been submitted along with the COREQ checklist for qualitative studies. It is hard not to have doubts about a paper when its authors cannot correctly identify the study design of their own research project. It is not unusual to open a checklist and find that instead of indicating the page number in the manuscript where the relevant information can be found, authors have instead simply put a check mark or “x” to indicate their compliance with an item. Other authors misinterpret the request for a checklist to mean that they only need insert a statement somewhere in the paper saying that they “followed” a checklist. Still others cut and paste large chunks of text from their papers and pasted them into the tiny column where page numbers should be listed.
There are other drawbacks to generic checklists. Although they remind people of many things that should be in a paper, they cannot take account of crucially important items that are unique to a particular study or important in a specific context. Worse, authors may assume that anything not expressly required by a checklist can or should be omitted. More than once I have asked authors to include additional details in a paper only to have them respond that the information “isn’t required by CONSORT.” There also is a danger of complacency on the part of authors, editors and reviewers, who might think their work is done if they are able to match a checklist item to a portion of the paper. Additionally, checklists impose yet another burden on authors who are already encumbered by the many other requirements associated with submitting a paper to a journal.
Yet these disadvantages are far outweighed by the many benefits of checklists, which have been a powerful force for good in the world of medical research. For starters, they are the finest form of quality control we have. They help to reduce “unexplained variation” in the reporting quality of research papers, which is certainly as bad as unexplained variation in clinical care. They also educate researchers, reviewers, and journal editors about what constitutes good research; over time these lessons may be absorbed. Most importantly, insistence on checklists sends a powerful message about expectations and priorities: a high standard of research reporting is required, not optional. Ultimately, this generates important moral pressure for better behavior on the part of everyone involved in medical research. A checklist too far? I think not.
Conflicts of interest: On behalf of The BMJ, I have participated in the development of several research checklists and guidelines, including SQUIRE, the PRISMA Harms extension, the Ottawa statement on the ethical design and conduct of cluster randomized trials and CHEERS. I also serve on a working group that seeks to establish 2016 as the “Year of Reporting Guidelines.”
Elizabeth Loder is the acting head of research, The BMJ.A statement from Edinburgh Anarchist Federation on the results of the Scottish independence referendum, and what comes next.
Yesterday Scotland voted against independence. Today half the country are mourning, their hopes of a new state and it’s social democratic promise dashed. The other half are relieved, if perhaps not enthusiastically celebrating, the potential uncertainty removed; things will persist as before.
We neither mourn nor celebrate. The scaremongering of the No campaign would likely have proved largely unfounded. So too would the promises of the Yes campaign. In reality our lives would have continued mostly as they did before in either event. We will trudge to the same jobs we hate along the same roads, through the same congestion on the same expensive transport. We’ll do so so we can pay our wages back to the capitalist class in the same shops, to pay rent to the same landlords and mortgages to the same banks. We’ll take our kids to the same schools with the same education system, when we’re ill we’ll wait to use the same hospitals. We’ll escape our jobs to the same parks, beaches, museums and pubs.
An independent Scotland would in most respects have resembled the Scotland of the UK, a patriarchal, capitalist, environmentally destructive society. A country with the most unequal land ownership in the developed world – where 50% of the land is owned by just 432 individuals. A country dependent on North Sea oil for much of its exports – oil that must be left in the ground to prevent climate catastrophe. A country with huge poverty and huge wealth and little in the way of organised working class action to change that dynamic.
And in so continuing to uphold the same institutions, the same structures of power, the same business interests, and the same political configuration, our fight against the state, capital and oppression continues.
Social Movements
It has become popular amongst some on the pro-independence to claim that even in defeat politics has been radically altered. People are engaged with politics for the first time, turnout was 85%. A new broad popular social movement is born, the referendum was never about a vote for the Nationalists (capital N ). The campaign they built to push for independence will now re-orient itself against the Scottish and British governments and push for material concessions, emboldened by how close they came and bringing newly radicalised people with them. But a high turnout in itself tells us very little of what will come next, the complacency that we have already changed politics is dangerous.
Leaving aside the tactical mistake of offering the SNP the support they wanted to pass the referendum and then hoping to win concessions rather than making those concessions a precondition of support, this seems at best an optimistic prediction, which is far from certain to be realised. It is highly probable that the movement built to advance a radical case for independence will fail to maintain the unity it has shown pre-referendum in a post-referendum situation. A new left unity party (perhaps Left Unity itself) seems likely to form out of the Radical Independence Campaign and will have to compete for votes with the Scottish Green Party. The disintegration of the SSP last decade bodes ill for the lasting chances of that configuration. If the parliamentary left can regain even the position it held from 2003-2007 it will have done exceedingly well (in its own terms).
Undoubtedly many from the radical independence movement will want to maintain extra-parliamentary organisation, though how much of it is truly independent of the parliamentary parties will be an open question. But as with the referendum itself elections have a tendency to draw activists away from direct struggle and towards themselves however good peoples’ intentions are. Perhaps the most debilitating effect of the referendum campaign was its draw away from other, more meaningful, sites of struggle – the boycott workfare campaign, anti-deportations and pro migrant work, environmental organising and so on. Of course, that is not to say that no independence campaigners continued their engagement with these causes, but no one has unlimited time and energy to contribute, and that expended on the referendum could have been better placed elsewhere.
Ecology
As the independence referendum moves into the past, other issues may start to regain their prominence. Foremost must be the commitment of politicians in Westminster and Holyrood to continuing extraction of Scotland’s share of North Sea oil.
The independence debate was consistently shaped by the prospects for oil production and how the proceeds will be distributed. Even where criticism did exist and a call for a “green new deal” was made, the focus was to argue for renewables. Whilst greater use of renewable energy is to be welcomed, it is far from sufficient. As Jason Moore has highlighted energy revolutions of the past have always been additive and substitutive. Market logic plus intervention for renewables will only give us both renewables and fossil fuels. As alternative grow fossil fuels prices will fall and maintain their use alongside. Real decarbonisation of society requires the fuels be left in the ground and their value written off.
You cannot build a “green” capitalism. You certainly cannot create it in time. There is too much money invested in fossil fuels – in drilling, in mining, in fracking. The ruling class will never voluntarily give up this wealth, or allow it to be simply voted away. “To survive we must act now” and “couple bleak reality with the utopian impulse” to demand a complete transformation of our society.
An independent Scotland would have relied heavily on fossil fuels – not least to maintain currency reserves and a positive balance of trade. The extraction of North Sea oil will instead continue to prop up the UK’s trade deficit. As part of a larger economy that dependence may now not be brought as clearly to the fore. But that reliance must be exposed, and it must be broken. That will be an expensive and difficult task, but one which we have no choice but to take up – there will be no future for Scotland or the UK if we do nothing. We must create the movement which makes that possible. Too much time has been spent on bourgeois constitutional questions while the rich consolidate their wealth and power, impose austerity and hardship and leave the planet to burn safe that adaptation will be good enough for them.
So tonight, drown your sorrows. Take time to regain your energy and when you’re ready come back to join us. The better society that had been pinned on independence doesn’t need a new state. Keep talking to your neighbours and your workmates. We have a world to win and only our own working class self-activity and organisation will secure it.STUDENTS at a Gold Coast primary school are being warned against hugging a move some parents say is political correctness gone mad.
They say children at the William Duncan State School in Nerang are being punished with detention for hugging or touching their friend, the Gold Coast Bulletin said.
Father of five, Ross Kouimanis, labelled the decision "an absolute joke".
''What on earth are we turning our kids into?'' Mr Kouimanis said.
''Kids hug all the time. My high school daughter hugs her friends. It's perfectly normal.
''It's political correctness gone mad. Banning kids hugging? It's ridiculous."
Mr Kouimanis's daughter Emily was given a warning for hugging her best friend.
''My best friend and I confronted the teacher and she said it was a new school rule and some kids have been sent to detention for hugging,'' Emily said.
Mr Kouimas said the school should be more worried about educating children and said the ban sexualised an innocent gesture.
''They are making something so innocent seem dirty or wrong. It's just normal.
''It's what kids do, for Christ's sake.
''Hugs not drugs is an international slogan to fight drug abuse where does that fit in with William Duncan's new school policy?''
The Bulletin understands the policy was developed by the school's Parents and Citizens Association and was reviewed each year, with most members approving measures for students to keep their hands, feet and objects to themselves.
Education Queensland South Coast Regional director Glen Hoppner said there was no EQ policy banning hugging in schools.
''William Duncan State School has determined that unwanted or unnecessary physical contact, which in some circumstances can include hugging, is inappropriate playground behaviour,'' Mr Hoppner said.
''The school is mindful of protecting their right to not be touched in an unwanted or inappropriate way.''
Mr Hoppner said the school principal was "unaware" of students being given detention for hugging.
For more on this story and to vote on the hugging ban, visit the Gold Coast Bulletin.The Green Party is citing an alleged breach of Canada's charity law in a novel, last-ditch bid to insert leader Elizabeth May into a national election debate later this month.
May has been excluded from a Sept. 28 event in Toronto, known as the Munk leaders' debate, funded by the Aurea Foundation, a registered charity established in 2006 by Peter and Melanie Munk.
A Toronto law firm hired by the party argues that denying May an opportunity to join the debate violates the Income Tax Act, which requires charities to be scrupulously non-partisan.
Toronto lawyer Brian Iler argues that the Munk debate organizers are acting in a partisan fashion and violating charity law by excluding the Green leader from the event. (Iler Campbell LLP) The party has filed a formal complaint with the Canada Revenue Agency, asking the agency to "fully audit the Aurea Foundation's involvement and sponsorship of the debate."
"As the debate is less than two weeks away, we request that this audit be conducted as soon as possible," says a letter delivered Friday to the charities directorate.
The party has also sent letters of complaint to Rudyard Griffiths, president of the Aurea Foundation and spokesman for the Munk Debates, and to the president of Roy Thomson Hall, the debate's venue, which is also run by a registered charity.
'Breaking the law'
"Not inviting Elizabeth May, in the view of our counsel, is breaking the law and the CRA should step in and enforce it," said Jim Harris, party spokesman in Toronto. "The right thing to do is obey the law and invite Elizabeth May."
The party obtained a six-page opinion from Iler Campbell LLP, which rejects the argument from the Munk organizers that only parties recognized by the Parliament of Canada Act — that is, with 12 or more members in the House of Commons — are invited. The Greens had two members in the last Parliament.
But Brian Iler, the lawyer who wrote the opinion, says the Income Tax Act has no such restrictive definition of a political party, and that the Munk failure to issue an invitation to May "could be to diminish the standing of the [Green] party in the mind of the electorate, which arguably amounts to an indirect opposition to the party."
We request that this audit be conducted as soon as possible. –Green Party letter to Canada Revenue Agency
"To the extent that the Aurea Foundation provides resources to support the debate, and the debate is a partisan political activity, then the Aurea Foundation will not be operating exclusively for a charitable purpose, which means that it will cease to comply with the requirements of the ITA [Income Tax Act] for its registration."
The Harper government in 2012 launched a series of 60 political-activity audits of Canadian charities, starting with environmental charities that have been critical of energy policies. The $13.4-million program later expanded to cover human-rights, poverty and international-aid charities, many of them also vocal in opposition to some government policies.
Critics say the audits have led to "advocacy chill," as charities self-censor for fear of aggravating their auditors.
Rudyard Griffiths is president of the Aurea Foundation, which is financing the Munk leaders' debate. Organizers say they are inviting only leaders of parties with at least 12 members in the House of Commons. (CBC) Charities are restricted to using a maximum of 10 per cent of resources for political activities, but are forbidden from any partisan activities, including advocacy or opposition to parties or candidates.
"As Stephen Harper has made very clear, charities are not permitted to participate in a number of political activities — and this [Munk debate] is one of them," Iler said in an interview. "This one is clear, very clear."
Declines comment
A spokesman for the Canada Revenue Agency, Philippe Brideau, declined to comment, citing confidentiality provisions of the Income Tax Act. An agency guidance document on charities and partisan activities says, among other things, that "organizing an all-candidates meeting or public forum in a way that could be seen to favour a political party or candidate" is forbidden.
May was included in an August leaders' debate sponsored by Maclean's magazine, but was not invited to another debate last Thursday organized by the Globe and Mail. She instead used a Twitter feed, including video, during the debate to comment and argue on issues raised.
The Munk debate will focus on foreign affairs. Griffith, who has previously defended the revenue agency's political-activity audits of charities, could not be immediately reached for comment on the Green complaint.
The Aurea Foundation, with assets of almost $16 million, reported no political activities in its most-recent filing with the CRA last year. It helped fund a group of largely conservative think-tanks, including the Fraser Institute, the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and the Montreal Economic Institute.
Follow @DeanBeeby on Twitter(t/n: might be disturbing to some people.)
Meringue Time.
It might be a new thing to Koreans, but it's known as'sex-symbol' in overseas.
Since that corner aired, there are a lot of malicious gifs of the trainees spreading online.
the gifs are in the link. i'm not going to post it here.
If you take a closer look, there are actually some of the trainees who notice this.
And there's no way professional PDs didn't learn about this before, also judging from the interview.. This corner was 90% made with that wrong intention.
-Hul.. I didn't know about this..
-Hul.. No wonder why they decided to make a Meringue Time corner out of nowhere.. But why are all of the gifs cropped in half?
-It's my first time hearing about this.. It's so shocking..
-Ah.. This is so annoying..
-I thought that corner was made for the trainees to show off their strengths.. Anyway, what's with those gifs.. Oh God..
-The edited gifs are seriously so severe..ㅠㅠ That has crossed the lines..
-Ahn Joonyoung need to kneel in front of these trainees and sincerely apologize to them..
-Hul..
-Hul.. This is so freaking shocking.. I seriously have never thought about it that way.. Ahn Joonyoung, why are you living your life like that..
-What..? Is this for real..?
-I was wondering why did they make a meringue out of the blue, but since I couldn't figure it out, I just thought that was cute.. I didn't know it has a hidden intention like this..
-Whoa.. If they really have a hidden intention behind this, they're really cruel.. Most of the trainees in the show are underage..
-I did wonder why they tell the trainees to make a meringue at first.. I mean, it's an idol survival audition program. Why would they need the skills to make meringues?
-This corner was indeed really random and out of place.. Mnet is really cruel..
-My baby is only 16 years old..
-Hul.. What the hell..? Why would they tell the trainees to do that?
-The PD is a psychopath..Quebecor media baron Pierre Karl Péladeau has been elected the new leader of the Parti Québécois.
Péladeau, the favourite in the race, won on the first ballot with 57.6 per cent of the vote.
Our project is not against Canadians. It's for the people of Quebec. - Pierre Karl Péladeau
In a speech to party faithful after the results were announced, Péladeau wasted no time thrusting the issue of independence to the forefront, urging pro-sovereigntist forces in the province to come together.
"It is in all our interests to place the superior interest of Quebec above our personal ambitions," he said.
"The great coalition for independence must be reborn."
Péladeau also addressed "our friends in North America and in the world" in a portion of his speech delivered in English.
"We want to have and enjoy our own country," he said.
"Our project is not against Canadians. It's for the people of Quebec."
Party members had the choice between Péladeau, Alexandre Cloutier or Martine Ouellet.
Pierre Karl Péladeau defeated rivals Martine Ouellet and Alexandre Cloutier on the first ballot for the PQ's top job. (Canadian Press/CBC)
Cloutier and Ouellet were both cabinet ministers under Pauline Marois, who resigned as PQ leader after the party's April 2014 election defeat.
Cloutier got 29.2 per cent of the vote, while Ouellet got 13.2 per cent.
The winner required at least 50 per cent.
Independence the goal
Péladeau's lofty objective of nationhood will have to wait at least three years because the next election will be held only in the fall of 2018.
Despite his repeated pro-independence proclamations, Péladeau's stance on a sovereignty referendum is that he will wait to see what happens in the next election before deciding whether to hold one.
Much of the leadership campaign focused on Péladeau's refusal to sell his shares in Quebecor Inc., the conglomerate in which he remains the controlling shareholder. He promised to put the shares in a blind trust, a position critics say was inadequate.
The debate prompted Liberal house leader Jean-Marc Fournier to quip that if PQ members "want to transform the Parti Québécois into the Parti Quebecor, it's up to them."
Although a political neophyte — he was elected in April 2014 — Péladeau's influence in Quebec is undeniable.
Quebecor owns some of the biggest media properties in the province, such as newspapers, a TV network, book publishers and music distributors. His company is also a major player in cable, internet and cellphone services.
Péladeau's critics and political opponents say he is divisive, anti-union and too short-tempered to handle the frustrations and nuances of political life.
But his passionate, public and fervent cries for Quebec sovereignty, coupled with his high profile, made him a seemingly irresistible candidate for party brass who long desperately to be pioneers of an independent country.
Former cabinet minister Bernard Drainville said as much when he dropped out of the race in April.
"In the last few weeks, it has become very clear to us that Pierre Karl is going to win, on the first ballot, hands down," said Drainville, the man who introduced the ill-fated secularism charter when the PQ was last in power.
Another man considered as leadership potential, Jean-Francois Lisée, quit the race in January, saying he knew he couldn't beat Péladeau.
Stéphane Bedard had been leading the party on an interim basis since Marois resigned.
On mobile? Check out our live blog here.a
The setting: Minneapolis. The month: February. So you knew that Jack Frost would be in the air Friday night, nipping at toes, noses and other exposed flesh as the Los Angeles Lakers unbundled at the visitors’ end of Target Center for their game against the Timberwolves.
Jack’s buddy Sammy Sarcasm showed up for the event, too.
He was there when reporters approached Pau Gasol to ask about his starting gig in place of ailing Dwight Howard, who had flown back to L.A. for treatment on his right shoulder. Said Gasol: “Big news. Headlines. Exciting.”
Sammy was there as well in some comments by Lakers coach Mike D’Antoni to the media:
D’Antoni offered a way for Gasol to get over the disappointment of getting shuffled in and out of the Lakers’ starting lineup. “Pay him $19 million. I think that should help,” D’Antoni said, smiling. Gasol is under contract for $19 million this season and $19.3 million next season.
Get all that witty repartee down on paper, throw another $100 million or so behind it in production costs and ad campaigns and the purple-and-gold might have a Hollywood rom-com blockbuster on its hands.
Instead, alas, it simply has more of the same: An unhappy Gasol, feeling underappreciated after helping L.A. win titles and reach Finals since his arrival in 2008. And a stressed D’Antoni, clearing the distractions of criticism and expectations by doing what he thinks is right with his rotation. Which doesn’t appear to have a primary place for Gasol’s particular, not-so-fleet-of-foot skill set.
The outcome in the Lakers’ long-ago hometown Friday – a victory over the Wolves that got uncomfortably tight for a stretch and 22 points, 12 boards and three blocks for Gasol – isn’t going to significantly change anything about the dynamic. When Howard is fit to return, he’ll start and Gasol won’t. Simple.
That figures to keep the veteran forward’s name in play right up through the Feb. 21 trade deadline. If he’s still around beyond that, either the Lakers received low-balled in offers for him (relative to their expectations) or they’re keeping Gasol around for Dwight insurance, should the All-Star center end up exiting as a free agent or as damaged goods for the balance of the season.
One possible destination for Gasol to keep an eye on? The team that just made the big Rudy Gay trade. Toronto Raptors GM Bryan Colangelo wasn’t shy the other day in his willingness to shop forward Andrea Bargnani:
And Colangelo speculated openly that Bargnani might be the next Raptor to move on. “The situation with Andrea is a unique one, he’s a great talent and he’s done a lot for the organization but sometimes a change of address is not bad,” said the general manager. “I’m not saying he’s asked for a trade but he certainly would not fight or resist a situation if it was the right situation.”
A role in D’Antoni’s system could be the right situation. Even if it sends Sammy Sarcasm north of the border with the underloved Gasol.
Category: Uncategorized / Tags:, Andrea Bargnani, Bryan Colangelo, Los Angeles Lakers, Mike D'Antoni, Pau Gasol, Steve Aschburner, Toronto Raptors, trades / 279 Comments on Gasol, D’Antoni Sniping Suggests Move /Izvor: N1/Pixsell
Tonino Picula, koji je najavio da će se natjecati za novog šefa SDP-a i Aleksandra Kolarić, koja traži da je ponovno prime u SDP, a koja također pretendira na tu funkciju, 'zaratili' na Twitteru.
"Vidim da bi me slao na sud partije i preslušavao moje ideje @TPicula? To je nastavak Zove politike #7.poraz", napisala je Kolarić na Twitteru.
"O čemu ti to", odgovorio joj je Picula.
"Picula postavlja diskriminirajuće prepreke mojem povratku. ZM me izbacio, a TP bi me preslušao. Utabanim stazama", dodala je Kolarić.
Podsjetimo, Aleksandra Kolarić ranije se telefonom javila u specijalnu emisiju N1 i zatražila da članovi SDP-a zatraže njen povratak u stranku. Kandidirat će se za predsjednicu nakon toga.
"Protustatutarno su me izbacili, zato očekujem da me vrate za pet minuta... Da jasno zatraže moj povratak, jer moj slučaj je |
memories, which now extend into the gigabits or even terabits. But this array demonstration, made possible in part with the support of the U.S. National Science Foundation, is an important proof of concept, and we’re starting to see some indication of commercial interest. Makers of semiconductor fabrication equipment, including Applied Materials, Canon Anelva, and Singulus Technologies, are working on special sputter-deposition and etching machines that can lay down and pattern the nanometer-thick layers of magnetic compounds needed to make high-density arrays of these devices.
The next step is to show that these memory arrays can be integrated onto existing CMOS chips. This integration will be done at relatively low temperature at the back end of the chip manufacturing process, when layers of metal wiring are used to connect the components of the chip to one another and to the outside world. This basic “back end of line” approach is already used to make MRAM and STT-MRAM and could be adapted to MeRAM as well. (There is, incidentally, a very different memory, resistive RAM, which also exploits these metal layers; it’s likely to be more useful for cheap, higher-density storage.)
If MeRAM can be integrated in conventional processors, it could potentially supplant all but the fastest SRAM on a chip. And because it should be easy to make compact, this memory will fit in the metal layers, where plenty of room is available. Thus this technique could bring memory functions that are now done off-chip in DRAM onto the processor. Memory cells would then be separated from the CPU by millimeters or even micrometers instead of centimeters, drastically cutting down on delay and heat-dissipation problems.
We can also apply the same voltage-switching approach used in MeRAM to do something even more radical: Make logic that is nonvolatile and so acts as its own form of memory. This idea got a boost in 2010, when our team received support from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to investigate the possibility.
The spintronic logic devices we’ve designed take advantage of the way spins in a material tend to interact with one another so that they all line up in the same direction. Knocking one or more of these spins out of kilter with an electric or magnetic field will cause a wave of spin disturbances—or “spin wave”—to move through the material, like ripples moving out from a splash in a pond.
Riding the Waves Illustration: Emily Cooper A voltage pulse can be used to knock an electron’s spin out of alignment, causing it to precess. This effect can be used to transmit information along a strip of magnetic material. The first perturbed spin will affect its neighbor and cause a wave of precessing spins to propagate down the line of electrons [top]. These waves can be made to take on two different phases, separated by 180 degrees, to represent a binary 0 and 1. Two waves with opposite phases can be made to interfere with one another, canceling out the spin perturbation. Logic gates, such as the majority gate, can take advantage of this interaction. The majority gate “votes” for whatever state constitutes the majority of inputs. This can be accomplished as shown [right], by causing three lines of spin-wave inputs to meet and interact. It can also be implemented along a single line, by introducing the voltage pulses that trigger spin-wave perturbations at three different points. In either case, MeRAM memory cells can be built on top of the logic gate to retain input data, trigger spin waves, and read out the result.
These disturbances can be created using voltages like those used to control MeRAM. But in this case, the voltage pulses are weaker, perturbing the spins instead of reorienting them by 180 degrees. Our experimental logic devices exploit these waves. In these devices, 0 and 1 do not take the form of the presence or absence of current. Instead they are represented by two different phases of a spin wave—a peak at a given position and time would be a 0, for example, and a valley would be a 1 (or vice versa).
To give you a sense of how spin waves can be used to perform calculations, we can take the example of the majority gate. A majority gate works by taking on the value of the majority of its inputs; typically there are three of them. Including the output, such a gate has four terminals.
In the device, the three voltage-controlled input terminals are used to create spin waves with a phase of either 0 or 180 degrees. The device is designed so that these waves meet and either interfere with or reinforce one another. At the output terminal, the detected signal will be the sum of the spin waves from the different inputs. If all three waves have the same phase, the output will share that phase. If there are two waves with opposite phases, they will cancel each other out, and the phase of the remaining spin wave will determine the phase of the output. Thus two out of three will win. In order to add nonvolatility to this logic operation, MeRAM magnetic memory bits can be integrated on each input and output terminal; they can be used to both input and store data.
Together with our collaborators at the University of California, Riverside, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, we have simulated these majority gate devices and found that it’s possible to use them to create general-purpose computers with just one additional type of logic gate: an inverter.
Spin-wave logic’s ability to exploit phase doesn’t really have a counterpart in conventional logic. But the simulations suggest that logic built with this technology could have speeds in the gigahertz range, more or less comparable to those of today’s chips. At the same time, the spin logic would consume much less energy per operation, on the order of a hundredth of the amount consumed by CMOS.
Other approaches to nonvolatile logic are also being explored. One, which was also supported by the DARPA nonvolatile logic program, transmits information through magnetic perturbations between closely set, discrete nanomagnets. Others are investigating the movement of the walls between magnetic patches. In both of these approaches, it’s looking like the most energy-efficient operation may come from using an applied voltage.
Should one of these approaches succeed, we could start thinking about doing dramatic things to the microprocessor. We could overhaul the traditional von Neumann architecture and create circuits that don’t need a separate memory to perform calculations and don’t have to shuttle data to some external chip to make sure it’s not lost.
The implications would go well beyond improving the battery life of our personal gadgets. Chips that can run at extraordinarily low power could be very useful in devices that are physically difficult to access and therefore can’t be easily recharged. Examples include medical implant chips and sensors in hard-to-reach places, such as at high elevations, in space, below ground, underwater, or in environments otherwise dangerous to humans. With vast amounts of low-power, on-chip memory, these devices could also be substantially better at particular memory-intensive computing tasks, such as pattern recognition and machine learning. Defense and space applications will benefit from instant-on systems, which will mean power failure, radiation, and other disruptions will be far less likely to result in a loss of critical information.
There are even more exotic circuits still on the horizon. Topological insulators, materials that transmit current only along their surfaces, could potentially be used to make memories that switch with just a thousandth the energy needed by metal-based spintronic devices. But researchers are still exploring the fundamental properties of these materials. In the meantime, these recent spintronic results make it clear that there are things we can do now to greatly improve computing.
Taking full advantage of these technologies will require a willingness to move beyond the strange and somewhat inelegant mix of logic and memory we’ve relied on for decades. But once we get over the shock of pushing aside the status quo, we will find we can accomplish great things.
About the Author
Pedram Khalili is an adjunct assistant professor at UCLA, where co-author Kang L. Wang is a distinguished professor and the Raytheon Chair in Electrical Engineering. Khalili’s earlier focus was on fairly large microwave magnetic devices for RF applications. Moving to atomic scales was a bit of an adjustment, he says. Now he’s excited to see what big things these tiny devices can accomplish.Where millennials are concerned, Toronto is number 24. In a new list of the best cities for people aged 18-34, Toronto ranks in the top quarter globally, according to information compiled by apartment listing aggregator NestPick.
Toronto got its highest score on immigration tolerance in a recent list ranking the world's best cities for millennials. ( Richard Lautens / Toronto Star File Photo )
Each city is given a score out of 10 in several different categories from Internet speed to tourism, to come up with an overall ranking. Coming in at No. 1 is Amsterdam, the Netherlands, with an overall score of 108.8. Lima, Peru, is last at 52. Toronto has an overall score of 93.10. Here’s a closer look at how we stack up when it comes to young people.
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High on immigration and equality Toronto did well on immigration tolerance (9.25), its highest score, and gender equality (8.10). Ottawa and Montreal also did well on immigration. Dublin had the best overall score. Toronto only got 5.4 on LGBT friendliness. Vancouver, which was number 10 overall and the best Canadian city, beat us on this one at 9.4. Low on nightlife Although many actual Toronto millennials would disagree, the city’s lowest score was for nightlife (1), calculated by looking at the number of clubs and their opening times. The highest scorers in this category were Berlin, Germany, Paris, France, and Cologne, Germany. We tied with Vancouver in this category.
We did do a bit better on the Beer ranking (3.8) and festival scene (6.80). But Vancouver had a much better festival score at 9.6.
Housing dragging us down
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Whether facing rising rents, trying to save a down payment for the ever-illusive dream home or just having trouble finding any decent apartment in the city, this is a sore spot for many Toronto millennials. Toronto got 2.8 in this category, far from the top scorer, Guadalajara, Mexico (10), but better than west coast competitor Vancouver at 1.6. Uber-expensive San Francisco clocked last in this category at 0.10. On food affordability, we did better at 5.7. Mediocre on Transit Toronto ranks in the middle of the pack on transport at 5.0. Vancouver does better at 7.9. But no one can beat Oslo, Norway, which earned a perfect 10. Health could be better We’re not a top scorer on health, at only 4.25, based on data from the World Health Organization. But Vancouver’s not beating us — it has the same score. Lyon, France, rates the best, and Cape Town, South Africa, the worst. We did better on access to contraception (8), tying with Vancouver. Employment needs improvement Toronto didn’t fare great on employment (3.7), which was calculated based on unemployment data from Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Vancouver did better at 6.3. The best is Bangkok, Thailand. Seville, Spain, still recovering from the 2010 Euro crisis, did the worst. Excelling at the start-up scene, and doing well on other tech stuff Toronto did OK on Internet speed (6.10) but our start-up scene was excellent (8.8). But Vancouver fared better at 9.50. San Francisco had a perfect 10 on startups.
Read more about:New regulations notified by the University Grants Commission this month makes sexual harassment gender-neutral, which means male students can also now file complaints if necessary.
The UGC (Prevention, prohibition and redressal of sexual harassment of women employees and students in higher educational institutions) Regulations says that institutions must act against gender-based violence perpetrated against employees and students of all sexes. This recognises that some male students and transgenders could be as vulnerable to sexual harassment, humiliation and exploitation as women employees and students, according to The Telegraph.
An official from the UGC said that they had been apprised of several instances of male students being sexually harassed. In 2007, two male students filed a sexual harassment complaint against a senior teacher of Ramjas College under Delhi University. Delhi University then amended its sexual harassment rules to include male students.
If the regulations are not followed by universities and colleges, they will face action that may include cuts in funds, according to the UGC notification.
Students alleging sexual harassment will have to file their complaints within three months of the offence, except in extraordinary situations such as illness. The institute concerned will have to set up an internal complaints committee to investigate, and complete its probe within 90 days. Within 30 days of receiving the report, the institute authorities will have to take action.
A student found guilty of sexual harassment can be rusticated, while an employee or a teacher found guilty will face action according to service rules. There is also a penalty for false complaints.PRINCETON, NJ -- President Barack Obama's job approval rating for Dec. 26-28 is 47%, down slightly from his post-midterm-election peak of 49% recorded last week, and close to his average level of approval since November. Currently, 46% of Americans disapprove of Obama's job performance.
The general stability in Obama's approval rating since the Nov. 2 midterm elections -- in which his party lost majority control of the U.S. House of Representatives -- can be characterized as positive for Obama. Most presidents whose party suffers major midterm losses see their approval ratings fall. However, one might have expected Obama to see a bump in approval from the flurry of legislation passed in Congress prior to the Christmas recess. These include a bipartisan agreement to extend the Bush tax cuts, repealing the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy for gay service members, passing a major food safety bill, and Senate ratification of the START arms reduction treaty with Russia.
Recent Gallup polling shows that all of these measures were supported by at least a plurality of Americans and, in some cases, a solid majority.
The president's approval rating briefly rose to 49% last week, in Gallup Daily tracking from Dec. 20-22, as Congress wrapped up work on these bills. Obama held a news conference on Wednesday in which he touted the historic nature of the 111th Congress' achievements, as well as his ability to work with Republicans to overcome gridlock, calling it a "season of progress."
However, in Gallup polling since Christmas, Obama's approval rating slid back slightly to 47%, nearly matching his average 46% approval rating since the start of November.
Thus, he is closing out his second year in office with a slightly lower approval rating than at the end of his first year. In 2009, his approval ratings between Christmas and New Year's ranged from 51% to 53%.
Obama's approval ratings at the end of his second year in office are higher than approval of two of the last five presidents (Bill Clinton with 40% and Ronald Reagan with 43%) at the same point in their presidencies. Jimmy Carter (51%), George H.W. Bush (63%), and George W. Bush (61%) each had higher approval ratings at the close of their second year.
Survey Methods Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted Dec. 26-28, 2010, on the Gallup Daily tracking survey, with a random sample of 1,531 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, selected using random-digit-dial sampling. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points. Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones and cellular phones, with interviews conducted in Spanish for respondents who are primarily Spanish-speaking. Each daily sample includes a minimum quota of 150 cell phone respondents and 850 landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas among landline respondents for gender within region. Landline respondents are chosen at random within each household on the basis of which member had the most recent birthday. Samples are weighted by gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education, region, adults in the household, cell phone-only status, cell phone-mostly status, and phone lines. Demographic weighting targets are based on the March 2009 Current Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older non-institutionalized population living in U.S. telephone households. All reported margins of sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting and sample design. The questions reported here were asked of a random half-sample of respondents for 3 nights on the Gallup Daily tracking survey. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls. For more details on Gallup's polling methodology, visit http://www.gallup.com/.Cross-platform development on Windows is suddenly awesome
W. Brian Gourlie Blocked Unblock Follow Following Nov 6, 2016
Anyone who’s done cross-platform development on Windows knows that getting things to compile can be a huge pain in the ass. Sometimes it’s not even possible. The whole situation kinda sucked, until now.
Enter Linux on Windows
There’s this new thing called the Windows Subsystem for Linux. Without going into too much detail, WSL provides a bash shell that exposes a Linux environment. It’s native Linux, too — These are ELF binaries running inside Windows. The Windows file-system is fully accessible, with each drive having its own mount point. Linux processes can bind to the Windows loopback address and it all just works. You can read the technical details here, but the practical implications are simple enough: Windows is finally a good OS for doing cross-platform development.
A native Linux environment running inside Windows.
WSL isn’t installed by default, so you’ll need to follow these instructions to get started.
A practical example
I do a lot of Rust development in my personal time. Rust actually has excellent Windows support, however, there are packages that link against C libraries that aren’t well supported on Windows. One of my projects depends transitively on OpenSSL, for example. Trying to compile on Windows results in this:
While most of these issues can be resolved with enough persistence, it’s a huge waste of time and effort. My typical reaction is to ditch my beefy desktop and its multiple monitors for a small, relatively under-powered MacBook where things just work™. Not anymore!Home > The Americas > US West
Explore Tibetan Buddhist philosophy with Lama Lakshey Napa Valley Register, Dec 2, 2013 Napa County, California (USA) -- Lama Lakshey Zangpo Rinpoche will visit Napa on Dec. 13 from 6-8 p.m. and Dec. 14 from 9-11 a.m. and 1-3 p.m. to give teachings from the classic “The Words of My Perfect Teacher,” by Patrul Rinpoche. The work is a practical guide to inner transformation that introduces the fundamental spiritual practices common to all Tibetan Buddhist traditions. Lama Lakshey will discuss the most basic and profound aspects for being a Buddhist practitioner.
He was born in eastern Tibet and is spiritual director for the Tsinta Mani Choling Center in Spokane, Wash. He also teaches Eastern philosophy at Spokane Falls Community College. His training in Buddhism began at a young age in Tibet.
In addition to teaching Buddhist philosophy, he is also dedicated to educating orphans and impoverished children in Tibet.
He helped establish the Joru Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports the Sengdruk Taktse School for Tibetan orphans and underprivileged children.
At the school, nearly 300 boys and girls receive year-round education, care and housing. Lama Lakshey served as the vice principal at the school for many years before coming to the U.S. in 2007.
Lama Laksheys visit is sponsored by the Center for Tibetan Qigong-Napa Valley, Rabobank, 700 Trancas St., Napa.
Pre-register by email at info@tibetanqigongnv.org or call 707-224-5613.
Suggested donations are $20 for Fridays teaching and $25 for each Saturday teaching, or $60 for all three events if you pre-register. The work is a practical guide to inner transformation that introduces the fundamental spiritual practices common to all Tibetan Buddhist traditions. Lama Lakshey will discuss the most basic and profound aspects for being a Buddhist practitioner.He was born in eastern Tibet and is spiritual director for the Tsinta Mani Choling Center in Spokane, Wash. He also teaches Eastern philosophy at Spokane Falls Community College. His training in Buddhism began at a young age in Tibet.In addition to teaching Buddhist philosophy, he is also dedicated to educating orphans and impoverished children in Tibet.He helped establish the Joru Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports the Sengdruk Taktse School for Tibetan orphans and underprivileged children.At the school, nearly 300 boys and girls receive year-round education, care and housing. Lama Lakshey served as the vice principal at the school for many years before coming to the U.S. in 2007.Lama Laksheys visit is sponsored by the Center for Tibetan Qigong-Napa Valley, Rabobank, 700 Trancas St., Napa.Pre-register by email at info@tibetanqigongnv.org or call 707-224-5613.Suggested donations are $20 for Fridays teaching and $25 for each Saturday teaching, or $60 for all three events if you pre-register.
Web www.buddhistchannel.tv www.buddhistnews.tvThe Valerie Plame case is, by journalistic standards, ancient history, and naturally any follow-up on a once-important story is considered bad form. Yet there is an interesting and rather scary new twist to the narrative. It turns out that Scooter Libby and friends weren’t the first to "out" CIA agent Plame, whose alleged employer, a company known as Brewster Jennings, was really a cover for a CIA unit investigating nuclear proliferation issues.
The London Times reveals that a former top U.S. State Department official tipped off Turkish agents about Brewster Jennings’ CIA connection, according to Sibel Edmonds, a former FBI translator assigned to produce English-language transcripts of intercepted conversations of Turkish targets in this case recordings of Turkish embassy officials and a top State Department official discussing, among other things, Brewster Jennings’ relationship to the CIA.
As the Times reports, the recordings were made "between the summer and autumn of 2001. At that time, foreign agents were actively attempting to acquire the West’s nuclear secrets and technology. Among the buyers were Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s intelligence agency, which was working with Abdul Qadeer Khan, the ‘father of the Islamic bomb,’ who in turn was selling nuclear technology to rogue states such as Libya."
Plame and her unit were onto a black market nuclear network, run as a cooperative effort by the intelligence agencies of Pakistan, Turkey, and Israel. Accordingly, the Turks were lured into hiring Brewster-Jennings as "consultants," but when the high U.S. official learned of this, says Edmonds, he "contacted one of the foreign targets and said you need to stay away from Brewster Jennings because they are a cover for the government. The target immediately followed up by calling several people to warn them about Brewster Jennings. At least one of them was at the ATC [American Turkish Council]. This person also called an ISI person to warn them."
The Israeli connection is what’s interesting about this covert operation, because it involves U.S. citizens, high government officials who have been part of an ongoing investigation that dates back to at least 1999, the earliest year mentioned in the AIPAC indictment. As Warren Strobel and Jonathan Landay of McClatchy News Service reported in 2004:
"Several U.S. officials and law-enforcement sources said yesterday that the scope of the FBI probe of Pentagon intelligence activities appeared to go well beyond the [Larry] Franklin matter.
"FBI agents have briefed top White House, Pentagon, and State Department officials on the probe. Based on those briefings, officials said, the bureau appears to be looking into other controversies that have roiled the Bush administration, some of which also touch [Douglas] Feith’s office.
"They include how the Iraqi National Congress, a former exile group backed by the Pentagon, allegedly received highly classified U.S. intelligence on Iran; the leaking of the name of CIA officer Valerie Plame to reporters; and the production of bogus documents suggesting that Iraq tried to buy uranium for nuclear weapons from the African country of Niger. Bush repeated the Niger claim in making the case for war against Iraq.
"’The whole ball of wax’ was how one U.S. official privy to the briefings described the inquiry.”
The whole ball of wax is a pretty tall order, but surely a major part of it is this nuclear black market business that Edmonds has clear evidence of. Edmonds has been subjected to an unprecedented gag order, imposed by a judge in the name of preserving "state secrets" yet what is being preserved, apparently, aren’t state secrets at all but the knowledge that our nuclear secrets are being stolen and sold to the highest bidder with the active collaboration of high U.S. government officials. A whole gallery of top figures has been fingered by Edmonds, who hasn’t mentioned any names yet has managed to identify the guilty parties by posting their photos on a Web site associated with her case.
The lack of coverage of this amazing and quite frightening story in the U.S. media is easily explained: anything having to do with the activities of Israeli intelligence in this country is sure to sink beneath the radar, although the London Times and a good number of international news outlets have picked up the details. What isn’t so easily explained is the cover-up of criminal activities, including treason, by our very own Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Times, seeking corroboration of Edmonds’ story, filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the FBI, asking for a particular document:
"One of the documents relating to the case was marked 203A-WF-210023. Last week, however, the FBI responded to a freedom of information request for a file of exactly the same number by claiming that it did not exist. But The Sunday Times has obtained a document signed by an FBI official showing the existence of the file."
Who is protecting what I called this treasonous camarilla from prosecution and why have successive investigations into a number of activities by the same cabal of government officials been closed down, repeatedly, over the years?
As Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark point out in their new book, Deception: Pakistan, the United States, and the Global Nuclear Weapons Conspiracy, the network associated with Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan continues to operate in Europe, the Gulf, and Southeast Asia through a series of front companies. They cite a study produced by the BND, Germany’s intelligence agency, that found Pakistan is procuring nuclear-related materials and technology far in excess of its needs, leading experts to suspect they’re funneling their nuclear assets into a global black market operation. The chilling conclusion of the authors ought to send shivers down your spine:
"Most alarming was the finding that hundreds of thousands of components amassed by Khan had vanished since he had been put out of operation. In other words, Pakistan has continued to sell nuclear weapons technology (to clients known and unknown) even as Musharraf denies it which means either that the sales are being carried out with his secret blessing or that he is no more in control of Pakistan’s nuclear program than he is of the bands of jihadis in his country."
The Pakistanis think they are above reproach, at least publicly, by the U.S. authorities, and this strange immunity may have lethal consequences for us all:
"In 2001, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s powerful intelligence agency, had proof that Osama bin Laden had received in person two retired Pakistani nuclear scientists at his secret HQ in Afghanistan. Both had become Islamist radicals in retirement.
"According to the son of one of them, bin Laden told them he had succeeded in acquiring highly enriched uranium from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and he wanted their help to turn it into a bomb. Amazed, they explained that while they could help with the science of fissile materials, they were not weapons designers.
"Soon afterwards, a secret army audit discovered evidence that 40 canisters of highly enriched uranium (HEU), the feedstuff for a nuclear bomb, were missing from the Kahuta enrichment labs outside Islamabad after A.Q. Khan retired. Dr. Muhammad Shafiq ur-Rehman, an insider who is the son of one of Khan’s former key aides, revealed: ‘They could only account for 80 out of a supposed 120 canisters.’"
Okay, so let’s see where this brings us: an underground network of spies and corrupt public officials is selling nuclear secrets worldwide, and al-Qaeda may very well have gotten its hands on enough lethal materials to make roughly 1,000 "dirty" bombs. Not only that, but the public officials and Washington insiders connected to this network are being protected from prosecution. The case files that document their treason have been withheld, and possibly destroyed.
Our brain-dead media, our kept pundits, and the "mainstream" outlets that determine if and when a news story is "legitimate" have systematically ignored the allegations of Sibel Edmonds, in spite of numerous endorsements of her credibility from two respected U.S. senators, the FBI’s Office of the Inspector General, and numerous current and former FBI agents who share her frustration with the shameless cover-up of this important case. It is absolutely outrageous that not a single major news organization in the U.S. has bothered to examine the charges made by Edmonds especially when it is known that Islamist groups are still planning attacks on Western targets.
None Dare Call It Treason was the title of a ubiquitous right-wing screed of the 1960s, remembered more for its high camp value than for anything the author had to say, but I’ve always wanted to use it as the title of a column. Now that I’ve managed to do it, it doesn’t seem half as funny anymore.
Is it really time to consider moving to, say, a Pacific atoll and waiting out the catastrophe looming just down the road a bit? I never thought I’d say that, being temperamentally and ideologically opposed to "dropping out," but one wonders, in the face of such a massive cover-up of this appalling danger to our immediate safety, if that isn’t the only alternative.
NOTES IN THE MARGIN
I am very pleased to announce the publication of a new edition of my first book, Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement, by ISI Books. Originally published in 1993 by the Center for Libertarian Studies, the third edition includes a new introduction by Georgetown political scientist George W. Carey, Patrick J. Buchanan’s introduction to the second edition, and new critical essays on the text by Scott Richert, executive editor of Chronicles, and David Gordon, senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute.
Due to a scheduling conflict, I won’ be speaking at the Jeffers Association conference being held this month, as previously announced. My piece in The American Conservative on Robinson Jeffers, the California poet and staunch anti-interventionist, is here.
Read more by Justin RaimondoBaltimore has spent the last year trying to heal from the wounds of division. But now a divisive proposal threatens to create more disunity. Councilman Brandon Scott’s proposal to eliminate Columbus Day is just what Baltimore doesn’t need: more division, less healing. Worse, the proposal itself is based on the kind of stereotypes that should never be the cause for legislative action.
Scholars like Professor Carol Delaney, formerly of Brown and Stanford universities, argue that Columbus is the subject of terrible and unfair slander. Professor Delaney writes in her authoritative biography of the explorer: “…he is blamed for all the calamities that befell [the New] World. The ‘presentist’ perspective that dominates the contemporary view, even among some academics, holds him responsible for consequences he did not intend, expect, or endorse.”
Delaney also noted in a 2014 interview: “Columbus has become a symbol for everything that went wrong. But the more I read of his own writings and that of his contemporaries, my understanding of him totally changed. His relations with the natives tended to be benign.”
“Columbus strictly told the crew not to do things like maraud or rape, and instead to treat the native people with respect. There are many examples in his writings where he gave instructions to this effect. Most of the time when injustices occurred, Columbus wasn’t even there,” she notes. Columbus was not perfect. None of us are. But he was hardly the monstrous caricature being used to assassinate his holiday.
None of this denies the fact that the consequences of colonization of what is now North America had deplorable consequences for Native Americans. Nor does it compensate for their treatment by Europeans, which was often reprehensible.
However, attacks on Columbus and Columbus Day were originated by the very group that has historically led racist attacks on blacks. These attacks were created in the 1920s by the Ku Klux Klan as part of a targeted assault on Italians, Catholics, and the Catholic charitable group the Knights of Columbus.
We must not forget that, in addition to African Americans, the Klan hated Catholics and Jews as well. And they had a particular hatred for the Knights of Columbus. Not only was this a Catholic group, but it was a group that stood publicly – at its highest levels – with the African American community. During World War I, it was the only charitable group to run centers serving the troops at home and in Europe that had as its policy not to draw the color line.
Long before advocacy for African Americans was popular, back in 1924, the Knights of Columbus commissioned and published NAACP co-founder W.E.B. DuBois’ book The Gift of Black Folk. It published this book because African Americans had been excluded from American history, and the Knights of Columbus wanted to correct that injustice – four decades before the Civil Rights Movement!
In 1924, the same year the Knights of Columbus published the DuBois book, the Klan disrupted their Columbus Day party in Pennsylvania by burning a fiery cross. The same year, the Klan magazine ran an article entitled: “Columbus Day, a Papal Fraud.” In the 1920s, the Klan also tried to suppress celebration of the holiday at the state level.
When, a decade later, Columbus Day became a federal holiday, it was Catholics – Italian Americans and groups like the Knights of Columbus – who pushed for it. Why? Because – as they had done for African Americans with DuBois – they wanted to ensure a place of honor for immigrants and Catholics in the history of the United States.
Baltimore needs unity. It needs healing. It needs honest dialogue. There is a long list of problems to solve in Baltimore: high crime, high poverty rates, unemployment, fatherless children, mistrust of police, failing schools, drug abuse, etc. The city’s politicians should devote their time to addressing these issues in innovative and effective ways rather than to initiatives that can only be divisive.
It is inspiring that the students of City Neighbors High School suggested celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day, as the Baltimore Sun reports. It is fitting that, just as the culture of Italians, Catholics and African Americans is celebrated nationally, the culture of Native Americans should be also. But, to celebrate one cultural group does not require that we denigrate another. We should not disrespect the cultural heroes of another ethnic group. Rather than renaming Columbus Day, why not add another holiday, Indigenous Peoples Day, to the City of Baltimore’s calendar in honor of Native Americans?
Baltimore is the country’s first Catholic diocese. It has a thriving Little Italy and strong immigrant community. It is the place where the founder of the Knights of Columbus was ordained a priest nearly a century and a half ago. The city should not follow a path blazed by the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s to insult and marginalize Catholics. Instead the city can celebrate the legacy of marginalized people such as African Americans and Native Americans, just as it celebrates those who have defended them.NDP Leader Tom Mulcair says he's looking forward to debating Conservative Party Leader Stephen Harper in Toronto tonight during the first leaders' debate of an 11-week campaign.
"This is my first debate," Mulcair noted as he spoke to the media Thursday flanked by his team of Toronto candidates.
Mulcair was elected NDP leader in 2012 after the death of predecessor Jack Layton, who in 2011 led the party to official opposition status for the first time.
Mulcair painted his party as the only alternative to Harper's Conservatives in another pitch to convince Torontonians to vote for the New Democrats.
"I think that it's going to be an opportunity for Canadians to realize that this election is about choice — a choice between four more years of Stephen Harper or an extraordinary team of women and men dedicated to bringing positive change to Ottawa," Mulcair said.
The economy is one of the topics in tonight's debate, and Mulcair served notice he will go after Harper's record.
"Mr. Harper has given us eight deficits in a row, $150 billion in new debt...and he's got one of the worst job-creation records in Canadian history," Mulcair told enthusiastic supporters at a candidate's constituency office.
"You have to go all the way back to the crisis of the 1920 to find someone with a worse economic record."
Mulcair repeated promises to repeal the government's anti-terrorism law, C-51, scrap an "income splitting" tax credit and lower the retirement age for Old Age Security from 67 to 65.
"After Oct. 19, your NDP MPs are going to repair the damage done by Stephen Harper," Mulcair declared.
And after a week in which Harper has exchanged words with Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, Mulcair reiterated his desire for more consultation with the premiers.
"It doesn't matter what political stripe they are, I have the obligation to work with each and every one of them, and that's precisely what I'll do."
As the only federal leader speaking publicly ahead of the debate, Mulcair said it was great to be back in "Canada's most important city."
Mulcair was in the riding of University–Rosedale, where NDP candidate Jennifer Hollett will be running against Liberal Chrystia Freeland.
Freeland was first elected as a Liberal MP during a byelection in the riding Toronto–Centre.Bryant: "Stop right where you are! You know the score, pal. You're not cop, you're little people." - Blade Runner, 1982
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Warranty period : One yearThe Anderson sisters have been dubbed the Englewood Angels, after the community rose to support them after they were found living in squalor recently. [GoFundMe]
ENGLEWOOD — Chicago is rallying around three young sisters found living in filth in an abandoned apartment, raising nearly $90,000 to help the kids, including a 7-year-old who had never been to school.
They're being called the "Englewood Angels" on the GoFundMe page set up to help them after Chicago Police officers found them.
The Anderson sisters — Destiny, 7, Derricka, 2 and Errika, 1 — were found when officers from the Englewood District responded to a well-being call in the 6300 block of South Green Avenue at 6:20 a.m. on Nov. 6, according to Officer Kevin Quaid, a Chicago Police Department spokesman.
The girls were discovered alone in an abandoned apartment that had "no electricity, no heat, and was in a very uninhabitable state," according to the fundraiser page set up for the girls. While police were on the scene, their father, Derrick D. Anderson, returned and was placed in custody.
The girls were taken to Comer Children's Hospital for evaluation, and injuries were discovered on Destiny that were consistent with child abuse, Quaid said. The Department of Children and Family Services was notified, and Derrick D. Anderson was charged with one felony count of domestic battery.
A GoFundMe campaign was set up on behalf of the family by Chicago Police Officer Charles Artz with a goal of raising $100,000. In its first eight days, the campaign has raised over $89,000. In response to an email, Artz referred all comments to the Police Department.
The young sisters now are living with their 53-year-old grandmother, Delores Anderson, who was granted temporary custody, and lives only a few blocks from where her granddaughters were discovered.
In a phone interview, Anderson said she had no idea how her granddaughters ended up in the abandoned building.
“Last thing I heard they were staying with the girls' mother’s mom, but I since heard her mother lost her place," she said.
Anderson said she had grown apart from her son and his daughters’ mother, 23-year-old Bianca Johnson. She said both parents are unemployed.
Anderson added that since being awarded temporary custody of her granddaughters, she has heard that they lived in the abandoned building for several months.
“From what people are saying on the streets, they were living in that building for about five or six months. I didn’t know they were living in a building like that because if I had, I would have turned them in to the police,” Anderson said.
Anderson said she will have to find a new apartment for herself and the girls come February.
“I was two months behind in my rent, and my landlord and I were not getting along very well because I lost my previous job. She told me that I broke my lease by moving the girls in, so she terminated it, but is giving me until February to move,” Anderson said.
Anderson had most recently been working for a temp service, but was removed from its schedule because she had to take time off to care for her granddaughters.
Immediately after the girls were placed with their grandmother, the 7th District CAPS office provided coats for the children, Quaid said. In addition, some family friends and neighbors donated money aside from the GoFundMe campaign.
“I’ve only spent some money that people have given to get on the CTA. I don’t want to touch it until I find somewhere to live,” Anderson said.
As for now, Derricka and Errika just turned 2 and 1, respectively, on Nov. 1,3 and 7-year-old Destiny started school last week for the first time in her life.
“They are doing beautiful. They are eating well and getting used to being bathed,” Anderson said.
When told Friday that the GoFundMe campaign was up to $81,000 of its $100,000 goal in just over a week, Anderson responded “wow.”
“I didn’t know that because I don’t have a computer. Wow. I’m going to have somebody help me to open up a college fund for them," Anderson said.
To donate to the fundraising campaign, visit the GoFundMe page.
A photo from the GoFundMe page shows the condition of the abandoned apartment.
For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here.This week, The Expanse shifted gears again in “The Seventh Man.” After last week’s fast-paced mix of exposition and set-up, capped off with a decided feeling of consequence by the Ganymede incident, this episode takes the time to do a couple of hugely important things. On a Martian ship, Bobbie Draper is recovering from her injuries and trying to make sense of her jumbled memories, while on Tycho station there’s a struggle for control as Anderson Dawes and Fred Johnson compete with each other for the opportunity to determine the future of the Belt. It’s an episode that’s light on action but heavy on talking and politics and full of some of the show’s best writing to date.
Spoilers ahead!
There’s only one scene on Earth this week, but it’s a good one. When the news comes in about Ganymede, Avasarala and Errinwright are watching with the Secretary-General and they have to make a quick decision about what to do about it. Errinwright pushes for attacking a Martian target, but Chrisjen advises caution and calls for a peace conference on Earth, where she argues that Earth would have the advantage. The Secretary-General is convinced, so that’s happening, probably next week. It’s interesting to see how the balance of power has shifted in Chrisjen’s favor since Eros, but it’s also obvious that she’s still wary of Errinwright, with whom she’s increasingly at odds.
At Tycho Station, refugees from Ganymede are flowing in, and the Rocinante crew is helping to get people settled on the station. Meanwhile, Anderson Dawes has also arrived on the station, where he’s inviting refugees to Ceres as well as rallying Belters on Tycho. We soon find out why: Having wrangled Ceres, Dawes is on Tycho to make a decisive play to wrest control from Fred Johnson. We get to see Dawes publicly debate Johnson over what the OPA’s next steps should be, and it’s riveting stuff. The real ideological differences that have previously been implied or inferred are made explicit when the two men have to stand in front of a parliament-esque gathering of OPA faction leaders and make their cases. Later, as Dawes schmoozes his way around the station trying to ingratiate himself with Holden and Naomi, then Drummer, then Diogo, pumping them for information, we get a real sense both of how deep the divisions go and how different Dawes and Johnson’s tactics are.
The Tycho sequences are (except for a weird Amos segment) by far the strongest parts of “The Seventh Man,” and they’ve got several things going for them. The dialogue is smartly written. The speeches are entertaining to watch and effectively communicate complex arguments. The increasing tension between Holden and Naomi is well-conveyed as their relationship frays at the edges. Dawes’s connection with Drummer is clearly depicted, with enough on-screen information to intrigue the viewer but without telling us the whole story all at once. Dawes’s encounter with Diogo is pitch perfect and a great/chilling example of the ease with which young people can be manipulated by those they admire. The final short action sequence as Dawes abducts Cortazar is a much-needed break from talking scenes and gives Fred Johnson a clear goal going into the next few episodes. In short, it’s a balanced, cleverly plotted, and well-thought-out storyline that admirably holds up its half of the episode.
If there’s any major criticism I have of the Tycho story this week it’s that Holden’s “character development” doesn’t feel particularly earned. The foreshadowing of having Dawes compare Holden directly to Miller didn’t quite work because there’s not any actual evidence before this episode that Holden has evolved into anything at all, much less into a new Miller. To be fair, I suppose Holden has become more circumspect this season about shouting sensitive and inflammatory information to the whole solar system willy-nilly, but he’s still pretty much the same old frustratingly naïve and self-righteous Holden we’ve come to barely tolerate over a season and a half of the show. His late-night attempted attempt on Cortazar’s life was genuinely unexpected, and not in a good way. That said, his decision to shout over Belters to support Fred Johnson (and his dipshit defense of his actions to Naomi) was exactly what I would expect of him.
The part of the episode I was most excited to see was the Bobbie Draper stuff, which was both just what I predicted it would be and much better than I thought it would be, primarily due to Frankie Adams’ strong acting as she works through Bobbie’s trauma and confusion after the Ganymede incident. After being rescued from her damaged exo suit, Bobbie is taken to the Scirocco for treatment for her injuries and multiple rounds of questioning about what happened on Ganymede. It’s during this questioning that we get some of the blanks from last week filled in, which is pretty much how I suspected things were going to go. I thought we’d see more flashes of the seventh “man” that gives the episode its title, but the Ganymede monster is kept deliberately mysterious and Bobbie is told to not speak of it when she finds out at the end of the episode that she’ll be going to Earth to testify at the UN.
“The Seventh Man” (and The Expanse in general, if we’re honest) is, ultimately, a story about storytelling, but it’s also a story about the personal nature of politics. Powerful people vie to shape narratives to their own purposes, both selfishly and not. Avasarala has an almost preternatural ability to read situations and come up with creatively constructive sources of action to prevent all-out war. We see that she has counterparts among the Martians as well, people with cooler heads than the common soldiery who are working hard to keep the peace as well, even if that means making up a plausible story to cover up an implausible event. Fred Johnson and Anderson Dawes both have stories to tell this week, and both of them are true in their ways—humanity is stronger if they can live peacefully together, and the Belt and Outer Planets need to be self-governing and united against those who don’t have their best interests at heart.
Identity figures largely into all these storylines this week. Avasarala is still working to assert herself in her stronger position following the destruction of Eros; she sees herself as an iconoclastic champion of Earth, and perhaps her greatest pressures come from her own expectations of what she should be achieving. Bobbie Draper has lost her unit in a tragedy that she doesn’t yet understand, which has left her unmoored, and now she’s being sent to Earth, but not as a conqueror or even as a warrior; her navigation of this unfamiliar territory is going to be fascinating in weeks to come. Anderson Dawes sees himself as the true leader capable of uniting the OPA under his control, and his work for the Belt and Outer Planets is confirmed to be real and sincere. However, he also seems burdened with something like self-hatred—a sort of archetypal man-willing-to-do-bad-things-for-good-reasons who knows how to fight, but not how to achieve and maintain peace. Fred Johnson, on the other hand, dreams of real and lasting peace, but his history and status as an Earther makes him an eternal outsider in the Belt. They may respect and appreciate him, but they won’t follow him like they’ll follow Anderson Dawes.
All these various takes on identity are at work with Naomi and Holden. We saw last week that Naomi is identifying more and more strongly with her Belter roots, and this episode continues that trend. She is fully invested in the suffering of those she sees as her people, and she’s deeply admiring of and moved by Anderson Dawes. She’s definitely struggling with some feelings of guilt over deceiving Holden about the hidden protomolecule sample, but her feelings of resentment towards him for his lack of understanding of her are even stronger than guilt. In some ways, Holden’s motivations mirror Fred Johnson’s—he wants to do what he can to help people in the Belt, but he also wants peace in the solar system—but Holden has heroic aspirations as well and is (we learn) at least open to the idea of modelling himself more after his friend Miller. Holden’s arc here isn’t as well-defined as Naomi’s, and it’s certainly not as relatable or likeable, but it does fit within the general thematic neighborhood of what’s going on with everyone else.
The Expanse is always good, but this episode and last week’s “Paradigm Shift” have been truly superb. The show’s characteristically high production values, powerful writing, excellent casting choices and solid acting have worked together to create a deeply affecting new direction for things now that we’re past the relatively weak Leviathan Wakes source material. The deeper we delve into Caliban’s War territory, the better things are getting, and that’s an awesome achievement for a show that was already the best thing on television.
Miscellaneous Thoughts:
The blood snowflakes in the opening scene were beautifully gruesome and make for a great image, but that is not how blood works.
I didn’t really “get” the Amos stuff. This wasn’t quite a flashback, there wasn’t enough information given about Amos’s past to make sense of his actions, and things are left basically unresolved after he has the conversation with Cortazar about the “procedure.”
Jared Harris is perfectly cast as Anderson Dawes. Absolutely magnetic and probably my favorite character to watch aside from Shohreh Aghdashloo as Avasarala.
Not enough Alex this week, and I did not like how he talked to Naomi.
I feel like Naomi and Holden’s relationship is quickly headed for Greek tragedy territory, but they were still going strong at the end of Caliban’s War, so I’m very interested to see how that shapes up over the rest of this season.Buy Photo Omar Hassan, president of Somali Association of Ohio... been in touch with uncle of suspect. Uncle said US officials came this morning and took mother and siblings away... not sure where. Columbus second largest Somali community with more than 50,000 here, only Minneapolis larger (Photo: Enquirer/Mark Curnutte)Buy Photo
COLUMBUS - Fifteen miles northeast of Ohio State University, where a Somali immigrant attemped a gruesome attack Monday, Omar Hassan grieved. And worried.
"The timing is not good," Hassan, 54, said in reference to the country's increasingly intensified anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim fears. "We are black. We are Muslim. We are Somali. We are all the negative stigmas."
Hassan sat in the lobby of the Somali Community Association offices upstairs and around the back of a 1970s-era strip mall on Cleveland Avenue. He said the office is the first stop for people arriving from the east African nation who are seeking an apartment, a job lead or a decent school for the children.
In the past few years, the large Somali refugee community in central Ohio has come under increased scrutiny over concerns that ISIS sympathizers could be hiding there. Not so, said Hassan, who has been in the United States for 26 years and in Columbus for the past 17.
With more than 50,000 residents, the Somali refugee community of Columbus is the second largest in the United States, behind only that of Minneapolis.
Yet despite the expanse of the mid-Ohio immigrant community, word spread fast Monday morning and didn't take long to reach the ears of Hassan, leader of the Columbus-based Somali Community Association of Ohio and known as the community's unofficial mayor.
Police say a Somali immigrant, Abdul Razak Ali Artan, drove his car onto the sidewalk during a mid-morning attack, hitting several pedestrians, then getting out of his car and wielding a butcher's knife.
Artan, who was a student at Ohio State, was born in Somalia and living in the United States as a legal permanent resident, according to multiple news outlets, citing unidentified law enforcement officials. It was unclear when Artan came to the U.S.
Artan was enrolled at Columbus State Community College from the autumn semester of 2014 through the summer semester of 2016, according to college spokesman Allen Kraus.
He graduated with an Associate of Arts degree in the spring of 2016 and then took a non-credit class for summer 2016. He had no record of behavioral or disciplinary issues during his time at Columbus State, and graduated with honors, Kraus added.
Hassan knows members of the suspect's family. He spoke with them at 3 p.m. Monday.
"They said the U.S. officials came this morning and got his mother and siblings," Hassan said.
Eleven people with non-life threatening injuries were taken to local hospitals. Police shot and killed the suspect. The campus was still basking in the glow of Saturday's Ohio State football victory in double-overtime over hated rival Michigan.
'America is my friend'
Hassan said his community and many of its members live under a cloud of suspicion and scrutiny.
"America is not my enemy. America is my friend," he said. "Anybody who sees my different is wrong. My Somali community loves America. We appreciate our country and the opportunity America gives us. We came here for a better life. We came here for an education. We came here to work. We came here to practice our religion."
Somali refugees began arriving in Columbus in large numbers about a generation ago. Having fled the civil war in their homeland, Somalis lived first in refugee camps before the United States government resettled them here. Friends and relatives across the country heard about the ample job opportunities and lower cost of living in central Ohio.
So they work in warehouses and with distribution companies, jobs that don't require fluency in English. Refugees and other newcomers from Somalia have started 800 businesses in the Columbus area.
"We do not have a spike in crime," Hassan said. "But we are human beings. We might have a couple of bad actors, like any community does. Crime is everywhere. Criminals are everywhere. Punish the individual, not the entire community. We do not want to get a bad label because of an individual."
He said a recent plot by white nationalists to damage a Kansas apartment complex and kill its Somali residents was greeted with "great, great appreciation" toward law enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
"We love the United States and we love Columbus," Hassan said. "We vote. We pay taxes. We buy homes. We buy cars. We want to contribute to our country. We feel like Columbus is the perfect place to live."
The USA TODAY's Aamer Madhani contributed.
Read or Share this story: http://cin.ci/2gBpMayMade Event’s Electric Zoo is set to return to New York’s Randall’s Island next month from August 29-31, and the underground Sunday School showing at the festival has been expanded to include a Vinyl-Only stage.
The stage aims to provide attendees with an intimate club environment within the festival, allowing its roster to deliver the world’s finest house and techno in a way only vinyl can offer.
The Sunday School Vinyl-Only stage will take place all three days of the festival, and each night will be hosted by a different artist. Friday’s showing will be hosted by Miami’s Behrouz, while Brooklyn’s Frank & Tony will take the reigns on Saturday night. Josh Wink will continue his 20th Ovum Recordings anniversary celebrations on Sunday when he hosts the stage. The full stage lineup is below.
Tickets for Electric Zoo are on sale now. For more information, go to ElectricZooFestival.com.
Sunday School Vinyl-Only Lineup
Friday, August 29
Hosted by Behrouz
Burchan
Leon
Now Serving (Ron & Borali)
Saturday, August 30
Hosted by Frank & Tony
Daniel Bell
Halcyon Soundsystem feat. Dahlia & Lauren
Norm Talley
Sunday, August 31
Hosted by Josh Wink
Elon
Jenö
Terrence ParkerOfficials in Ferguson, Missouri, released on Thursday the content of racist e-mails that cost two police officers and a city court clerk their jobs, Fox News is reporting.
As previously reported by the Inquisitr, a Justice Department investigation of the Ferguson police department and courts found, among multiple other institutional problems, several racist and offensive e-mails sent on city computers. Ultimately, three of the people involved in the e-mails — former court clerk Mary Ann Twitty, former Ferguson police captain Rick Henke, and former police sergeant William Mudd — lost their jobs. The specific content of those e-mails was not made public until this week.
The e-mails consist largely of forwarded e-mails consisting of racist and/or insensitive jokes and images. The content of those e-mails is provided below, courtesy of the Washington Post.
WARNING: The rest of this post contains content that some readers may find offensive.
1. November 14, 2008: Rick Henke sent the following e-mail to a person whose name has been redacted.
“I did not see the email until after [redacted] called me and did not reply because I assumed [redacted] passed on to you that I would work. So instead I replied with something I heard yesterday about President elect, Obama. I really think that some people fail to show the leader of our beloved country the proper respect that is deserving of such an honored position by indicating that we shouldn’t worry about him being president very long because what black man holds a steady job for four years. Terrible, it’s just terrible.”
2. March 1, 2010: Mary Ann Twitty forwarded the following image to Henke and Mudd.
3. April 19, 2011: Twitty forwarded the following image.
The image may be difficult to see - it's a photo of Ronald Reagan bottle-feeding a baby chimpanzee.
4. May 2011: Mudd forwarded the following joke to Twitty, who then forwarded it to other recipients.
“A black woman in New Orleans was admitted into the hospital [for] pregnancy termination. Two weeks later she received a check for $5,000. She phoned the hospital to ask who it was from. The hospital said, ‘Crimestoppers.'”
5. June 7, 2011: Mudd sent a photo of two dogs with the following caption.
“Last week I went to sign my dogs up for welfare. At first the lady said, ‘Dogs are not eligible to draw welfare.’ So I explained to her that my dogs are mixed in color, unemployed, lazy, can’t speak English, and have no frigging clue who their Daddies are. They expect me to feed them, provide them with housing and medical care. So she looked in her policy book to see what it takes to qualify. My dogs get their first check Friday. Damn, this is a great country!!”
6. December 2011: Twitty sent the following joke to Henke and Mudd, along with a third, unnamed recipient, entitled “Insensitive One-Liners.” It included the following joke.
“There’s a new Muslim clothing shop that opened in our shopping center, but they threw me out after I asked if I could look at some of the bomber jackets.”
A seventh racist e-mail message, sent in October 2011, won’t be published in this post because it contains nudity. It contains a photo of bare-chested women in tribal garb dancing, presumably in Africa. It includes the caption “Michelle Obama’s High School Reunion.”
Do you believe the Ferguson employees involved in sending these racist e-mails deserved to be fired? Share your thoughts in the Comments below.Baseball. Many people can’t stand to watch it, with the completely unoriginal argument – “it is just too boring”. People argue that the game isn’t exciting enough to keep their attention (at least not unless they have a few pints in them). As one of the few Canadian baseball fans out there, I feel that it is my duty to defend the sport, and help people to understand why I watch it, and explain why it is “America’s past time”.
What stands out to me as the most engaging aspect of baseball is the level of pure skill that a player needs to have to play the game. People may argue to the contrary, but it is a well established rhetorical fact that there is nothing more difficult in professional sports than trying to hit a major league fastball. As a former player (nowhere near the professional level), I can attest to the fact that when you make contact with a fastball it’s better than any feeling you’ve ever had in your life! As such, being able to watch guys like Jose Bautista or Alex Rodriguez blast a ball outside of a major league field still gives me goose bumps each time. As a side point to that, watching a pitcher like Curt Schilling or Roy Halliday paint the corners of the plate with such accuracy behind a ball that is going close to 100 mph engenders nothing less than complete and utter respect.
Another factor that compels me to watch the game on a regular basis is the anticipation involved. There is no better sports analogy used to describe a do-or-die moment than “bottom of the 9th, 2 outs, with the bases loaded”. Watching a team fall behind by four runs, and knowing that with one swing of the bat the game can be tied up keeps me on the edge of my seat every time it happens.
The sport is a mind game the whole way through. Very few understand the dynamics that occur between a hitter and pitcher (and catcher). A pitcher is making a call with every pitch he throws, and changes his style with every pitch he releases; he customizes and adapts to every hitter he faces. Likewise, a good hitter is trying to play the pitcher to his strengths. A solid hitter is not always batting pitches behind him because he can’t make proper contact with the ball – often times he is doing it to wear the pitcher down and goad him into throwing a perfect pitch down the pipe. There is no time limit that pushes a player to make a snap decision like many other sports, as everything is well planned out and strategic.
One other aspect that makes baseball so great (for now) is the lack of the instant replay. What this means is that when you get a player out, you need to be definitive. Rarely do umpires ever overturn calls – and there have been A LOT of bad ones in the history of the game. Sometimes it swings your way, sometimes it doesn’t. Most important to this fact, is that the game is slowed down or argued over the replay – the call is made, you live with it. Players and coaches will at times complain, but they are just having their voice heard. The show goes on!
The excitement in the sport is there, but you need to read between the lines. Baseball is not in your face like hockey or football, it’s precise and planned. I do have to admit that I am often more engrossed in a game once I’ve put a few drinks back, but it doesn’t mean that I can’t appreciate and fall in love with the sport every time in a sober state of mind. On the contrary, I’d rather go into a game with all of my wits – so, I can detect all of the little interactions between player-and-player, coach-and-player and fan-and-player. Love the game, or hate it – you have to appreciate it!
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photo credit: Express Monorail via photopin ccIf you are like me and you follow a lot of movie writers on Twitter, you probably found yourself observing something akin to a virtual stoning yesterday afternoon. And for the target, it wasn’t the first time. On Wednesday, Rex Reed of the New York Observer published a short review of V/H/S/2 in which he not only panned the artistically ambitious horror film but admitted to walking out after 20 minutes. Here’s the quote everyone is talking about:
“V/H/S/2 is a diabolically psychotic, sub-mental and completely unwatchable disaster that I happily deserted when a man with a retinal implant scooped out his bionic eye with a sharp object, splattering blood all over the camera. Your move, and you’re welcome to it.”
Even at 74, the man can still turn a phrase. But the young critics of today were not amused. In fact, they unleashed a collective tirade of insults on their sites, their blogs, and on Twitter. To their credit, some of it was constructive. The always readable Jason Bailey of Flavorwire published a comprehensive case for why Reed should be fired, and much of it had little to do with this incident. Yes, Reed has a long history of rudeness, calling Melissa McCarthy a “female hippo” in his review of Identity Thief and making racially insensitive remarks in his pan of Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy.
But yesterday, the outrage was all about the fact that he walked out of a movie then still reviewed it. Here is a sampling:
Rex Reed's review of V/H/S/2 is the worst thing I have ever read. Of course, I bailed after the second sentence. 😉 — Bill Gibron (@BillGibron) July 10, 2013
Rex Reed's review of V/H/S/2 is not film criticism, because an entire film was not criticized. — Framed Panda Prod. (@FramedPanda) July 10, 2013
Rex Reed reviews movie he only watched for 20 minutes, presumably just before shoving head up ass avc.lu/1bpcWVX —
The AV Club (@TheAVClub) July 10, 2013
A few were actually clever:
Breaking News: Rex Reed to become food critic, will review restaurants based on their bread sticks. —
Andrew Kasch (@andrewkasch) July 10, 2013
At least one was homophobic:
Taking a wild guess that Rex Reed walked out of the first segment of V/H/S/2 when the boobies appeared. Gross! —
Erik Childress (@EriktheMovieman) July 10, 2013
And there were hundreds more. However, it strikes me that most of this criticism – and certainly the vitriol – is misguided and based mostly on the fact that people think Rex Reed is a jerk. Don’t get me wrong – it’s pretty clear that he is a jerk – but that doesn’t mean he was wrong in this case. Is there actually a rule among film critics of today that you are not allowed to walk out of a movie and still review it? I wouldn’t support it if there were. A better rule would be: you can’t walk out a movie and review it without telling your readers that you left in the middle. Which is exactly what Reed did. He told them that he hated the first twenty minutes and walked out, leaving them to make their own decision. “Your move,” he frankly told them.
There is obviously room for disagreement here, and I don’t begrudge anyone who wants their critics to see the whole movie or not write about it at all. But I also sense that there is a generational struggle going on here. At first glance, it looks like these young critics are simply flexing their muscle and trying to push the older generation out of the business. Fine with me – that’s the way of the world – but it hardly seems necessary, given how little relevance Reed actually has at this point (and, of course, his detractors give him more relevance by dragging his name through the mud so publicly). But perhaps they are pushing him out not just because he’s old and crabby, but because they disdain his entire generation’s style of criticism.
See, Reed comes from an era in which film critics served a far different, more elemental purpose: to inform readers whether or not they should see the movie. Nowadays, film criticism is considered an art form itself. Critics are expected not just to give movies a simple “yea” or “nay,” but also place the film in some cultural context and explain the movie’s successes and failures with the eye of a film scholar. There is a pervasive sense of reverence around the profession and the medium itself. Yes, movies are a religion for many young critics today, and they learned it from one of Reed’s contemporaries, the late Roger Ebert. But Reed never had Ebert’s child-like wonder about film. He had a sharp, cutting wit, and he wielded it to take down filmmakers with the glee of a sadist. That’s always been his way. Nothing has changed, except the critics around him.
If Reed had such a visceral reaction to V/H/S 2 that he wanted to leave, I don’t have a problem with him doing it, much as I would understand if a critic was too upset by the rape scene in Irreversible and had to leave the theater. It might not be a one-to-one comparison, but the principle is the same: a critic has the right to review the movie anyway he or she wants. It’s up to us whether we want to listen to them. The best way to reduce Rex Reed’s influence is simply to leave him alone, not spew hatred over Twitter at him, a tactic that will only serve as free publicity and encourage his employers to keep him on staff. Your move, Internet.
AdvertisementsThe Bachelorette is so good, it’s frustrating that we have to cap it off at a measly two hours per week. That’s why each Tuesday, we’ll be having a Bachelorette Morning-After Rose Ceremony to celebrate the people, places and moments that really made the previous night’s episode shine.
A rose to my new favorite way to make people be really, really nice to me: put on a cute-but-dorky sweater, pout, and confess that I fear I’m unloveable. Don’t believe it works? Just ask Ben H., who’s somehow now a frontrunner, despite my predictions he’d be heading home this episode.
A rose to one of this season’s greatest mysteries: how Shawn can go from looking so good to so very, very not good in the span of a single episode—nay, a single scene:
And then, literally 2 milliseconds later:
A rose to the kindly old Irish man whose family farm was supposed to be the centerpiece of today’s fun “muck”-themed group date, but whose long-held dreams of reality TV stardom were squashed when everyone decided to spend the afternoon having ~serious conversations~ instead.
A thousand roses to the love of my life, Kentucky Joe, for whom there was literally no possibility of avoiding elimination—no, not even if he dunked his head in the nearest lake and vowed never to step within 50 feet of a Dippity-Do bottle ever again.
In his private conversation with Kaitlyn, Kentucky Joe is faced with a lose-lose situation: don’t be open with your feelings and get sent home, or do be open with your feelings and still get sent home, because SWEET BABY JESUS, that “I could kiss you for the next 60 years” line was easily the most awkward incident this season since the guys had to sexily explain how uteruses work to a room full of six-year-olds.
A rose to my Grade 9 English teacher for making me learn what “dramatic irony” is. Now, I have the proper terminology to articulate how EYEBALL-GAUGINGLY PAINFUL IT IS to watch Shawn—who still doesn’t know about Kaitlyn’s rendez-vous in Nicktown—gleefully announce “we’re back to being Kaitlyn and Shawn. It’s just a great feeling.”
But seriously, though, a horrifically tragic rose to every time Shawn said he was excited to spend extra time with Kaitlyn, completely unaware that a bomb the size of his own nose was about to be dropped on his face.
A rose to the most surefire sign of a complete and utter mental breakdown on the part of a reality TV contestant: breaking the fourth wall and looking directly into the camera. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you a madman:
A rose to Shawn for playing it cool when he returns from the bathroom, and for deciding not to leave the show mid-Rose Ceremony, but we all know what’s really going to become of Shawn over the course of the rest of the season:
A rose to the Blarney Stone’s PR team, who are presumably fighting their way through full-on crisis mode as we speak. That stone must not be magic, you guys, because LOOK WHO GOT SENT HOME, despite rubbing |
5 47.5 47.5 - TOTAL 100 100 100 100 Sample size 3,438 3,521 3,431 3,572
For further information:
Contact Office Mobile Gary Morgan: +61 3 9224 5213 +61 411 129 094 Michele Levine: +61 3 9224 5215 +61 411 129 093
Data Tables
Margin of Error
The margin of error to be allowed for in any estimate depends mainly on the number of interviews on which it is based. The following table gives indications of the likely range within which estimates would be 95% likely to fall, expressed as the number of percentage points above or below the actual estimate. The figures are approximate and for general guidance only, and assume a simple random sample. Allowance for design effects (such as stratification and weighting) should be made as appropriate.Florida Department of Agriculture Division of Plant Industry / REUTERS A Giant African land snail, which can grow as big as a rat and gnaw through stucco and plaster.
Parts of the Sunshine State could soon be overrun by house-eating snails that grow to the size of rats.
Reuters reports that more than 1,000 giant African land snails are being caught each week in Miami-Dade County, southern Florida. The snails grow up to 7 inches long and eat “pretty much anything that’s in their path and green,” Denise Feiber, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, told Reuters. They also have a penchant for stucco (which contains calcium, vital for a healthy shell) making them a menace to homeowners.
(MORE: Car Trouble: Spider Infestation Leads to Mazda Recall)
When the state’s rainy season begins in seven weeks’ time the snails, which can produce around 1,200 eggs a year, will start to emerge from their winter hibernation – at which point residents of southern Florida should perhaps brace themselves for the type of scene common in Barbados, where the snails coat walls and pavements with slime and excrement and are often blamed for blowing out car tires on highways. As if that weren’t bad enough, the snails also carry a parasitic rat lungworm which can cause illness in humans, including a type of meningitis, although no such cases have yet been reported in the U.S.
It’s still unknown where or how the infestation started. One possible source is practitioners of Santeria, a religion with West African and Caribbean roots, who in 2010 were found to be using the snails in their rituals, writes Reuters. But Feiber said the snails are sometimes brought into the U.S. by accident. “If you got a ham sandwich in Jamaica or the Dominican Republic, or an orange, and you didn’t eat it all and you bring it back into the States and then you discard it, at some point, things can emerge from those products,” she said. The last known Florida invasion of the giant snails was in 1966, when a boy returning to Miami from vacation in Hawaii brought back three of them, notes Reuters. His grandmother subsequently released the snails into her garden; the population grew to 17,000 within seven years. The state spent a decade getting rid of them, at a cost of $1 million.
(MORE: Submerged Snails — New Antarctic Life Discovered in the Deep)
Although their size and apparent friendliness might make giant African land snails seem a cute choice of pet, Feiber strongly warned against treating them as such. “They’re huge, they move around, they look like they’re looking at you… communicating with you, and people enjoy them for that,” she told Reuters. “But they don’t realize the devastation they can create if they are released into the environment where they don’t have any natural enemies and they thrive.”
MORE: Top 10 Evil AnimalsTom Colicchio in A Place at The Table - Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.
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"Top Chef" judge Tom Colicchio has a new title this week. He is one of the executive producers of a new film on hunger in America. It's called "A Place at the Table”.
The documentary examines hunger from the perspective of three people: A single mother of two in Philadelphia, a fifth grader in Colorado who must rely on friends and neighbors for food, and a second-grader in Mississippi who has health problems related to her diet of cheap, unhealthy food.
Why would a celebrity chef who owns high end restaurants in three major cities care about hunger? Colicchio credits his wife, who came face-to-face with hunger while mentoring a young girl. Another reason? His mother, who ran a school lunch program in his hometown of Elizabeth, New Jersey.
“[His mother] said ‘these kids who come into my lunchroom for breakfast and lunch -- I know this is the only thing they’re eating all day and I’m really fighting to get them some healthy food, at least a choice,’" says Colicchio. "It changed my complete view."
Colicchio says government action is essential to address hunger in America. "If the hunger problem in America was just about charity or money, it would have been solved already," he says.
He adds, “If you look at the public health issues the government has solved before like yellow fever and cholera -- these are issues that we thought were just issues of the poor, issues of the inner city. It wasn’t until government found out that it was either through mosquitoes or through water that was tainted. That took care of these problems.”
Colicchio says that if political candidates and government officials don’t begin to speak out on hunger in America, they risk being labeled as “pro-hunger.”
Colicchio is also launching a social action campaign to curb hunger in America, tied to the release of the film.
“I think the best compliment I can give is not to say how much your programs have taught me (a ton), but how much Marketplace has motivated me to go out and teach myself.” – Michael in Arlington, VA As a nonprofit news organization, what matters to us is the same thing that matters to you: being a source for trustworthy, independent news that makes people smarter about business and the economy. So if Marketplace has helped you understand the economy better, make more informed financial decisions or just encouraged you to think differently, we’re asking you to give a little something back. Become a Marketplace Investor today – in whatever amount is right for you – and keep public service journalism strong. We’re grateful for your support. BEFORE YOU GOBREAKING: Chadwick Boseman, who will next be seen in Disney/Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War, will star as the highly respected Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall — the first African American judge on that court — in the courtroom thriller that follows Marshall as a young lawyer through one of his career-defining cases. Reginald Hudlin is directing, beginning in Los Angeles this week before the holidays and then will resume in late spring after he completes his producing duties for the 88th Annual Academy Awards.
The film focuses on an important case in Marshall’s early career: a true incident in the young lawyer life — long before his appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. Described like this: “As the nation teeters on the brink of WWII, a nearly bankrupt NAACP sends Marshall to conservative Connecticut to defend a black chauffeur against his wealthy socialite employer in a sexual assault and attempted murder trial that quickly became tabloid fodder. In need of a high profile victory but muzzled by a segregationist court, Marshall is partnered with Samuel Friedman, a young Jewish lawyer who has never tried a case. Marshall and Friedman struggle against a hostile storm of fear and prejudice, driven to discover the truth in the sensationalized trial which helped set the groundwork for the Civil Rights Movement to come.”
Marshall is best known probably for arguing a landmark case, however. Before he was appointed to the Supreme Court, he was a lawyer who argued before the high court (and won) in Brown vs. The Board of Education, which desegregated public schools. The late great Marshall (he died in 1993) was appointed on the U.S. Court of Appeals by President John F. Kennedy and it was the subsequent president, Lyndon Johnson who then nominated him for the U.S. Supreme Court in 1967.
Noted Hudlin in making the announcement: “Thurgood Marshall was a man who took his life in his hands every time he came to a town to bring justice. Marshall was a cowboy who used his law books as guns. He was the smartest guy in the room of any room he was in. But he wasn’t a punk and didn’t hesitate to throw a punch if the occasion called for it.
Marshall is being financed by China-based Super Hero Films, Ltd. with Paula Wagner (Mission Impossible) producing through her Chestnut Ridge Productions banner. Hudlin (Django Unchained), Jonathan Sanger (The Elephant Man), and Super Hero Films’ Jun Dong are also producing from a screenplay by trial lawyer Michael Koskoff and his son Jacob Koskoff who scripted The Weinstein Company’s Macbeth.
Serving as executive producers are Super Hero Films’ Luo, Jialing Deng, and Beely Lee.
The project is one in a slate of features financed by Super Hero Films (very appropriate for a Thurgood Marshall project), a China-based collective created by Peter Luo, CEO; Sun Li Li, the principal of China Wit Media Co., Ltd.; Pan Lai, the principal of Hero Film, Ltd.; and Xu Yan the principal of Star Light Media Co., Ltd.
The film is being produced with the full support of the Thurgood Marshall and Samuel Friedman estates, including their children, John W. Marshall and Lauren Friedman.
Boseman is repped by Michael Greene of Greene & Associates and Management 360. Hudlin and the film are represented by CAA. Ken Kleinberg of Kleinberg Lange represented Wagner.Some of you probably know I’ve been working on a FE Midori translation patch. It’s finally done, more or less. I hope. Download everything here. Both Midori and Girls should be patched to an FE8J (not FE8U) rom.
Credit goes to the original creator(s) of these hacks for making then, bookofholsety, Monkeybard, Black Mage, circleseverywhere, Alusq, and Eliwan for translating some things for me, Dr. Letha for suggesting I play these hacks, and whoever helped beta test or encourage me, for, well, beta-testing, and encouraging, respectively.
Be sure to read the Changelog before playing, and let me know if there are any issues and I’ll try to fix them.
EDIT: It appears that a glitch character called Snag will sometimes join if you restart a chapter. If you attempt to view its data using the R button the game will freeze. I suspect its existence is due to the author’s save hacking (which is also the reason why certain emulators sometimes eat your save files), but haven’t the faintest idea how to fix it. Just ignore it.The Failure of the Swedish Establishment Translations of this item: Swedish In Sweden's third largest city, Malmö, the children of illegal migrants receive income support payments from the government, and the unemployment rate among foreign-born men aged 18-24 years is at 41%. In Sweden, those who do not have jobs receive generous welfare payments from the local authorities, and families in the country illegally have their rent paid by the taxpayers. It is an open invitation to more migrants to come to Sweden.
The Swedish establishment tells Swedes that the more immigrants come to Sweden, the richer Sweden will become -- no matter which country these immigrants come from.
The Swedish establishment is characterized by incompetence combined with an extreme left-wing ideology and a hillbilly-like mentality that refuses to see the rest of the world and the risks involved in it. The Swedish establishment has not dealt with Sweden as if it were a country, but as if it were a village.
By gross miscalculations, the Swedish establishment has eroded its own legitimacy. Today, fewer than one in four Swedes have confidence in their government. Meanwhile, the Swedish media is a major threat to Sweden's security today: it downplays the migration crisis with ridiculous arguments. A major threat to Sweden's security today is the Swedish journalistic establishment: it downplays the migration crisis with ridiculous arguments. As migrants flooded into Sweden in December 2015, Fredrik Virtanen, a writer for Sweden's largest newspaper, Aftonbladet, wrote an article entitled, "Have refugees forced you to buy worse red wine?" It is not really dangerous, Virtanen argues, that that Sweden was accepting 160,000 migrants; such migratory movements, he wrote, do not really impact anyone's life. Today, however, we know that many people's lives have been affected by the influx of migrants and that the problems are about more than wine. They are, for example, about sexual assault, the murder of staff in asylum accommodations and chaos in the Swedish school system. But Virtanen was right: red wine is still here. Another of Aftonbladet's editorial writers, Linnea Swedenmark, writes about a village in the Swedish province of Jämtland. The village she writes, is an example of how migrants are ensuring that the consumption of goods is increasing in the rural areas of Sweden. What she did not write is that in Jämtland's largest city, Östersund, many women have been assaulted by men who speak "Swedish with an accent." The police have warned women not to go out alone. Swedenmark is right when she writes that "the grocery store sells three times as many eggs" -- but the women of Jämtland feel less secure in the public domain. In the magazine, Café, the journalist Andrev Walden wrote in December 2015, that "no nation has perished from too much goodness." The pictures for his article compared Sweden's new restrictive immigration laws with the Holocaust. When the migration crisis started last year in Sweden, the Swedish comedian Henrik Schyffert calculated and wrote on Facebook that it costs each Swede "two Quattro Stagionis (a popular local pizza), a large Fanta soda and a Netflix subscription to save the lives of 80,000 people this year." His Facebook post was praised by all major media outlets in Sweden. They were apparently looking to a comedian who counted the counted the cost of immigration in pizza and soda currencies for the solution to Sweden's migration crisis. Since Schyffert made his statement, those amazing pizzas that would finance the mass influx of migrants are nowhere to be found, and Sweden has to borrow more money for the migration crisis on its hands. These quotes are from the mainstream media in Sweden, and it is how large parts of the Swedish establishment sound every day. This is the level at which the debate on immigration in Sweden is being conducted. While 800,000 migrants in Libya are waiting to invade Europe, Sweden has a refugee policy whereby only by obtaining livelihoods will those migrants with a refugee status and a temporary residence permit get permanent residence permits. So if you get a job, you get to stay in Sweden permanently. It is a strange refugee policy, because those who actually are refugees and not economic migrants are often traumatized and have difficulties finding a job. So Sweden's refugee policy is tailored to economic migrants. In Sweden's third largest city, Malmö, the children of illegal migrants receive income support payments from the government, and families that are in Sweden illegally have their rent paid by the taxpayers. For some reason, the Swedish authorities want to pay people who should not even be in Sweden. It is an open invitation to more migrants to come to Sweden. Tens of thousands of migrants have passed through Denmark to enter Sweden during 2015 and 2016, attracted by Sweden's generous welfare payments and free housing. What the established Swedish media does not tell people about are the threats and risks that come with increased migration. When the European Union's border agency, Frontex, recognized that it could not control the migrants coming to Europe, and that many Europeans who had joined terrorist organizations outside Europe were coming back to Europe among the migrants, this was not major news in the Swedish media. This is strange, since Sweden is one of the countries in Europe from where many citizens have traveled from to the Middle East to fight in jihadi terrorist organizations. Such news does not fit in the narrative that the Swedish media is trying to tell the Swedish people. The narrative that the Swedish establishment wants to tell the Swedes is that the more immigrants come to Sweden, the richer Sweden will become. It does not matter which country these immigrants come from. If they just come to Sweden, then Sweden will become a richer country. A month before the migration crisis started making waves in the media, the think tank Arena Idé -- which has close ties to the Social Democrats, the governing party -- published a report that was mentioned in all the major Swedish media outlets. According to the report, Sweden, between 1950 and 2014, had made a "profit" of $110 billion on immigration. The report also said that without immigration, an $8 billion tax increase would be needed to sustain Sweden's defense, infrastructure and research. That there could be a conflict between a welfare state and immigration was called a "myth." As expected, the established Swedish media rejoiced over these "facts." When the report went public in June 2015, the Swedish media celebrated it. Today, when the Swedish welfare state is under severe pressure because of immigration, the authors refuse to answer any questions about it. Last June, it was treated as a confirmation of the pro-immigration ideology of the Swedish establishment. With 9.5 million people in Sweden and its many universities, only a few economists protested the report. The loudest criticism came from the economist Tino Sanandaji. Needless to say, Sanandaji, despite being an immigrant from Iran with a Ph.D. in public policy from the University of Chicago, was depicted by some in the established Swedish media as a right-wing extremist. No, Sweden is not the Soviet Union, but the way large parts of the Swedish establishment turn ideology into "facts" through "reports," and smear those who have different opinions, undermines debates that are of such critical importance in a democracy. Not only the media and think tanks connected to the government advocate a liberal immigration policy. There is also loud support for it in academic circles. "Immigrants are a profit for Sweden," Dick Harrison, professor of history at Lund University, wrote in a December 2014 article for the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet. In the article, he states: "Sweden is not in any way unique. The same logic -- that immigration strengthens the country politically, economically and culturally - can be said of all peacetime immigrations through the ages, whether it has been about refugees or labor immigration. The more immigrants, the stronger [the] state. The prime example is the United States. There is not a single historical example of immigration in the long term being negative for the host country. At this point, our historical experience is crystal clear -- the only form of immigration that has been, and is, directly harmful is comprised of warlike invasions." While Harrison gives the United States as an example, he forgets to mention that while immigrants to the U.S. often come from countries such as Mexico, China and India, the three countries from which Sweden received the highest number of asylum seekers in 2015 were Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. They have also delivered most asylum seekers to Sweden during the first four months of 2016. As most people know, these three countries house large numbers of jihadi terrorists. In Sweden, moreover, it is difficult for people without a high level of education to get a job. In Malmö, the unemployment rate among foreign-born men aged 18-24 years is at 41%. In Sweden, those who do not have jobs receive generous welfare payments from the local authorities. Sweden also has a welfare system in which municipalities are obligated to ensure that everyone has housing. Sweden's homeless people live in hostels or hotels paid for by taxpayers. These immigration policies have therefore have therefore saddled Swedish taxpayers with huge expenses. Without the establishment's campaign to convince the Swedish people that immigration will make Sweden rich, Sweden would not have the liberal immigration policies they do, eroding the country's safety and welfare. Even though the Swedish establishment campaigns in every way possible for a liberal immigration policy, and despite the fact that a few months ago anyone advocating for a restrictive immigration policy was called a "racist," resistance among Swedes against immigration has increased. The Swedish people have defied their establishment and recently forced liberal politicians to support a more restrictive immigration policy. The Swedish people, despite having an ideologically blind establishment, have been smart enough to use their common sense. As for the Swedish establishment, there is no word to describe them other than dangerous. The Swedish establishment is characterized by incompetence combined with an extreme left-wing ideology and a hillbilly-like mentality that refuses to see the rest of the world and the risks involved in it. The Swedish establishment has not dealt with Sweden as if it were a country, but as if it were a village. What is happening in Sweden right now is a cultural and political revolution. The Swedes have trusted their establishment for a long time. This trust has been a part of the political culture in Sweden. But now that culture is changing -- to be anti-establishment in Sweden today is not marginalized anymore. Sweden is developing a powerful anti-establishment movement, dominating the political debate. By gross miscalculations, the Swedish establishment has eroded its own legitimacy. Today, fewer than one in four Swedes have confidence in their government. The damage that the Swedish establishment's liberal immigration policies inflicted on Sweden during the migration crisis of 2015 -- and is about to inflict during the coming migration crisis of 2016 -- is likely to cause a tectonic political shift in Sweden. The Swedish media has failed in its journalistic obligation to report objectively about the problem, and Swedish politicians have not acted in the best interest of Sweden. While Sweden faces its biggest crisis since World War II, the Swedish establishment has clearly failed to lead. The average Swede needs to be tougher to cope with the challenges facing Sweden today and in the years to come. The problems that will face Sweden after it has received 160,000 asylum seekers in 2015 and the 150,000 asylum seekers expected in 2016 will create a political, cultural and social environment in which there is no place for political naivety and ideological blindness. To survive as a stable and civilized country where the rule of law and democracy will prevail, Sweden will be forced to recognize the threats and risks that come with massive immigration -- and to respond. Nima Gholam Ali Pour is a member of the board of education in the Swedish city of Malmö and is engaged in several Swedish think tanks concerned with the Middle East. He is also editor for the social conservative website Situation Malmö. Follow Nima Gholam Ali Pour on Twitter and Facebook © 2019 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute. Related Topics: Europe's Migrant Crisis, Sweden Recent Articles by Nima Gholam Ali Pour Sweden's Government Funds Anti-Semitism, 2018-08-10
Sweden's Increasingly Lawless Immigration Policy?, 2018-04-25
Sweden: Not Everyone Can Say #MeToo, 2018-01-11
Sweden's New Instability, 2017-09-14
The Fake News Media of Sweden, 2017-08-30 receive the latest by email: subscribe to the free gatestone institute mailing list en 14 Reader Comments Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply->CLOSE Attorney Todd Flood, with AG Bill Schuette (to Flood's left), describes charges that could emerge from the Flint drinking water investigation. Videolicious
The water tower of the Flint Water Treatment Plant is seen on Monday, March 21, 2016. (Photo11: Ryan Garza, Detroit Free Press)
LANSING, Mich. — Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette will announce criminal charges Wednesday in connection with his ongoing investigation of the Flint drinking water crisis, three sources familiar with the investigation told the Detroit Free Press Tuesday.
Among those to be charged is a city of Flint official who signed a document saying the homes Flint used to test tap water under the federal Lead and Copper Rule all had lead service lines — a statement investigators allege was false.
Schuette is to announce felony and misdemeanor charges against at least two, and possibly as many as four people, according to two other sources familiar with the investigation. The investigation is ongoing and more charges are expected, sources said.
The charges, which will be brought against individuals connected with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and the city of Flint, relate to the lead contamination of Flint's drinking water and not to the possible link between Flint River water and outbreaks of Legionnaires' disease that are tied to the deaths of 12 death people, the source said.
Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette (Photo11: Kathleen Galligan, Detroit Free Press)
Schuette, a Republican who is widely expected to run for governor in 2018, opened an investigation in January, tapping former Detroit FBI director Andrew Arena and Royal Oak attorney Todd Flood to head the probe.
Andrea Bitely, a spokeswoman for Schuette, would neither confirm nor deny the charges.
Sources said the number of people to be charged Wednesday was still uncertain late Tuesday because of the possibility one or more of those targeted could agree to investigate with authorities and avoid charges.
A person familiar with the matter said that other parts of government remain under investigation. The prosecution team is trying to uncover more about why these individuals targeted by investigators may have acted the way they did and who may have instructed them to do so, according to this person.
Much of the case was built on previously disclosed emails pieced together starting last year by a number of reporters, including those at the Free Press. But prosecutors had other tools at their disposal, including subpoena power that enabled them to secure documents from city, state and federal agencies, according to this person.
More than two-dozen witnesses were interviewed by the prosecution team, this person said.
One of the more important pieces of evidence, this person said, was how city and state officials submitted documentation related to the federal lead and copper rule, which governs acceptable levels of those toxins in drinking water. The person familiar with the matter said that some officials who worked on and submitted these reports included information they knew to be incorrect.
Flint's water became contaminated with lead in April 2014 when the city, while under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager, switched its drinking water source from Lake Huron water treated by the Detroit water system to Flint River water treated at the Flint Water Treatment Plant. Michigan Department of Environmental Quality officials have acknowledged a disastrous mistake when they failed to require the city to add corrosion-control chemicals as part of the treatment process.
The corrosive water caused lead to leach from pipes, joints and fixtures. Although Flint reconnected to Detroit water in October, after state officials acknowledged the lead-poisoning problem after months of denials, the risk remains because of damage to the water infrastructure system.
Officials also are exploring possible links between the river water and the Legionnaires outbreak.
The state and city are now treating the pipes with higher levels of phosphates in an effort to build up a protective coating that will prevent lead from further leaching. Having more water flowing in the system would help that process, and that's one reason Snyder and other state officials want Flint residents to start using their taps again.
Contributing: Elisha Anderson and John Wisely, Detroit Free Press; follow Paul Egan on Twitter: @paulegan4
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1SrS7hzThe post-Budget briefing at the Institute for Fiscal Studies is one of those rites of passage for economics reporters. 24 hours on from the Budget itself, the reporting press (and much of the economic intelligentsia) crushes into a small underground briefing room near Goodge Street and attempts to retain concentrate as the country’s most highly-regarded boffins explain what really went on in the Budget.
Often the effort proves too much for the audience. On more than one occasion the proceedings have been interrupted by loud snoring from one or other part of the room. The IFS experts themselves are just as exhausted, having stayed up the night before to run the numbers through their spreadsheets.
The somnolent atmosphere is unfortunate because all too often what emerges from the IFS post-Budget briefing is highly significant — sometimes it’s a revelation that the numbers don’t add up; sometimes it’s an insight that a certain policy might be on the way. Today there was a revelation that is perhaps even more significant. The IFS delivered its verdict on which income groups had been most affected by coalition policies. The final word:
Looking only at changes implemented by the coalition the poorest have seen the biggest proportionate losses.
When the head of the IFS, Paul Johnson, said this, I was a little taken aback. After all, it seemed to stand in stark contrast to most of the analysis both they and the Government had produced thus far. Consider the following chart, from the Budget:
It shows you how each fifth of the population has seen their incomes change as a direct result of coalition policies. As you can see, the top quintile (eg fifth) has experienced the biggest fall in incomes between 2010 and 2015/16.
It was a similar story when the IFS looked at the distributional impact of Government policies after the Autumn Statement in December (though this chart looks at deciles — tenths — rather than quintiles):
Again, the richest tenth of the population (by income) suffer the biggest fall in incomes as a result of tax and benefit reforms. So far so simple — though in stark contrast to what Johnson was saying today.
But wait a moment. Note the starting date in the chart above: January 2010 — just before the coalition government came into power — and before Alistair Darling’s 50p tax for the highest earners kicked in. In other words, the charts above include the impact of the 50p tax on the highest earners.
What do these charts look like if you exclude the impact of the 50p tax and just include policies designed and introduced by the coalition government? That’s what the IFS showed us today:
The yellow line shows you what the distribution profile looks like if you include the reforms from January 2010, including the 50p tax. You can see it’s roughly similar to those other charts above.
Now look at the blue line. It shows you the impact of tax and benefit reforms purely between April 2010 and April 2015 — in other words the period when the coalition was actually in government. The policies introduced in that period clearly weighed most (as a percentage) on the poorest 20% of the population. The poorest 10% faced a 4% fall, the next poorest a 3.5% fall. The richest, by contrast, faced a 2.5% fall in their incomes.
This is significant — for one thing, as far as I can tell, this is the first time the IFS has pointed this out. For another, now that Budget 2015 is done, we have the full range of coalition policies: we can make a pretty final determination of how they have impacted the economy.
Of course, when you measure income in cash terms, the wealthiest faced the biggest falls (see the pink bars below). But the bigger picture is one George Osborne will find awkward. He has said, time and time again throughout his time in Number 11, that his policies weighed heaviest on the wealthiest. Today the IFS has said that’s not right.
On the other hand, the IFS also spiked the guns of Labour. Ed Miliband has been saying repeatedly that average families remain worse off today than they were in 2010. The IFS said that based on most measures, Britons are just about getting better off, in real terms, than in 2010 (though you need to make a few predictions for 2015, a year for which data hasn’t arrived).
However it’s the distribution of wages — whether between the richest and poorest, as above, or indeed the oldest and youngest which might prove most uncomfortable for the Chancellor. Now we know definitively: the coalition’s policies in its first term in office hit the poorest hardest.
You can see all the slides, and a recording of the IFS presentation, here.Adelaide, Australia – The UFC® will make its first visit to South Australia’s capital as Adelaide hosts UFC FIGHT NIGHT™: MIOCIC vs. HUNT at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre on Sunday, May 10. A five-round main event will feature Australia’s top ranked UFC® competitor and knockout artist Mark “Super Samoan” Hunt, who meets speedster striker Stipe Miocic in a bout with huge implications for the heavyweight division.
Fighting out of Sydney, Australia by way of South Auckland, New Zealand, Hunt (10-9-1) is a feared veteran of the combat sports world – a former K1 World Grand Prix Champion and opponent to a who’s-who of MMA elite. The 40-year old, fifth-ranked heavyweight has stunned Australian crowds with two career-defining performances. A ‘Knockout of the Night’ defeat of Chris Tuchscherer re-ignited Hunt’s MMA career at UFC® 127 in Sydney, February 2011, a performance only eclipsed by an incredible draw against Antonio Silva at UFC® FIGHT NIGHT: HUNT vs. BIGFOOT in Brisbane, December 2013 earning ‘Fight of the Night’ and widely regarded as the greatest heavyweight MMA contest of all time.
A breakthrough 2014 in the Octagon® saw Hunt land the knockout of the year against Roy Nelson at UFC® FIGHT NIGHT: HUNT vs. NELSON and come within breathtaking reach of the UFC® interim heavyweight title at UFC® 180, where he slotted in as a last minute replacement to the injured heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez. Undeterred, Hunt will take on a higher ranked opponent in his first fight of 2015 to re-focus his sights on the UFC® championship belt.
Miocic (12-2, fighting out of Euclid, Ohio, USA) is coming off a hard-fought five-round ‘Fight of the Night’ slugfest against former heavyweight champion Junior Dos Santos at UFC® FIGHT NIGHT: DOS SANTOS vs. MIOCIC in December 2014. Despite not having his hand raised, Miocic impressed with his performance, demonstrating to the world he belongs among the division’s elite. The 32-year-old American is currently ranked No.4 in the UFC® division and also owns a ‘Fight of the Night’ award against Stefan Struve, a ‘Performance of the Night’ honour against Fabio Maldonado and a ‘Knockout of the Night’ in the first round against Philip De Fries.
UFC FIGHT NIGHT™: MIOCIC vs. HUNT will also feature a stacked fight card of elite Australian and international mixed martial artists:
• Coming off a ‘Fight of the Night’ performance and successful middleweight debut, The Ultimate Fighter® Smashes winner Robert Whittaker (13-4, fighting out of Sydney, Australia) steps up against No.15 ranked Brad Tavares (13-4, fighting out of Las Vegas, Nevada, USA) as the co-main event
• UFC veteran and Brazilian jiu-jitsu specialist Anthony 'The Hippo' Perosh (15-8, fighting out of Sydney, Australia) meets power puncher Sean ‘The Real OC’ O’Connell (16-6, fighting out of Salt Lake City, Utah, USA) in a light heavyweight tilt
• Two undefeated lightweights will put their unblemished records on the line with Australian rising star Jake ‘The Celtic Kid’ Matthews (9-0, fighting out of Melbourne, Australia) paired against bruising boxer James ‘The Texecutioner’ Vick (7-0, fighting out of Fort Worth, Texas, USA)
• No.15 ranked strawweight brash brawler ‘Rowdy’ Bec Rawlings (5-4, fighting out of Brisbane, Australia) faces No.14 ranked Seohee Ham (15-6, fighting out of Busan, South Korea)
• New Zealand native Dylan ‘The Villain’ Andrews (18-7, fighting out of the Gold Coast, Australia) takes on British brawler Bradley ‘Bear’ Scott (10-3, fighting out of Melksham, England) at middleweight
• Strawweight speedster Alex ‘Astro Girl’ Chambers (4-2, fighting out of Sydney, Australia) will meet hot prospect Kailin Curran (3-1, fighting out of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, USA)
• The Ultimate Fighter® Nations: Canada vs. Australia Australian teammates Brendan ‘The Badger’ O’Reilly (5-1-1, fighting out of Brisbane, Australia) and Vik ‘The Spartan’ Grujic (7-5, fighting out of Melbourne, Australia) face off in a welterweight war on home soil
Since 2010, the UFC has hosted six live events in Australia with each experiencing tremendous success. Collectively, the six events have seen more than 75,000 fans in attendance and millions worldwide watching on Pay-Per-View and broadcast television. The three host cities to date – Sydney, Gold Coast and Brisbane – have had a cumulative gross gate of more than $12 million and millions more in economic impact.
Additional bouts and ticket information for UFC FIGHT NIGHT™: MIOCIC vs. HUNT will be announced in the coming weeks.
For more information or current fight news, visit au.ufc.com. All bouts live and subject to change.Seymour Roger Cray (September 28, 1925[1] – October 5, 1996[2]) was an American electrical engineer and supercomputer architect who designed a series of computers that were the fastest in the world for decades, and founded Cray Research which built many of these machines. Called "the father of supercomputing",[2] Cray has been credited with creating the supercomputer industry.[3] Joel S. Birnbaum, then chief technology officer of Hewlett-Packard, said of him: "It seems impossible to exaggerate the effect he had on the industry; many of the things that high performance computers now do routinely were at the farthest edge of credibility when Seymour envisioned them."[4] Larry Smarr, then director of the National Center for Super |
Now that cache resides in the museum where history probably wants it to be.
There were two kinds of fantasies in the Space Age: rocket-powered geopolitical fantasies with budgets of billions of dollars and rubles, and poetic paper fantasies made up by science fiction writers, especially one lone genius with an aqualung and a sarong. As decades pass, it gets harder for posterity to tell those world views apart. But Clarke always knew there was no real difference.Image caption Wolfgang Schauble and George Osborne said the big economies had to work together
George Osborne has promised to work for tougher laws to stop international companies shifting profit to avoid tax.
The chancellor and his German counterpart, Wolfgang Schauble, said co-operation between countries was needed to close loopholes
Several high-profile firms, including Starbucks and Google, have been criticised over their tax arrangements.
Mr Osborne added "strong standards" must not damage the UK's attractiveness to large international companies.
US coffee giant Starbucks is reported to have paid nothing in corporation tax to the UK over the past three years, while Google contributed £6m to the Treasury in 2011 on a UK turnover of £395m.
'Strong standards'
At a G20 meeting of finance ministers in Mexico, Mr Osborne and Mr Schauble urged their counterparts to back work by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to identify possible gaps in tax laws.
Mr Osborne said: "We want competitive taxes that say Britain is open for business and that attract global companies to invest in and bring jobs to our country, but we also want global companies to pay those taxes.
"The best way to achieve that is through international action that ensures strong standards, without pricing ourselves out of the global market."
Mr Osborne said the UK and Germany were "starting a process".
Mr Schauble added: "I am hopeful that we will get a lot of support."BEIRUT (Reuters) - The growing power of the ultra-hardline Islamic State means the Syrian army is now having to confront a group it has until now been reluctant to attack for political reasons.
Militant Islamist fighters on a tank take part in a military parade along the streets of northern Raqqa province June 30, 2014. REUTERS/Stringer
The emergence of the al Qaeda offshoot, formerly known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), has so far allowed President Bashar al-Assad to present himself to the world as a bulwark against Sunni Islamist radicals.
At the same time, the group’s tendency to fight more moderate rebel forces also helped to divide the opposition, making it easier for Assad’s forces to recapture territory lost in earlier periods of Syria’s civil war.
As a result, some analysts suspect army commanders pursued a twin-track strategy against ISIL - they have sought to reduce the group’s threat to the state, while ensuring it remains strong enough to continue feuding with other rebels.
Now that Islamic State’s fighters have gained momentum in Syria, boosted by equipment seized in a rapid offensive next door in Iraq, the army may need to become more confrontational with the group if it wants to avoid losing territory to it.
Last month Islamic State declared an “Islamic caliphate” in territory it controls in Iraq and Syria, and vowed to expand.
It has mainly advanced in Syria by capturing land from more moderate rebel fighters. But it is now clashing with the Syrian military more often, and the army has responded by stepping up aerial bombings on its positions.
In the short term, Damascus has not been too worried about ISIL, said a former Syrian diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“In the long-term though, it must be a matter of great concern because it makes it all the more difficult should ISIL establish itself semi-permanently, especially with its control of resources like the oil.”
“There is a conflict of interests here between what is short-term and practical, and a long-term consideration,” the former diplomat said.
GAS FIELD ATTACK
Last week, Islamic State killed 270 soldiers, guards and staff when it captured a gas field in central Syria, in the deadliest clash yet between the group and government forces, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group based in Britain which tracks the violence.
Syrian newspaper al-Watan, citing sources, said that around 60 members of the security forces were killed.
Syrian soldiers also fought Islamic State militants outside a government-controlled army airport in the east of the country last Friday, part of a major escalation of hostilities between the two groups.
The airport is one of the last major strategic locations in Deir al-Zor province which is not under the control of the Islamic State, and its capture would deny the Syrian army of its launch pad for air strikes on the east of the country.
If the Syrian government wants to take back control of territory in the north and east of the country, it will have to confront the Islamic State, observers say.
Made up of a few thousand fighters of various nationalities, the Islamic State lacks the firepower of the Syrian army. But it has been among the strongest of the armed groups, despite having little presence in Syria until two years ago.
Its fighters have also used non-military methods to make gains, such as encouraging ad hoc alliances, exploiting local grievances and buying off opposition fighters.
Anti-Assad activists and Western officials say the government has allowed Islamic State forces to flourish while attacking less extreme rebels.
Assad has used the group’s rise to back his argument that Syria faces a militant Islamist threat, diplomats say.
“The government wants (Islamic State) to be strong enough for its propaganda purposes and is therefore hesitant to attack it,” one Western diplomat said, adding that any government offensives were launched because Assad needed to be seen as acting against the group.
Although government forces have avoided attacking the group’s convoys and confronting it on the ground unless it is necessary, that does not mean it has been ignored as an enemy, the Observatory’s director Rami Abdurrahman said.
“Since June 10 until now, there have been air strikes on (Islamic State) areas every day,” he said, adding that before then it was once every four to five days.
“When it becomes stronger, it is a danger for the Syrian regime. Where it is a little bit weaker and fights with other rebel fighters, it is good for the Syrian regime to have a rest and control the area,” he said.
FLASHPOINTS
He said potential flashpoints between the army and Islamic State include Deir al-Zor province, areas around Raqqa city in central Syria, Aleppo in the northwest and eastern parts of the Hama province.
The Observatory, which relies on a network of contacts on the ground in Syria, estimates that Islamic State controls at least 35 percent of the country’s territory.
Some insist Assad sees Islamic State purely as a foe.
Salem Zahran, a Lebanese analyst who is sympathetic to Assad and meets Syrian officials regularly, says Damascus views Islamic State as a threat like all Syria’s other armed groups.
“The Syrian leadership... does not differentiate (Islamic State) from the rest of the factions, and there is a danger from any faction that takes up arms,” he said.
Related Coverage Jordan shoots down unidentified drone near Syria border
Islamic State is seen by Damascus as a danger on the ground even if it has helped to serve political objectives, said Jihad Makdissi, a former Syrian foreign ministry official who left the country and is now an independent political figure who backs the Geneva peace process for Syria.
“They see it absolutely as a threat to the country from a security and military stand point and they are already fighting them in many places according to the government’s priorities.”
But from a political perspective, Islamic State has served the Syrian government’s objectives by demoralizing and demonising the opposition, he added.My mother always emails or calls me on March 21. It’s the anniversary of the day we left the Soviet Union. I call or email her on May 26. It marks the day we arrived in the United States. In between are two months and five days. We spent them in Rome.
The United States does not accept as refugees those who are already there. As Jews who had fled the Soviet Union, we could not go to America directly. We had to be processed in a third country, in our case Italy, before we could be admitted to the United States. My father, who had come to the United States a year before us, flew there for a reunion. We were lucky—the United States would take us. There was a community ready to welcome us, which had fought for years to help secure our release.
I don’t remember much about those two months and five days. I was five. I remember the beach, the ruins at Ostia Antica, strawberry yogurt. Seeing my father for the first time in a year. But I think of that spring every time I see photographs of Syrian refugees today. I met a few of them last summer, doing field research in Jordan and Lebanon. The children look much like I did back in the spring of 1976—rumpled, confused, clinging to their parents. They don’t know the language. The culture is strange. The food is similar, but not quite right. Their parents are unmoored, different from how they were at home. Me, I was impressed by gumball machines and terrified of the red sauce on pizza. The white pizza (pizza bianca) was ok.
Rome, 1976
Photo courtesy of Olga Oliker
There are voices in today’s political debates in Europe and the United States that hold that the Syrians are an entirely different matter from my mother and me. We were “Europeans.” My parents fled persecution, not war. But should ethnicity, nationality, or even the specifics of the hazards one flees matter? Moreover, the rules change: In the 1930s and early 1940s, European Jews trying to get to America were turned away because they were potential security threats, because their culture was foreign, because of their religion.
The United States, this nation of immigrants, had its better moments. One million Vietnamese came to this country after the Vietnam War, despite all the same fears about terrorists and collaborators. It had its worse ones: The difficulty of admitting Afghan and Iraqi advisors, interpreters, and other colleagues who helped the United States, despite repeated promises, points to the difficulties of adapting a system designed to make it difficult to enter to the requirements of a population in immediate need of rescue. To let more Syrians in would require changes to policies and procedures, and those simply will not happen in the current political context. And that context is one that does not want the refugees here, as the admission figures to date indicate.
Luck or no luck, we contributed, and the United States benefited from us being here, even as we benefited from the opportunities we had.
But some refugees kill! Some are terrorists! Some may harass women. They will be burdens on our social welfare systems. Of course, we’ve all seen the Facebook memes that tell us that toddlers with access to their parents’ guns are more deadly. That European terrorists were more lethal in the 70s and 80s than today. Not only are most terrorists homegrown, not immigrants, but most of America’s domestic terrorists are white men, whether we admit that their politically motivated murders are terrorism or not. And do I really need to tell you about the level of harassment a woman faces going about her day in the United States, directed at her by men representing a smorgasbord of ethnic and national backgrounds? Assuming roughly half the people reading this are women, and they can explain to anyone who is confused, I imagine I do not.
My parents and I were not burdens on the United States. My father is a prominent mathematician. My mother worked her way up the corporate ladder and later started a successful small business. I’ve done pretty well, too, if I do say so myself. So have my sister and brother, born in this country. Not everyone was so lucky. Not all of those born here are so lucky. But luck or no luck, we contributed, and the United States benefited from us being here, even as we benefited from the opportunities we had.
Florence, 1976
Photo courtesy of Olga Oliker
Forty years ago, I was a little girl in Italy, between countries, speaking neither Italian nor English. I had a bright future ahead of me, because there was a place for me to go. Right now, there are millions of Syrian children in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Europe, and elsewhere. Their futures are murky. Unlike my family, in most cases, their parents want to take them home. They want the war in Syria to end, and they want to return. If this proves impossible, it horrifies me to think that there is not a safe haven for many of them.
I am deeply disturbed by the terms in which this debate is framed, by the desire to deny entry rather than to find ways to help.
As I noted, I do not expect the United States to allow large numbers of Syrian refugees into this country, despite the best intentions of our leaders to increase numbers. I see the struggle in Europe to accept more, and I laud the countries that have been generous, including Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, which have opened their borders to millions of people, far more than Europe will, and myriad more than the United States. It is my fervent hope that Syria can be stabilized and those who want to can return and rebuild. But I am deeply disturbed by the terms in which this debate is framed, by the desire to deny entry rather than to find ways to help. And I worry about the implications of this for our societies. I worry particularly about the United States, both because it is my adopted country, and because it is a nation that is at its best, strongest, and truest when it welcomes strangers in need. I worry that the world, and this country, has turned so much less welcoming. But I also know that these things can change.
The support my family and those like us got was driven in part by people organizing, fighting for us when we could not fight for ourselves. One way in which our world has changed over the last 40 years is that the Internet has provided an ever-growing ability for all of us to amplify our political voices. In the debate today, I worry that hate and fear may be winning out over rationality and kindness. But it’s not too late to change that.
Olga Oliker is a senior adviser and director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at Center for Strategic and International Studies. Prior to joining CSIS, Oliker was director of RAND’s Center for Russia and Eurasia. She has been published in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, CNN, U.S. News and World Report, among others. She holds a B.A. in international studies from Emory University and an M.P.P. from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.Well, she's not going to be the next Oprah. Big surprise here — no one liked it. Not the Daily News, LAT, or anyone else. Some of the words used in reviews: "overly-scripted," "flat" and "boring." The results are in!
While she managed to get some of her favorite themes across — government is bad, corporate America is good, I will exploit my family for money — the show was nothing more than a collection of semi-tear jerking stories spliced with some one-liners. The generally Palin-friendly Daily News (comparatively speaking at least) gave the show only two stars, but blamed Fox producers, not Palin, for blowing it. The Times' Alessandra Stanley was a little more direct in her critique:
Ms. Palin, who mostly narrated taped stories about inspiring Americans - a war hero, a philanthropist, a boy with cerebral palsy and his service dog - gave a competent, but generic performance, as cheery and bland as any news anchor's in the mainstream media she deplores. Ms. Palin is telegenic, but her restraint was more noticeable than her charm. Put it this way: She made the former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who has his own talk show on Fox News called "Huckabee," seem like Jerry Lee Lewis."
The LA Times said:
Despite her time on the campaign trail and in front of often-unfriendly cameras, Palin still has an eyes-locked-on-the-teleprompter stiffness."
So there you have it. The critics have spoken and no one should be shocked that Real American Stories sucked. Now all we can do is wait for Sarah Palin's Alaska to totally blow our minds.
[Image via Fox]Sunggyu's MV starts with his closed eyes
and then he had to stop the water from pouring out from the sink
there's always water imagery springing from everywhere
you can all guess that it's an imagery that his dongsaeng died from drowning
to preserve the memory of his dongsaeng
Sunggyu had to find a timeless place where he can store his memories
Kim Sunggyu imagines the place as he close his eyes
and he takes his dongsaeng's fish tank with him
he keeps walking
and he breaks the fish tank and released its content
at the end, he delivered the most important thing found in the fish tank, a house
at this point you can hear him repeating "help" as if he helped his dongsaeng go back home
next up is the explanation of Woohyun's MV
Woohyun has his eyes closed on all the teaser pictures
and here are Sunggyu's 27 album teasers
and here's control, except Kontrol, he has his eyes opened on all the other teasers
there's a lot of symbolism for closed eyes, but overall it either signifies
1. running away from reality (to cover ones eyes) t/n: Sunggyu
2. death (shut ones eyes and sleep) t/n: Woohyun
both MVs have water and eyes imagery
in Sunggyu's teaser and MV, he has his eyes closed because he wants to run away from reality and meet his dongsaeng
Sunggyu's memories/timeless place are buried into his imagination that is accessed through him covering his eyes. Because he's still alive he can snap back into reality.
You can also look at the previous song and the one that comes after Kontrol. The one before is called "alive" which means that he is living and he wants to do everything he can while he's alive. Yet, the story is about him not being able to. The song that comes after is titled "daydream" in English and "if only I was able" in Korean. The song is about things that he wasn't able to say. Ultimately like his teaser suggests, he has no choice but to face the reality so he has to live in the present.
Sunggyu cannot stop the time and time keeps moving on.
In his preview teaser, you can see him walking continuously, which signifies that he realizes that he has to flow with the time that cannot be stopped.
In the MV you can find him walking too. But amidst of all the walking he sat down/stops and he remembers his dongsaeng.
On the other hand, you have Woohyun who also has closed eyes.
Nam Woohyun is, on the other hand, stopped in time because he's always still. Even if he ran, it ended with a black out.
Meanwhile Sunggyu has to face the reality.
Here's another keyword "water"
from all his teasers, he's drenched. It's as if he's locked in water
Sunggyu who is living in the reality and Woohyun who cannot live in reality.
Sunggyu who is covering up his eyes and Woohyun whose eyes are shut. up until here is the content of Kontrolnext up is the explanation of Woohyun's MVWoohyun has his eyes closed on all the teaser picturesand here are Sunggyu's 27 album teasersand here's control, except Kontrol, he has his eyes opened on all the other teasersthere's a lot of symbolism for closed eyes, but overall it either signifies1. running away from reality (to cover ones eyes) t/n: Sunggyu2. death (shut ones eyes and sleep) t/n: Woohyunboth MVs have water and eyes imageryin Sunggyu's teaser and MV, he has his eyes closed because he wants to run away from reality and meet his dongsaengSunggyu's memories/timeless place are buried into his imagination that is accessed through him covering his eyes. Because he's still alive he can snap back into reality.You can also look at the previous song and the one that comes after Kontrol. The one before is called "alive" which means that he is living and he wants to do everything he can while he's alive. Yet, the story is about him not being able to. The song that comes after is titled "daydream" in English and "if only I was able" in Korean. The song is about things that he wasn't able to say. Ultimately like his teaser suggests, he has no choice but to face the reality so he has to live in the present.Sunggyu cannot stop the time and time keeps moving on.In his preview teaser, you can see him walking continuously, which signifies that he realizes that he has to flow with the time that cannot be stopped.In the MV you can find him walking too. But amidst of all the walking he sat down/stops and he remembers his dongsaeng.On the other hand, you have Woohyun who also has closed eyes.Nam Woohyun is, on the other hand, stopped in time because he's always still. Even if he ran, it ended with a black out.Meanwhile Sunggyu has to face the reality.Here's another keyword "water"from all his teasers, he's drenched. It's as if he's locked in waterSunggyu who is living in the reality and Woohyun who cannot live in reality.Sunggyu who is covering up his eyes and Woohyun whose eyes are shut.
Nam Woohyun died by drowning, so he represents Sunggyu's dongsaeng.
When Woohyun was at the subway station, his watch stopped working.
There's also the calendar pages that refuse to flip over.
Nam Woohyun has no one in his world left.
All those explain that Woohyun is dead.
Because he's dead, the world has stopped moving for him.
People normally commemorate the dead every year
before that they would wait until the 1st year comes
here Sunggyu is waiting for that time to come
When Sunggyu is waiting in the subway, Woohyun is waiting at the train station
Sunggyu's world contains a sunset, where the people live
while Woohyun's world has a sunrise
at the end, both time become intertwined
there will be a big event when both of them meet and it'll be the end of the story
the time is coming
here you can see May 9th on Woohyun's MV and the page after that is May 11th (Sunggyu's comeback date).
May 10th doesn't appear on the calendar.
however, the clock is stopped at 5:10
the day between Nam Woohyun's day (May 9th) and Sunggyu's day (May 11th) is May 10th/ 05/10
the story ends on May 10th. When Infinite V's song was completed
(Infinite V = Sunggyu and Woohyun's unit)
post response: [+520][-17] original post: here
ㅇㅇ | 2016.05.08 19:15 Nam Woohyun's solo biggest dilemma: which song is not fit to be the title song 추천 161 반대 3
막내규 | 2016.05.08 18:55 the reason why Yeobdeob is making us sick ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ As expected from Woollim they released the best stuff once again.. Today at midnight is the reveal of Nam Woohyun's first solo in 7 years so please look forward to it! There are 3 songs that was self written and composed by him ~~♡
이미지확대보기 추천 131 반대 2
ㅇㅇ | 2016.05.08 18:37 "write" let's hit daebak!!
이미지확대보기 추천 121 반대 2
Sunggyu's relation with water is his dongsaeng who drowned. Woohyun is drenched.Nam Woohyun died by drowning, so he represents Sunggyu's dongsaeng.When Woohyun was at the subway station, his watch stopped working.There's also the calendar pages that refuse to flip over.Nam Woohyun has no one in his world left.All those explain that Woohyun is dead.Because he's dead, the world has stopped moving for him.People normally commemorate the dead every yearbefore that they would wait until the 1st year comeshere Sunggyu is waiting for that time to comeWhen Sunggyu is waiting in the subway, Woohyun is waiting at the train stationSunggyu's world contains a sunset, where the people livewhile Woohyun's world has a sunriseat the end, both time become intertwinedthere will be a big event when both of them meet and it'll be the end of the storythe time is cominghere you can see May 9th on Woohyun's MV and the page after that is May 11th (Sunggyu's comeback date).May 10th doesn't appear on the calendar.however, the clock is stopped at 5:10the day between Nam Woohyun's day (May 9th) and Sunggyu's day (May 11th) is May 10th/ 05/10the story ends on May 10th. When Infinite V's song was completed(Infinite V = Sunggyu and Woohyun's unit)
First of all, you all know that Kim Sunggyu's MV was dedicated to the Sewol incidentWoohyun's MV is somehow connected to Sunggyu's MVDonald Trump has gotten himself into a whole lot of hurt as a result of the comments he expressed about abortion during a recent interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews.
Trump, the GOP front-runner, described himself again and again as "pro-life." When Matthews continually pressed him regarding punishing women who would break a ban on abortion, Trump said, “There has to be some form of punishment, yeah."
Later, when the reaction to his proposal to jail women drew, shall we say, an unfavorable response, he tried to deny what he had just said. Having obviously thought hard about an issue of keen interest to all Americans, he turned on his heel on the punishment issue and declaimed, "If Congress were to pass legislation making abortion illegal and the federal courts upheld this legislation, or any state were permitted to ban abortion under state and federal law, the doctor or any other person performing this illegal act upon a woman would be held legally responsible, not the woman … the woman is a victim in this case as is the life in her womb.”
Let’s ignore the fact that the political pundits seem inclined to let a candidate walk back within hours what he was just recorded saying about a key issue—a standard of tolerating lying accorded few others in American life. But as it happens, Trump, like a broken clock which happens to be right twice a day, was right on target about abortion as he engaged in a dialogue with himself. He is surely right that a woman who breaks a law involving killing ought to be punished, but that the dominant pro-life position demonizes abortion providers, not women, and that the pro-life stance is to try and have their cake and eat it too by portraying the woman making the decision as a "victim." Trump, in a dialogue worthy of any penned by Plato about Socrates has, unintentionally, pinpointed the utter moral incoherence of the dominant pro-life position.
Trump declared, upon two hours of deep reflection, that women who choose abortion are not really to be seen as responsible but are victims. Which leads one to ask—who are they victims of, exactly?
There is a vague suggestion in Trump’s meandering, finger-to-the-wind, flip-flopping comments that they are victims of the siren song of abortion providers. Trump is hardly alone in offering up abortion doctors, and one supposes Planned Parenthood, as those seducing women into abortion. But such a view is manifest sheer nonsense.
Those who make elective abortions available do not lure women into choosing abortion. There is no such advertising or messaging. At most Planned Parenthood tries to lure women into using birth control—a marketing strategy that contributes greatly to fewer elective abortions not more.
The reality of abortion is that women are frequently not victims. The instances in which "victimhood" actually exists include force, fraud, coercion, duplicity and mental incompetence. Even in those instances many pro-lifers, ignoring the victimhood they profess to care about, see no moral space that would justify an elective abortion.
Beyond these circumstances, when women find themselves pregnant they usually try to initiate a discussion with the man who they believe is responsible, if that man is willing to talk rather than ignore the situation. The conversation often fails to occur because men, unlike women, sometimes run from moral accountability when it comes to unwanted pregnancy. The conversation, when it happens, produces a belief on the part of the woman as to whether the man "wants" the baby. Further conversation then often ensues with friends and family and sometimes others. Then a decision, a morally accountable decision, is made.
When a woman decides upon an elective abortion outside those circumstances when she truly is a victim due to sexual coercion, she is making a voluntary choice. It is insulting and, more to the point, counterproductive for pro-lifers to claim otherwise. Why? Because pro-lifers need to win the argument in the mind of the woman who makes the decision that choosing abortion is wrong. Anything less is to put the moral blame on others when there are no others to blame.
Demonizing abortion providers has been a popular option for pro-lifers since they do not engage women about their actions but rather beat up on the small number of abortion providers. This ethical three-card Monte has led to closing clinics but ultimately will defeat the current pro-life position so ably articulated out of both sides of Donald Trump’s mouth.
Why is that? Because the clinics where surgical abortion is done are going to slowly fade away regardless of aggressive pro-life legislative efforts to do away with them. The future of elective abortion is pharmaceutical, not surgical. The Food and Drug Administration just relaxed the guidelines for taking the pill RU486 for elective abortions. Twenty-five percent of all abortions are already pharmaceutical. Certainly more drugs that permit even safer abortions are on the way. By targeting the clinics, pro-lifers are simply hastening the day when the majority of women will take a pill to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.
Pro-lifers may think the same strategy of going after abortion providers will work against prescription writers. It won’t, not the least because it is an argument that, if consistently applied, holds the maker of guns responsible for gun mayhem, not the gun owner, and food companies solely responsible for making many of us fat—arguments most conservatives rightly do not accept. But, beyond conceptual incoherence, trying to demonize those who write prescriptions means demonizing plain old everyday doctors and nurses who are both popular and who won’t put up with it. Further, as telemedicine and internet prescribing grow, the demons will have to include operators of the Internet—good luck demonizing them as evil abortion providers.
Donald Trump clearly has no idea what he really believes about the ethics of abortion. He can only pander to what he thinks the pro-lifers in his party want to hear. But what pro-lifers believe is a jumble of inconsistent beliefs meant to keep them from carrying the political cost of their point of view. If abortion is killing, then condemning and even jailing women who often are making a choice, as Donald told us initially, makes sense. And while Donald now thinks otherwise, there is logically no shifting blame to providers who do not manipulate women’s choices. Moreover, in the future shifting blame in a world of pills not surgery will be both impossible to enforce and unpopular in the extreme.
Abortion is and ought remain a moral, not a legal, issue. And, as the Donald inadvertently taught us, when it comes to abortion, morality is very complicated.City Comptroller Joan M. Pratt says the information currently provided by her office regarding cost overruns in city contracts is “sufficient” for the public.
She rejected the recommendations contained in an Abell Foundation report calling for more information in the weekly agenda prepared by her office for the spending board.
“Adding more data to the Board of Estimates Agenda is not the solution,” she said, asked by The Brew to respond to the Abell report titled The Opacity Problem. “The Board of Estimates Agenda provides sufficient information to the public.”
In particular, she said there was no reason to publish more details about the status of existing projects or why the board pays “EWOs” (extra work orders) on previously-awarded contracts.
The Abell report zeroed in on City Hall’s practice of sometimes awarding a dozen or more EWOs on existing contracts that can increase costs by 50% or more.
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PREVIOUS COVERAGE:
• Tracking costs of city contracts is an exercise in futility, Abell report says (10/27/15)
• Jack Young denies that his votes are influenced by campaign donations (10/29/15)
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Because the Board of Estimates is “the only information source on contracts that is truly available to the public,” the Abell report argues that it is “the best medium for detailed information on changes in projects.”
Board Secretary Since 1995
Pratt countered that “the best source” for information on the cost and progress of large city contracts “lies in the agency” managing the contract. She said that the public can file requests for information through the Maryland Public Information Act.
As to the Abell report’s recommendation that the BOE agenda disclose campaign contributions made by contractors to board members, Pratt said such information is filed with the Maryland Board of Elections and is “available for public review.”
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UPDATE 10/29/15: Pratt says her position on city government transparency was mischaracterized by The Brew.
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Pratt is the secretary of the five-member board, which includes three elected officials (Pratt, City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake) and two agency heads, Rudolph Chow, director of Public Works, and City Solicitor George Nilson.
Pratt has been elected five times as city comptroller and has served as the board’s secretary since 1995.
She said the issue of contractor performance is being studied by the Boards and Commissions Evaluation Committee, administered by the Department of Public Works.
“This process of evaluation and review of contractors will ensure accountability and transparency,” she said.
According to DPW’s webpage, the committee has met once since its formation last December and taken no steps yet in setting up criteria for contractor performance.
The committee replaced the Contractor Qualification Committee, set up by the Board of Estimates in 1991, that had not met as a group in more than a decade.
[DISCLOSURE: Baltimore Brew receives grant funding from The Abell Foundation.]Phil Jones has vowed to take more care of himself during matches to avoid further injuries and the Manchester United defender has revealed that he does yoga and Pilates to try to achieve maximum fitness.
Jones was pressed in to playing in Sunday’s 3-0 win over Liverpool at Old Trafford, due to the injury Marcos Rojo picked up in training the day before. Jones, however, was not 100% match fit following the spell of shin splints that had ruled him out since the 2-2 draw with West Bromwich Albion in October.
Since joining United Jones has suffered 19 different injuries or illnesses. Two of these occurred this term, the other being a pulled hamstring that occurred when he was on England duty in September.
“Hopefully I can stay fit, look after myself in games and make sure I stay fit,” Jones said. “I started pre-season and played every single game and every single training session. Then on international duty [in September], I pulled my hamstring and I have never had a muscle injury in my life so it was disappointing. When I was coming back I then had shin splints.
“I didn’t go into training and say I wanted to get injured that morning, it is just the way it has been. It has been unfortunate. I have been doing a lot of work in the gym and hopefully that will stand me in good stead for the rest of the season.
Jones also outlined his full regime. “It is strength work on the reformer, yoga and Pilates and loads of stuff. I will do anything I can to improve myself. I could stand here and list 10 players who are always out injured – that is just the nature of football. People don’t wake up one morning and say: ‘I fancy being injured today’. It is just the way it is. My aim right now is to stay fit and stay focused and get a run of games under my belt.”
When asked about starting against Liverpool, Jones said: “The first 20 minutes were a bit of a whirlwind for me, to be honest. It happened so quick. I don’t think any training session can get you ready for a game in the Premier League never mind playing against Liverpool. But it was great to be back out, the lads did brilliantly again and it was great to get the three points.
“You could say that I was [surprised to play]. But injuries and circumstance happen and that is football. I was more than ready for the game, you have always got to be ready and I enjoyed playing. We owed them from one last season as well.”
United are only eight points behind league leaders Chelsea, having won their last six matches. “We are improving, we know that we are not firing on all cylinders yet and sometimes in possession we give the ball away a bit,” said Jones. “But we are learning and we will keep improving game by game. If we can keep doing that then we will be a very good side.”Florida wins its first national championship. Could it repeat in 2018? (Photo by Peter Aiken/Getty Images)
Florida captured its first national championship in program history Tuesday, completing a sweep of Louisiana State in the College World Series finals with a 6-1 victory. It was the fulfillment of the program's long-held promise for coach Kevin O'Sullivan and the Gators.
The 2017 NCAA Tournament largely stuck to the script after an unpredictable 2016 season finished with Coastal Carolina on top. This year, five national seeds made it to Omaha, where no lower ranked team won a game until LSU upset Oregon State in the final four.
At the conclusion of the finals every year, Baseball America looks ahead to the next year's CWS. From our predictions at the end of 2016, we correctly picked five of the eight teams in the field, including the final four teams—Florida, LSU, Oregon State and Texas Christian. Florida State |
's oblate spheroidical surface, the curvature varies from 7.973 inches to the mile to 8.027 inches to the mile. The correction in going from spherical to oblate spheroidal is much smaller than going from flat to spherical. Therefore, although the notion of the Earth as sphere is wrong, strictly speaking, it is not as wrong as the notion of the Earth as flat. Even the oblate-spheroidal notion of the Earth is wrong, strictly speaking. In 1958, when the satellite Vanguard 1 was put into orbit about the Earth, it was able to measure the local gravitational pull of the Earth—and therefore its shape—with unprecedented precision. It turned out that the equatorial bulge south of the equator was slightly bulgier than the bulge north of the equator, and that the South Pole sea level was slightly nearer the center of the Earth than the North Pole sea level was. There seemed no other way of describing this than by saying the Earth was pearshaped and at once many people decided that the Earth was nothing like a sphere but was shaped like a Bartlett pear dangling in space. Actually, the pearlike deviation from oblate-spheroid perfect was a matter of yards rather than miles and the adjustment of curvature was in the millionths of an inch per mile. In short, my English Lit friend, living in a mental world of absolute rights and wrongs, may be imagining that because all theories are wrong, the Earth may be thought spherical now, but cubical next century, and a hollow icosahedron the next, and a doughnut shape the one after. What actually happens is that once scientists get hold of a good concept they gradually refine and extend if with a greater and greater subtlety as their instruments of measurement improve. Theories are not so much wrong as incomplete.
This can be pointed out in many other cases than just the shape of the Earth. Even when a new theory seems to represent a revolution, it usually arises out of small refinements. If something more than a small refinement were needed, then the old theory would never have endured. Copernicus switched from an Earth-centered planetary system to a Sun-centered one. In doing so, he switched from something that was obvious to something that was apparently ridiculous. However, it was a matter of finding better ways of calculating the motion of the planets in the sky and, eventually, the geocentric theory was just left behind. It was precisely because the old theory gave results that were fairly good by the measurement standards of the time that kept it in being so long. Again, it is because the geological formations of the Earth change so slowly and the living things upon it evolve so slowly that it seemed reasonable at first to suppose that there was no change and that Earth and life always existed as they do today. If that were so, it would make no difference whether Earth and life were billions of years old or thousands. Thousands were easier to grasp. But when careful observation showed that Earth and life were changing at a rate that was very tiny but not zero, then it became clear that Earth and life had to be very old. Modern geology came into being, and so did the notion of biological evolution. If the rate of change were more rapid, geology and evolution would have reached their modern state in ancient times. It is only because the difference between the rate of change in a static Universe and the rate of change in an evolutionary one is that between zero and very nearly zero that the creationists can continue propagating their folly. Again, how about the two great theories of the twentieth century; relativity and quantum mechanics? Newton's theories of motion and gravitation were very close to right, and they would have been absolutely right if only the speed of light were infinite. However, the speed of light is finite, and that had to be taken into account in Einstein's relativistic equations, which were an extension and refinement of Newton's equations. You might say that the difference between infinite and finite is itself infinite, so why didn't Newton's equations fall to the ground at once? Let's put it another way, and ask how long it takes light to travel over a distance of a meter. If light traveled at infinite speed, it would take light 0 seconds to travel a meter. At the speed at which light actually travels, however, it takes it 0.0000000033 seconds. It is that difference between 0 and 0.0000000033 that Einstein corrected for. Conceptually, the correction was as important as the correction of Earth's curvature from 0 to 8 inches per mile was. Speeding subatomic particles wouldn't behave the way they do without the correction, nor would particle accelerators work the way they do, nor nuclear bombs explode, nor the stars shine. Nevertheless, it was a tiny correction and it is no wonder that Newton, in his time, could not allow for it, since he was limited in his observations to speeds and distances over which the correction was insignificant. Again, where the prequantum view of physics fell short was that it didn't allow for the "graininess" of the Universe. All forms of energy had been thought to be continuous and to be capable of division into indefinitely smaller and smaller quantities. This turned out to be not so. Energy comes in quanta, the size of which is dependent upon something called Planck's constant. If Planck's constant were equal to 0 erg-seconds, then energy would be continuous, and there would be no grain to the Universe. Planck's constant, however, is equal to 0.000000000000000000000000066 erg-seconds. That is indeed a tiny deviation from zero, so tiny that ordinary questions of energy in everyday life need not concern themselves with it. When, however, you deal with subatomic particles, the graininess is sufficiently large, in comparison, to make it impossible to deal with them without taking quantum considerations into account.The public at large was served with a Bernie Sanders endorsement of Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee for the President of the United States of America. Initially, there was much dismay among Sanders supporters, with some early responses expressing outrage at his “betrayal”. Most of his backers felt that he should have not endorsed her till at least the convention if he did not get the nomination; others felt that he should have run as an independent candidate or team up with the Green Party’s Jill Stein. After agonizing for months over why in the world Sanders wasn’t interested in the Vice Presidential spot, the corporate-run mainstream media explained that Sanders was backing out as Hillary Clinton had offered him several concessions on policy issues. In the next few days, with the bizarreness of the moment over, a clearer picture emerged.
The endorsement speech Sanders made was nearly identical to his stump speech, only that he attributed all the ideas and promises as Hillary Clinton’s and not just his. He listed off the accomplishments of his campaign in terms of votes, delegates, state victories, political participation and ideological shifts nationally – with Hillary Clinton nodding her head uncomfortably, beside him. Some of the Clinton promises that Sanders listed out were concessions that had not even been agreed to publicly by the Clinton camp yet. After getting over with the aforementioned, Sanders declared that Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee, and then he pledged to defeat Donald Trump, sharply attacking the presumptive Republican nominee. It took several hours for people to realize that Sanders hadn’t officially conceded – something the mainstream papers and TV news pundits have still not bothered to mention.
While Sanders had endorsed Secretary Clinton and relinquished his Secret Service protections – he has not dropped out of the race or freed his delegates. He will still be going to the Philadelphia convention with his 1900 delegates to continue to push for the issues that his campaign had been about. Sanders is yet to win the platform fight to include indexing to inflation for the minimum wage, a ban on fracking, for single-payer healthcare, to overturn the TransPacific Partnership (TPP), to recognize the plight of the Palestinian people, to get big money out of politics, and to close the revolving door between lobbying and Congress.
The fight is also yet to begin on the Rules Committee for the Convention, through which Sanders will seek to open the primary process to Independents (since primaries are taxpayer funded), to abolish superdelegates (party leaders who have a free vote at the Convention and in deciding the nominee), and to oust the current DNC Chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Further, the multiple massive pro-Sanders protest rallies that were planned for the convention are still on schedule, and Sanders continues to fundraise for his national delegates and for current progressive candidates running for office at the local, state and national level.
After endorsing, Sanders has quickly detached himself from the influence of the Democratic Party and has shown his independent streak and commitment to the issues by setting up the foundation of successor organisations to his campaign – one which will fundraise and organize on policy issues, another which will help progressive candidates run for office, and one that will encourage grassroots participation by ordinary citizens. The discontent with politics as usual will prove these organisations as formidable challengers to centrist Democrats and will empower the Left in the years to come.
The day after he endorsed Hillary, Sanders addressed the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), an immigrants’ rights organization, for 25 minutes and didn’t mention Hillary Clinton even once. Sanders has clearly left the Democratic Party behind, if it seeks to obstruct his agenda. He also seeks to weaken union bosses (some of whom were responsible for the victory of the TPP lobby on the platform committee) and big donor-based think tanks and NGOs.
Celebrated activist and former Presidential candidate Ralph Nader made a sharp observation that by endorsing Hillary while proclaiming her progressive promises, Sanders sets her up for a scenario of political betrayal. Sanders’ endorsement speech sounded very much like his stump speech, only that he attributed the ideas not to himself but to the presumptive nominee – a standard she will now be forced to set herself against from the Presidency, if not from the Convention onwards.
Recent polling shows us that the Sanders endorsement has not had a positive impact on Hillary Clinton’s standing, nationally. Hillary’s lead over Trump in the polls has not expanded as expected after the endorsement, in fact it has decreased, symptomatic of the widespread anti-establishment anger. Clinton and Donald Trump are now neck and neck nationally with 40 points each, in a CBS news poll which had showed Clinton leading by 6 points last month.
She is losing to Donald Trump in the crucial swing states of Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania in a Quinnipiac University poll – despite outspending him 40 to 1. In a Rasmussen poll, she is losing to Trump nationally by 7 points – and this is despite all the self-inflicted injuries he has dealt to his candidacy throughout the year. The American people have known Hillary Clinton for 25 years. It is unlikely that anyone would discover her merits in the coming months. This is all despite the Obama endorsement, despite the endorsement from Vice President Joe Biden, from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, the late but wholehearted blessings of progressive maverick Senator Elizabeth Warren, and finally despite the endorsement from Sanders himself. Establishment or even progressive blessings to the establishment candidate do not seem to influence voters one bit.
Trump is scoring better on the economy (52-41 points), foreign trade (47-46 points), is even with Clinton on terrorism and national security (46-46 points), and, unbelievably, is losing on illegal immigration to Clinton (45-48 points), according to NYTimes/CBS. Hillary is the only Democrat that Trump can defeat in the election and Donald Trump is the only Republican that Hillary can defeat. Sanders, on the other hand, has been defeating Donald Trump by double digit landslides up to 20 points since September 2015.
Donald Trump is leading Hillary Clinton 40-28 among Independents (who comprise at least 42% of the electorate), in a NYTimes/CBS poll. According to polling by YikYak, nearly half of Sanders’ millennial supporters (48 percent) are backing a third party option, compared to 39% for Hillary. It is worth noting that these numbers are from after the Sanders endorsement and not before.
Since FBI Director James Comey’s press conference, Hillary’s favorables have fallen to 28% and unfavorables gone up to 56% - the latter exceeding even Donald Trump. After the email scandal, voters just do not trust her. 67% of voters say she is not honest or trustworthy, up from 62% last month, according to a NYTimes/CBS poll.
Green Party candidate Jill Stein has seen a triple digit percent increase in social media following since Sanders endorsed Hillary Clinton. The same has been the case with her donations. A large number of the donations are in sums of $27, indicating the role of Sanders supporters. Major Sanders backers such as the superstar intellectual Cornel West have chosen to publicly throw their support behind Stein rather than Clinton, given the urgency of the climate, racial and economic crises America is facing today.
One must note the mass educational role Sanders has had in politicizing the American population on the real issues – climate change, poverty, the criminal justice system, the pharma lobby, the military industrial complex, the fossil fuel lobby, campaign finance reform, universal healthcare, free college tuition, infrastructure spending, evenhandedness on Israel-Palestine, against military adventurism, and on the role of Wall street in the rigged economy.
For nearly a year, he schooled his supporters to back ideas, not people – to devalue endorsements. His opponent was endorsed by nearly every Democratic mayor, governor, representative and senator and yet Sanders won 23 states running against the entire establishment. I would argue that there is not a single Sanders supporter who got swayed by his endorsement speech, who would not have anyway come round to voting for Hillary in November - endorsement or not. The Sanders supporters who had decided to vote for Jill Stein or Donald Trump continue to do so – because their support for Sanders was in itself a rejection of Hillary Clinton and establishment politicians. The Sanders movement is not about a leader – Sanders himself is important as a candidate who never sold out, as a vessel for progressive change – but not the endgame for progressives. Sanders has taught the electorate to expect more from the Democratic Party than the crumbs they had been offered for decades. For example, Obama ran to the left of Clinton on guns, but Clinton ran to the left of him on healthcare, in 2008. One aimed to be the first African American President, the other aimed to be the first female President. That is where the differences ended. Sanders, on the other hand, stood for an altogether different type of politics, qualitatively (the vision and issues) and quantitatively (millions of small donors, independent volunteers, huge rallies and grassroots support).
It is also worth acknowledging that the likelihood of Sanders supporters switching to Clinton was also entirely dependent on their perception of the primary process as fair – the Democratic National Committee really bungled that. From limiting the debates to just 6 (Obama-Clinton had 22 in 2008), blocking Sanders’ access to his own campaign data, voter suppression and state convention steamrolling in Nevada (among other things) wounded party unity immensely. Recent news - that Sanders was under immense pressure to unconditionally endorse Hillary Clinton, and that he was booed by House Democrats (Congressmen) for not dropping out - further alienated voters who see Sanders as the only issue-oriented politician not compromised by the corrupting influence of corporate money. According to an Economist/YouGov poll, Hillary Clinton is enjoying the support of 12% fewer Sanders supporters as of last month (down from 53% to 41%).
The policy gains made by Sanders in the Democratic platform ($15/hr minimum wage, abolition of the death penalty, breaking up the big banks, reinstating a modern Glass-Steagall Act), and the planks recently taken up by Clinton (free tuition in college for some categories of people, and the public option in health insurance) can be seen as victories, but they do not go far enough in tackling the needs of poor and working people. These “concessions” do not seem to have moved Clinton’s poll numbers upwards either. Historically, the Democratic platform has remained what it is – a piece of paper - with most Presidents choosing to govern pragmatically in the post-FDR era. This shows that most voters don’t trust Hillary Clinton on her promises but do trust Sanders on his.
Having won 46% of the Democratic electorate running against the establishment, the Sanders bloc is possibly the most powerful intra-party insurgent bloc in the Democratic Party (perhaps stronger than the factions that oversaw the divides over prohibition and over the Civil Rights Act) in history. The battle at the 1968 convention battle between Hubert Humphrey and Eugene McCarthy involved a battle between state party insiders and national leaders at a time when most states did not vote in the presidential primary. Woodrow Wilson and Lyndon Johnson both reneged on their promises and joined the very wars they had vowed to not enter (WWI and Vietnam, respectively).
Any sort of grassroots insurgency that involves more that 15% of the base should worry any political party and make it drastically change its ways. Sanders winning 30% of the delegates should still have been more significant than if Obama had as the underdog beaten Clinton 80-20 in 2008 (he didn’t, they were neck and neck), because both were establishment candidates. But Sanders won 46% without the help of the party and against its interests – this does not include the Independents who back him 70-30 against either Clinton or Trump, or the voters who were unable to register in time for the primaries, or the rigging and voter suppression in various states such as New York, California, the South, Florida, Massachusetts, Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Nevada.
Ultimately, what the Sanders endorsement has proved is what the candidate was arguing from the beginning – that it was not Sanders and his campaign that was holding Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers back. Given common sense, the Democratic Party and its leaders ought to realize that their presumptive nominee is damaged goods and a weak candidate. According to a recent report in The Hill titled “Democrats ‘Freaked Out’ About Polls In Meeting With Clinton”, the message seems to have gotten home.
The media whitewashing and underplaying may deny but cannot disprove the reality of a mass movement within and outside the party that is refusing to die down. By ceasing to lobby for the nomination and supporting Hillary Clinton, with terrible poll numbers for the former Secretary of State, and the pressure of a Green Party upsurge, Bernie Sanders has made his case for the Democratic candidacy even stronger.
The ball is now in the court of the Democratic Party leadership: would they rather nominate Hillary Clinton, stay in the grip of big donors and stand a chance of losing to Trump under a wave of anti-establishment anger; or would they rather go left, embrace the ordinary people and win the election with Sanders? He has effectively handed them a time bomb, one that will lead to either a progressive takeover of the party in the near future, or a mass exodus – depending on when it explodes. Sanders will fight for progressive change regardless – as a Senator, or an activist, an organizer, or even as a President. It’s still not too late.
The author is a research scholar in modern history at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.According to sources of ours, Verizon prepaid is finally getting access to the carrier’s massive 4G LTE network come July 17. As those of you in the prepaid game know, Verizon has lagged behind others in terms of prepaid data speeds, leaving their customers on 3G-only, which is painful on Big Red’s incredibly slow CDMA network. That is about to change, but you now have to decide if their plan is worth considering.
On July 17, Verizon’s ALLSET prepaid plan, which features unlimited talk and text plus 500MB of data for $45, will gain 4G LTE access. BRIDGE DATA can be added to that plan to help grow the data bucket. Verizon’s site currently sells BRIDGE DATA at 500MB for $5, 1GB for $10, or 3GB for $20. Assuming those plan add-ons do not change before the 17th, you could get into Verizon prepaid with 4G LTE and have 3.5GB of data for $65 per month. Verizon is also running a promo that can land you another 500MB of free data just for signing up for auto-pay, so we could be looking at 4GB of LTE data with unlimited talk/text for $65.
Once ALLSET with 4G LTE is live on the 17th, you will be able to sign-up through Verizon’s website, direct/indirect channels, and by calling customer service.
Come launch, Verizon will sell new postpaid 4G phones that can be activated with prepaid pricing, there will be certified pre-owned devices like the Galaxy S4 and iPhone 5 available, or you can bring your own Verizon 4G LTE device.
A couple of questions we don’t have answers to are, “Will the speeds be full 4G LTE or throttled?” and “Will pricing for BRIDGE DATA change by July 17?” Hopefully the answer to both is “no.”
In related news, the screenshot below was taken from Verizon’s Testman site, which clearly shows that the LG G2 (which is a 4G LTE device) will be available on prepaid once it launches.Ministry of Woman and Child Development (WCD) led by Union Minister Maneka Gandhi is mulling to scrap rations for women and infants. (PTI image)
Ministry of Woman and Child Development (WCD) led by Union Minister Maneka Gandhi is mulling to scrap rations for women and infants, according to Indian Express report. Instead the ministry has prepared a proposal to replace rations given in aanganwadis for infants under the age of three years and pregnant and lactating mothers, with cash transfers. Under the supplementary nutrition scheme, last revised in 2011, the government provides Rs 6 for a child and enmarks Rs 7 for pregnant and lactating women, and Rs 9 for a severely malnourished child. The new proposal to replace take-home rations with cash transfers will see an increase of the entitlement marginally to Rs 8, Rs 9.30, and Rs 12, respectively, the report says.
As of now a total of 6.5 crore beneficiaries — 4.6 crore infants and 1.9 crore mothers — are currently given rations under the Integrated Child Development Services. This universal nutrition entitlement scheme is meant to provide supplementary nutrition in the prenatal and neonatal stage for mothers and children — a crucial element in preventing child and maternal mortality, child malnutrition, and stunting of growth.
The cash transfer will initially be implemented on a pilot basis. Subsequently it will be extended across the country in a phased manner. “In the first phase, we will cover 300 of the most backward districts where, as per data, the extent of malnutrition and stunting of children is the highest. This will be followed by the remaining districts a year later,” a ministry official said, as per IE reports.
However, the ministry official underscored that the provision of hot, cooked meals in aaganwadis for children in the age group of 3-6 years (3.6 crore beneficiaries) will continue.
The WCD ministry is holding a day-long consultation with representatives from 113 districts, which include six left-wing extremism-affected districts. The remaining are mostly backward districts that score the worst on these indicators, 27 of which are in Uttar Pradesh and 20 in Bihar. “In the ten years between NFHS 3 and NFHS 4, data shows that there has been on an average one per cent reduction per year in the extent of stunting, we want to set the target for 2 to 3 per cent annual reduction by involving district collectors directly,” said WCD Secretary Rakesh Srivastava.The chances are good that microbial life existed on Mars long ago, and sending astronauts to the Red Planet is the best way to find the evidence, NASA's chief scientist said.
"Those conditions on Mars, we know, were not that different from the conditions on Earth from when life evolved," she said. "And life evolved so quickly here on Earth, and in the oceans, that it gives the scientific community a fair amount of confidence that the same conditions did exist on Mars, and that life did evolve there. So how are we going to find it?" [The Search for Life on Mars (A Photo Timeline)]
Scientists know that life had evolved on Earth by 3.8 billion years ago, and a recent study suggested that the first microbes actually might have appeared by 4.1 billion years ago — just 440 million years after the planet formed.
Earth life-forms stayed simple for a long time after that; complex, multicellular organisms didn't get a firm foothold here until 800 million years ago or so. By that time, the Red Planet had long since lost most of its atmosphere, as well as its stable surface water. So the hunt for life on Mars should think small, Stofan said.
"We're not looking for skeletons; we're looking for fossil microbes — if [Mars] life did indeed go extinct," she said. "And those are going to be hard to find."
Indeed, field geologists here on Earth can study rocks rich in fossil microbes but never see the tiny structures, said Stofan, who is a geologist. Therefore, she thinks robots won't be able to do the job by themselves on Mars, especially considering how high the burden of proof will be for such an epochal discovery.
"I strongly believe we will never settle this question of determining whether or not there's life on Mars unless we get human scientists down onto the surface of the Red Planet," Stofan said.
The search for Mars life is, therefore, a strong motivation for putting boots on the Red Planet, which NASA aims to do by 2040. But there are other drivers as well, Stofan said.
"Every time I go out into a classroom — whether it was a D.C. high school I went to last week, elementary schools around the world — you ask those kids, 'Do you want to go to Mars?' And over half the room raises their hand," she said. "So let's get this done. Let's go to Mars."
Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.Compliance requirements can be complex to interpret; highly manual; difficult to track and act upon; and costly. Do you know that there are an average 201 updates per day from 750 regulatory bodies all over the world[1]? Research shows that 65% of firms ranked “design and implementation of internal processes” the biggest hurdle of GDPR compliance[2]. We know achieving organizational compliance could be very challenging. It is hard to stay up-to-date with all the regulations that matter to your organization, and to define and implement controls with limited in-house capability.
Today, we are pleased to announce a new compliance solution to help your organization to meet data protection and regulatory standards more easily when using Microsoft cloud services – Compliance Manager will enable you to manage your compliance from one place. You can sign up for the preview program today.
Compliance Manager helps you with 3 key aspects:
Enables you to perform real-time risk assessment on Microsoft cloud services
on Microsoft cloud services Provides actionable insights to improve your data protection capabilities
to improve your data protection capabilities Simplifies compliance processes through built-in control management and audit-ready reporting tools
Compliance Manager dashboard
Real-time Risk Assessment: Compliance Manager provides a summarized dashboard showing your compliance posture against the data protection regulatory requirements that matter to you when using Microsoft cloud services. In each control framework, you can get a compliance score that reflects your real-time compliance posture and helps you to make real-time risk assessments.
Actionable Insights: You can get rich insights into Microsoft's and your responsibility to meet compliance standards. For each Microsoft-managed control, you can see the control implementation and testing details, test date and results. For the controls you manage, you will receive recommended actions with step-by-step guidance for implementation and testing. This tool will help you better understand how to use the Microsoft cloud features to efficiently implement the controls managed by you.
Control management tool for customer-managed controls
Simplified Compliance: Compliance Manager also helps you to simplify your compliance process by providing the control management tool for you to assign tasks and collaborate across teams more efficiently. You can generate audit-ready reports with evidence in a few clicks, reducing the need to manually collect information across multiple teams. This tool will help compliance / security / privacy officers, and risk assessors to perform proactive pre-assessment and get ready for the audits.
Compliance Manager will be available for public preview in November 2017. To get notification when the public preview is available, sign up for the preview program here.
Check out this video to learn more about how Microsoft can help you with GDPR compliance.
***Update on Feb 22nd 2018: Compliance Manager is now generally available for Azure, Dynamics 365, and Office 365 Business and Enterprise subscribers in public clouds. Learn more about the official product launch here.***
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Which cloud services are covered by the Compliance Manager?
For the preview program, Compliance Manager will cover Office 365.
We target to cover Office 365, Dynamics 365 and Azure when Compliance Manager is released. As we continue to grow our cloud services, we will expand the scope of dashboard to include them as well. Compliance Manager will not yet be available in Microsoft's unique clouds for China, Germany and Azure Gov/GGC High and DoD.
2. Does showing a compliance score in Compliance Manager indicate that Microsoft is a compliance expert?
The compliance score does not express an absolute measure of how compliant you are. It expresses the extent to which you have implemented controls, which can support data protection and compliance. No service can guarantee that you will be fully compliant, and the “compliance score” should not be interpreted as a guarantee in any way.
3. What compliance offerings, in terms of regulations, come with the Compliance Manager?
We target to cover GDPR, NIST 800-53, ISO 27001, and ISO 27018 standards when Compliance Manager is released.
4. Will I be able to use it for on premise services?
The current version of the dashboard will focus on tracking, implementing, and monitoring data protection and compliance on Microsoft cloud services.
5. How is the compliance score calculated?
Compliance score is based on the operating effectiveness of Microsoft controls and the customer controls you manage. Different controls have different levels of risk. We assign a weightage to each control based on the level of risk involved due to control failure. For example, if a control around providing information security awareness training is not fulfilled, it will create a risk to your data protection and compliance goals. However, this risk is not as great a risk as if your logical access control fails. Therefore, logical access controls will have bigger weightages in calculating compliance score than controls like security awareness training and will have bigger impact on the score. The end goal of providing you a score is to help you with your risk management decisions.
6. How does the “Compliance Score” differ from “Secure Score”?
Secure score is a security analytics tool to help organizations better understand their security posture in Office 365, while the compliance score provides a broader view of an organization’s data protection and compliance posture in the Microsoft cloud services - Azure, Dynamics 365, and Office 365. The compliance score and secure score can be associated in that compliance score is calculated across large superset of data protection and compliance controls; whereas secure score is focused on subset of configurable security controls.
7. Does a high or perfect score mean that I am fully compliant?
The score does not express an absolute measure of how compliant you are. It helps you understand whether you have successfully implemented your controls and if Microsoft controls are compliant. Beyond Microsoft-managed controls’ contribution to the score, a high score indicates that you have implemented more controls and that you have ascertained that the implementation is successful. This supports your goal towards being on track to be compliant.
8. If there are changes in regulations and / or regulation requirements, do I get an alert and is it reflected in my score?
If any changes in regulations necessitates changes into controls that support those regulations, we will update those controls and send you a notification if you subscribed to alerts for Compliance Manager. Any changes in the status of Microsoft managed controls will be reflected in your overall compliance score within 24 hours. Any changes in the status of controls managed by you will be reflected in real time in your overall compliance score.
9. How do I get the Compliance Manager preview?
Microsoft 365, Azure, and Dynamic 365 users (including trial users) will have access to the public preview version in November 2017. To get notification when it's available, you can sign up for the preview program here.
10. How much does it cost?
As of now Compliance Manager preview version itself will be free for Microsoft 365, Azure, and Dynamics 365 users. We are still assessing the nature of the final licensing and will provide more information when closer to general availability in 2018.
*Compliance Manager Preview is a dashboard that provides a summary of your data protection and compliance stature and recommendations to improve data protection and compliance. This is a recommendation, it is up to you to evaluate its effectiveness in your regulatory environment prior to implementation. Recommendations from Compliance Manager Preview should not be interpreted as a guarantee of compliance.
[1] Thomson Reuters – Cost of Compliance 2017
[2] http://resources.compuware.com/research-improved-gdpr-readiness-businesses-still-at-risk-of-non-complian...Outdated, ruthless, rich and male: that is women's overwhelming and damning view of Westminster, according to a survey by the parenting website Mumsnet.
In a questionnaire that brings home just how disenchanted many female voters are with the current parliament, nine out of 10 of Mumsnet's members, who are 97% female, say they believe the political culture there to be sexist, while two-thirds believe success in politics is all down to what school or university you went to and the "old boys' network".
"It's quite stark," said Mumsnet founder Justine Roberts. "Of course I would say, yes, we know a lot of this, but the clarity of these results, the overwhelming strength of feeling, are quite remarkable."
When asked which characteristics would be advantageous in politics, 94% of respondents said ambition, 92% cited social connections, 86% said ruthlessness, 84% said being well-off, and 78% said being male.
On the question of which changes the 1,300 site users who responded to the survey would like to see in the UK's political culture, 84% backed the proposal from the Hansard Society earlier this year to vary the format of the notoriously rowdy prime minister's questions (PMQs), including introducing rapid-fire Q&As, more open questions and penalties for MPs who behave badly.
PMQs has become a symbol of all that critics feel is wrong with our male-dominated parliament, said Roberts. Half of the respondents thought it damaged parliament's reputation and 76% felt it was unprofessional and outdated.
The Hansard report in February found similar perceptions among the wider public. Dr Ruth Fox, director and head of research at the Hansard Society, who co-authored the findings, said: "PMQs is a cue for the public's wider perceptions of parliament. It provides a lot of the raw material that feeds their negative assumptions about politicians. The public think the conduct of MPs is childish and wouldn't be tolerated in other workplaces. They think politicians are simply not taking the issues that affect their lives seriously enough."
Some 59% in the survey wanted a "sin bin" for MPs who behaved badly at PMQs and 80% did not believe MPs conducted themselves well or that the televised Wednesday afternoon sessions were effective. But one of the most worrying findings of the self-selecting poll was that about 69% of women said they would not stand for parliament or as a local councillor, and 85% believed going into politics was not a family-friendly career.
Despite being unwilling to put themselves forward, however, 63% thought that more women in top political jobs would mean politicians would have a greater understanding of their concerns.
"That was the saddest thing," said Roberts. "People are so fed up. We know that the reason there is a lack of female representation in parliament isn't just down to sexism at the point of selection; there just aren't enough women prepared to put themselves forward. This is confirmation of how they feel and how strongly they feel. Things like the long hours and being 'on show' is rolled into the idea that it's all a bit male and shouty, but even male MPs have complained about the hours. The hours seem to revolve more around 50-year-old men who want to socialise than even among thirtysomething men who are dads and might like to have a family life."
Half (49%) said they were more likely to vote for a party with more female representatives and 64% wanted to see more citizen engagement (for example, through social media).
And many felt disenchanted with the political process: more than a third (35%) described themselves as disillusioned with UK politics, and saw it as irrelevant to many in the UK. Nearly half (47%) believed the British political system was not effective at achieving change to improve British people's quality of life.
The opinions are a chance to attract votes for the first party to react to women's concerns, however, with 78% of those polled looking for parties to address the gender issues in political culture and increase the family-friendly nature of parliament in manifestos.
"I think that the devolved parliament/assembly in Scotland and Wales do a much better job than Westminster. I am actually ashamed of Westminster and think it presents the worst possible image of Britain to everyone (at home and abroad)," said one respondent.
Another said: "The problem with PMQs isn't so much that it's shouty but that the so-called pinnacle of political debate in this country is two men trading petty insults and making nasty jokes about the other while the rest of parliament boos and cheers behind them. We may as well get some preschoolers to call each other poo-heads and be done with it."
If political parties have been slow to tackle the sexual inequality issue, there has been cross-party concern about the issue among female MPs. "We have to make politics look more like Britain," said Gloria De Piero, the shadow minister for women and equality. "No wonder most women think it's sexist and doesn't represent them when eight out of 10 MPs are men.
"When I've travelled around the country listening to women talk about politics they are quick to say they want it to be more representative. That means opening up our politics to let in more women and more people from working class backgrounds too.
"To most people, Westminster is a closed shop; as one woman, Sharon from Derby, put it to me, 'how do |
division in North Carolina.No matter what your iPhone photography needs are, there's something for everyone. Here are our current favorites!
Whether you just want to take more stunning shots in general, or need to focus on something more specific, like long exposure, full manual control, or advanced editing, the App Store has several amazing camera apps that'll help you do just that.
What do you get when a prominent ex-Apple designer and former Twitter engineer join forces? A kick-ass manual camera app called Halide!
Halide has the potential transform how you make photos with your phone. (Uncrate)
This iOS Camera App Brings Out the Pro in Amateurs (LifeHacker)
The best part about Halide? How incredibly fun and effortless it is to use! Seriously, you'll think twice before opening your manual Camera app after downloading this manual camera app.
This incredible, groundbreaking camera app allows you to adjust and change your exposure and manual focus, customize controls using Halide's professional tools to tweak focus peaking, access a detailed histogram, adaptive level grid, RAW support, and so, so much more.
Obscura's tagline is, "There's always a better camera then the one you have with you. And that's Obscura" – and they wouldn't be wrong!
The Obscura camera works by giving you complete control over options like shutter speed and contrast, and with the new iPhone, the ability to capture their breathtaking images in RAW format.
By adding layers and playing around in Obscura, users are able to get creative and professional with their iPhoneography snapshots, something your iPhone's standard camera can't really do.
Manual
Get advanced camera controls in a beautiful package with the help of Manual!
Manual is super simple to use and lets you adjust shutter, ISO, white balance, focus, and exposure compensation. In a single tap you can also view aperture settings, making Manual a straight-forward and user friendly photography tool.
You can also check out histograms live and a plethora of other things, all in a beautifully designed and easy to use package.
ProShot
For shooting like a professional, custom modes, and great control layouts, why not check out ProShot?!
ProShot offers advanced controls such as exposure, ISO, shutter speed, and white balance, but the coolest thing about the camera app are the control layouts. They don't get in your way and let you take advantage of the entire view finder the way it was intended.
Oh, and there are custom mode presets to save your favorite settings for later, making shooting at different times super consistent and easy as pie.
Hydra
For tricky lighting and amazing HDR, Hydra has your iPhone covered.
Hyrda is a must-have in your photo arsenal because it does the best job balancing lighting and capturing amazing HDR photos. Lo-light mode greatly reduces noise by overlapping many photos and increasing the light factor, and it works.
HDR photos look fantastic and hi-res mode lets you capture photos up to 32 megapixels so you're sure you get every little detail.
ProCam 2
Single shot HDR, TIFF files, and live filters, oh my! The ProCam 2 is a great option to consider when checking out other camera apps.
ProCam 2 combines great tools with a great layout. Controls include manual focus, exposure compensation, shutter speed, ISO, and white balance.
There are also a whopping 17 live lenses to choose from. Pretty much anything you want to control in ProCam 2, you can. Like ProCamera 8, ProCam 2 also supports TIFF export.
ProCamera + HDR & Lowlight
The ProCamera 8 is a great tool to consider shooting your photos and videos with if you want access to TIFF files, filters, and so much more!
ProCamera 8 boasts an entire repertoire of features and manual controls and even TIFF image export. The vividHDR feature in ProCamera 8 also works stunningly well and really makes your images pop.
There are a lot of tasteful live filters to choose from, too! So don't be afraid to get creative and play around with your iPhoneography.
VSCO Cam
For simple, all in one shooting and editing, VSCO Cam combines social media with on-the-spot photo touch ups for the perfect pictures.
VSCO Cam offers manual camera controls for focus, shutter speed, white balance, and exposure compensation. You can also add filters and edit your photos right inside the same app.
All editing tools are simple to use which makes it a great app for advanced and beginner iPhoneoographers, but with the launch of the new iPhone's, VSCO Cam will be able to shoot photos in a RAW format.
Free - Download now
Camera+
Looking for a camera app that will help with advanced shooting and editing? Then why not consider Camera+ for your iPhone?
Camera+ has been a staple in the iPhone photography world for a long time. There are lots of stellar camera controls, filters, an awesome HDR mode, and tons of editing tools.
For simple and clean all in one photography apps, there is VSCO Cam. For advanced and everything in between, you want Camera+, and now with the new iPhone's RAW shooting capabilities, Camera+ lets users snap their photos in RAW mode (how exciting is that)?!
Slow Shutter Cam
Long exposure photography is an art form, and Slow Shutter Cam is hoping to help you perfect your art!
If you want to capture great long exposures, just pair your iPhone with a tripod and Slow Shutter Cam. It offers full resolution on all devices, and three different capture modes to choose from: motion blur, light trail, and low light.
Whether you're capturing lights or waterfalls, Slow Shutter Cam is a must have for long exposure photography.
What are your picks?!
Photography is deeply personal and we know that what fits one person's requirements and needs may not fit the next person's. So tell me in the comments what manual camera apps you prefer and why!
And as always, if you think there's one I missed that is particularly awesome, let me know that too!So, there’s a new Mirror’s Edge game on the way. That’s exciting — or at least it is if you can handle playing that sort of game. I’m both prone to motion sickness, and scared s–tless of heights, so the Mirror’s Edge games are mostly just terrifying and uncomfortable for me.
Speaking of terrifying and uncomfortable, some British guys went and strapped a camera to themselves as they were bounding around rooftops and construction sites and the result is a video that looks shockingly similar to Mirror’s Edge gameplay. I had to watch the entire thing through my fingers…
Is it over yet? How is it humans can be wired so differently that one person is okay just taking a diving roll off a rooftop and I can barely get up on a chair to change a light bulb?
via KotakuDid you know Geranium is the oil of love, and trust? Geranium brings back the confidence, and the genuine goodness of others, and in the world. It helps bring about trust easier when a person has lost trust in others due to challenging life altering events. Geranium gives support with emotional honesty, love, and forgiveness when there has been a loss of trust with relationships.
Geraniums were discovered in South Africa, the first geranium plants quickly gained acceptance in England in the 17th century. But it wasn’t until Thomas Jefferson shipped the plant from France to America in 1786 that the plant gained popularity in American gardens.
Geranium essential oil is well-known for its deep positive effects on various skin disorders like acne, rashes, eczema, dermatitis, fungal infections, etc. The best thing about the Geranium essential oil is that it is a cicatrisant which means this oil has the ability to address wound issues. So, it can help scars fade away gradually and make our skin flawless.
The Geranium essential oil is a natural cleanser. It can be used directly onto the skin for cleaning or added to the water for bathing. You can have healthy radiant skin both ways. The astringent properties of geranium are also very beneficial for our skin. Our muscle contractions get significantly boosted with these. Consequently, we get a firm and toned look.Amiibo collectors who purchased a Skylanders Superchargers starter pack for the Wii U, Wii or 3DS solely to acquire the exclusive Bowser and Donkey Kong combo figures are kicking themselves right now.
The most recent instalment of the Skylanders toys-to-life franchise piggybacked on Nintendo's Amiibo craze to create an exclusive pair of figures that allows players to switch between Skylanders and Amiibo functionality. In Skylanders mode they can hop into the Nintendo versions of the game, gain experience points, drive their signature vehicles and otherwise look out of place. In Amiibo mode they register as the same characters from the Smash Bros. line.
Since the characters and their corresponding vehicles only worked in the Nintendo versions of Superchargers, they were only available in the starter packs at launch — Donkey Kong and his Barrel Blaster in the Wii U version, and Bowser with his Clown Cruiser in the Wii and 3DS games.
I personally know several Amiibo collecting fans that spent $US75 ($107) each on two starter packs just to secure these figures. This post is dedicated to the memory of their additional $US100 ($142).
The pair are now available bundled with their respective vehicles in $US24.99 ($36) packs, clearly labelled as "For Use With Compatible Nintendo Systems Only" to avoid confusion. Shame is not so easily avoided.Reprint from RUNESTONE #24, Winter 1998
Asatru and the Tapestry of Tribes
Stephen A. McNallen
For a quarter century, I have tried to "sell" people a religion called Asatru. It was a big mistake.
I was sure I could offer the world something very good and very important - something which would enhance the life of the individual, cure at least some of society's illnesses, and promote the interests of the European-descended peoples. Why, then, were people not "buying" it?
Quite simply, I didn't know what it was I was trying to sell.
In The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity, Dr. James C. Russell writes -
"[T]he term'religiosity' is often used when referring to religious elements of Indo-European and particularly Germanic societies, while the term'religion' is usually reserved for Christianity and other universal religious movements. This is due to the organic relationship of the religious elements of folk-religious societies to other elements of those societies. Religious elements tend to be more extensively diffused throughout a folk-religious society, whereas, in a society where a universal religion predominates, religious elements tend to be more isolated in specific doctrines and practices." (page 107-108)
In other words, our ancestral culture did not put religion in one box, politics in another, economics in still a third, and so on. All these things affected each other so closely that they should be thought of as grains of sand mixed with gravel and with fine silt - each was part of the matrix for the others.
Vine Deloria, as I recall, made very much the same statement in regard to American Indian tribal society, so this integrated approach is by no means unique to ancient Europe.
To illustate my point, notice the difficulty we have in finding a definitive word for our religion. We call it "Asatru," yet some writers dispute the antiquity of the term and claim that it was unknow in pre-Christian times. Most other suggested terms have been much more vague. "Vor Tru," or "our troth," is one such. Essentially this and similar labels mean pretty much "our way" or "the manner in which our people do things." A precise word for our religion was not always available, because we didn't have a body of belief and practice that was set aside from the rest of tribal life. The blending was so complete that religious elements were part and parcel of everything else; a distinct term was not needed. Nevertheless, for ease of understanding I shall use the term "Asatru" to mean the totality of religious elements found dispersed throughout prre-Christian Germanic society.
More than Belief
It should be clear from all this that Asatru is much more than a matter of believing in a given doctrine, or following certain clearly defined cultic practices. Religious ideas and practices woven into a hundred minor activities that made up the routine of existence, not laid down in some pagan equivalent of catechism or Church law. Emphasis was not on believing, but on being and doing.
The very translation of the word "Asatru" is consistent with this analysis. It does not mean those who "believe in" the Gods, but rather those "true to, or pledged in troth to," the Gods.
Given this fundamental truth, those who claim that "Asatru is open to anyone who believes in the Aesir and Vanir" simply do not get the point. Asatru cannot be blended with Wicca, or Hermeticism, or Marxism, or anything else inconsistent with the essential culture of tribal Europe, because our native way reflects a whole life-fabric which will not tolerate alien elements. To rip our native religiosity out of its natural context and try to practice convenient bits along with a mishmash of material from other cultures is facile, sterile, and insulting.
I am on record elsewhere that "Asatru is not just what we believe, it is what we are." I drew flack from some quarters for that statement - but given the nature of folk religions, I stand resolutely by it. Asatru is not like a hat, or a coat, which can be donned and doffed at will. Rather, it is an integral part of us, like our arms or our head.
Politics and Religion
It has become axiomatic in American society that religion and politics should be kept strictly separated. In a multicultural, non-tribal society like that of the United States, this division is beneficial - it protects members of any one group from forcing their beliefs on the others, or from taking unfair advantage of political power. In organic folk groups, however, the situation is different. As we have seen, there was no clear distinction between government and the Gods. Support of the tribal religion was synonymous with loyalty to the group. To be a member of the clan or tribe or nation was to pledge loyalty to its deities. In fact, the tribe typically thought of itself as descended from the Gods and Goddesses. How, then, could matters of religion not be relevant to everything that affected the people? The holy Powers provided victory in war and guaranteed the prosperity of the harvest. While religion had its individual expressions, it was to a very large extent the pillar of public life, as well.
We Asatruar live inside a larger society on which we cannot and would not impose our values. However, religion and politics do overlap for us in one very important sense: Anything which affects the Folk by definition deals with our religion, and similarly, all which concerns our religion impacts on the welfare of the Folk.
The Declaration of Purpose of the AFA is a perfect example of this principle. In it, you will find a demand for the restoration of our traditional community and the establishment of a just social order, not to mention an affirmation of our right to exist! To some religions these are social issues, not spiritual ones per se. For us, it is otherwise - they are part of the seamless tapestry that makes up our collective life.
This does not mean, of course, that the AFA intends to endorse candidates or comment on specific legislation. We are forbidden from such political activity as a recognized religious group. However, when public affairs impact on our beliefs, we can and will enthusiastically speak out.
The Asatru Alliance has a prohibition against bringing mundane politics into religious gatherings, but their motivation is clear and justified: The intention is to reduce divisiveness, to prevent exploitation by those who would cynically promote an outside doctrine at the expense of Asatru, and to protect Asatru's reputation - specifically, to squelch accusations that the Alliance in particular or Asatru in general is a front for totalitarian political activity. This is different from what I'm talking about above, and I support them in this policy. Still, on a larger level, there should be an understanding that politics and religion are intertwined, and I think most Asatruar within and without the Alliance comprehend that fact.
Asatru and the Life of the Tribe
At the beginning of this article, I told you that I had made a mistake in trying to promote Asatru as a religion. The error was this: Asatru is not just a doctrine. It is more than a distinct thing called a religion, and it is more than a set of rites and observances or even beliefs. It is the spirit inherent in the tribal-cultural experience of the European tribes, and I should have been presenting it as such.
Many people don't need (or don't think they need) "religion." If they do want one, there's always Christianity or Islam or Buddhism or any of a hundred New Age cults. What they need is the unified experience of a communal life that relates them to the Mighty Powers, and also to their fellow men and women. They need to belong to a family that includes fellow Asatruar, their own ancestors, and the Gods and Goddesses.
We must show them the totality of that vision, not just the part which we can artificially extract and label "religion."
It is time for us to build the new Euro-tribes. In coming issues of The Runestone, I will have more to say about just how we can set about that historic task.
Source:
https://web.archive.org/web/20000920063152/http://www.runestone.org/asatap.htmlWal-Mart surveillance photo of two men believed to be involved in the "grandparents scam.''
TEWKSBURY - Tewksbury police arrested the second suspect in the so-called "Grandparent Scam.''
In Lowell District Court on Tuesday, Brayan Soto-Soriano, 20, of 64 Haverhill St., Apt. 1, Lawrence, had his bail set at $500 cash bail after pleading not guilty to a charge of larceny over $250 from a victim over 60.
Soto-Soriano's next court date is April 5.
Police arrested on Friday co-defendant arrested Alan Feliz, 19, of 10 Campo St., 2nd Fl, Lawrence on the same charge after an investigation into a fraudulent money transaction at the Tewksbury Wal-Mart. Detectives were able to track down Feliz after it was confirmed that the $2,275 he allegedly picked up as part of the alleged scam.
In this scam, police say a grandparent receives a call claiming a grandchild is in jail and needs money for bail to be wired to a location. In this case, the victim was an 82-year-old Tennessee woman.
"There are many scams like this one that people are falling victim to with many variations. If someone calls you asking for money, call your local Police Department and check with us before you become a victim,'' Sheehan said.
He added, "We have seen some of these scams even threaten the lives of loved ones and say they are being held hostage asking for money, or more recently thousands of dollars in gift cards. "
The Tewksbury Police Department urges any citizens who suspect criminal activity to call the Dispatch Center @ 978-851-7373. If you wish to remain anonymous please call the Tip Line @ 978-851-0175 or send an email to tewks_detectives@tewksbury-ma.gov
Courtesy photos of Alan Feliz and Bryan Soto provided by the Tewksbury Police Department.The sweet, juicy peaches we love today may have been a popular snack long before modern humans arrived on the scene, according to scientists who have found fossilised peaches in dating back to 2.5 million years.
Scientists have found eight well-preserved fossilised peach endocarps, or pits, in southwest Despite their age, the fossils appear nearly identical to modern peach pits.
The findings suggest that peaches evolved through natural selection well before humans domesticated the fruit.
It is the first discovery of fossilised peaches, and it sheds new light on the evolutionary history of the fruit, which has not been well understood.
"The peach is an important part of human history, and it's important to understand how it became what it is today," said co-author Peter Wilf, a professor of paleobotany at Pennsylvania State University in US.
"If we know the origins of our resources we can make better use of them," Wilf said.
Tao Su, lead author on the paper and associate professor at Xishuangbanna Tropical Garden in China, discovered the fossils near his home in Kunming in southwest when some road construction exposed a rock outcrop from the late Pliocene.
Peaches are widely thought to have originated in China, but the oldest evidence had been archaeological records dating back roughly 8,000 years.
No wild population has ever been found, and its long trade history makes tracing its beginnings difficult.
Animals, perhaps even primates and, eventually, early hominids, snacked on and dispersed the sweet, wild fruit and played a key role in its evolution.
Only much later, after modern humans arrived, was the peach domesticated and bred. Humans have created new varieties and larger sizes ever since and spread the fruit across what is now China, and far beyond.
"Is the peach we see today something that resulted from artificial breeding under agriculture since prehistory, or did it evolve under natural selection? The answer is really both," said Wilf.
The researchers said that the discovery supports China being the home of the peach. The fruit remains culturally significant in the country, where it carries multiple meanings - from immortality in Taoist mythology to good fortune and beauty, Su said.
Several tests confirmed that the fossils are indeed more than 2.5 million years old and not from recent contamination.
In addition to their having been found in the Pliocene rocks along with many other plant fossils, the seeds inside the pits are replaced by iron, and the walls of the pits are recrystallised.
The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports.Creative Censorship In 1978, when the Cure and Chris Parry's Fiction Records made their move with a song called "Killing an Arab," they did it up right. The title was typical punk provocation and the harem-guitar intro typical post-punk filigree, but composer Robert Smith's inspiration was literary. So Fiction mailed out Albert Camus's The Stranger along with the single, in tone and content a remarkably faithful pop rendering of the unmotivated murder that is the linchpin of Camus's classic of undergraduate existentialism. In 1980 the song led off side two of the Cure's American debut on PVC, Boys Don't Cry. And in 1986 its first line provided the title of Elektra's Standing on a Beach, a singles compilation that has sold 450,000 pieces here (and two million internationally) since May, even though the Cure have never broken an American hit out of college cultdom. Also in 1986, U.S. warplanes bombed Tripoli to the eager cheers of Americans who had fixed on Arabs as their ethnic scapegoats of choice in the wake of the Iran hostage debacle, the horrors of Lebanon, and a ceaseless barrage of anti-"terrorist" propaganda. Bigots who might have thought twice before slurring blacks or Hispanics or Jews or Poles feared no raised eyebrows when they turned their cretin wit on Middle Eastern people from Marrakech to Karachi, not to mention the Arab-American who owned the store down the street. So when Faris Bouhafa, formerly of Max's Kansas City and Columbia Records and now of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, came across the title "Killing an Arab" in a review of Standing on a Beach, he was understandably alarmed. Given the song's intent and execution, however, it was also understandable that Elektra should balk at the ADC's request that "Killing an Arab" be excised from the album. ADC challenges to the gross stereotyping of such films as Delta Force and Under Siege had met with only limited success, so why should this more equivocal case be any different? According to Bouhafa, the turning point came in late October, when a student deejay at WPRB Princeton introduced the song by "gleefully" announcing, "here's a song about killing A-Rabs." The outrage that ensued as news of this spread in the Arab-American community was mobilized into a phone campaign directed at Warner Communications chairman Steve Ross, Elektra chairman Bob Krasnow, and WEA International chairman Nesuhi Ertegun, a Turkish diplomat's son with a reputation for decency and probity. After "60, 70, 80 phone calls," Bouhafa says, Elektra agreed to withdraw the track, but, apparently after rereading its contract with the Cure, failed to do so. Ertegun, however, came through, halting manufacture and distribution of the compilation in Australia and New Zealand until the dispute was resolved. Neither country has much of an Arab population, but since PolyGram controls the Cure's world distribution, those were the only markets where Ertegun was free to act. He later told his press representative that he would have withdrawn the record internationally if he'd had the power. About a month later, on December 10, Bouhafa met with Krasnow and Chris Parry and an agreement was worked out. On December 17, Robert Smith released a statement explaining that "Killing an Arab" "was designed to illustrate the utter futility of the actual action of killing" and asserting that "the fact that it was an Arab who was shot seemed, to me, totally immaterial, as I imagine it did to Albert Camus." And on January 20, details were announced at a press conference. The song would remain on the album and the Cure would continue to perform it. But radio stations would be urged not to broadcast it, and every copy of both Standing on a Beach and a forthcoming concert video would bear a prominent legend written by Smith: "The song KILLING AN ARAB has absolutely no racist tones whatsoever. It is a song which decries the existence of all prejudice and consequent violence. The Cure condemn its use in furthering anti-Arab feelings." In addition, the Cure volunteered to do a benefit for Lebanese, Palestinian, and American orphanages. In significant respects, this solution is, as both Bouhafa and Parry like to say, "creative." It avoids outright censorship of a song that in substance is guilty of no more than an outmoded confrontational style ("If it was called 'The Stranger' we couldn't have had this problem," Parry says) and a musical indiscretion (the broad oud-style guitar intro, which no one involved ever mentions, might reasonably be construed as a racial caricature). Although Bouhafa initially suggested banning the song, he was a music-business good guy himself before signing on at the ADC, and I believe him when he claims relief at having steered clear of "PMRC-type" action. Despite Smith's feeling that "the Cure has always been a group who believe absolutely in human rights, and the peaceful coexistence of all nationalities and creeds," this commitment has been difficult to discern amid his private romantic angst, so it's an up to see him come out squarely on the right side of an unpopular political issue. And in 1986 it's not a bad thing to make crystal clear that a song which repeats the phrase "killing an Arab" three times advocates no such thing. The problem is, there's no indication that anybody outside the ADC network thinks it does. The Camus reference is quite explicit--the full refrain goes, "I'm alive, I'm dead, I'm the stranger, killing an Arab"--and the Cure do command an exceptionally collegiate audience, one liable not only to understand the song but to consider its absurdity-of-ultimate-choices thesis philosophical and profound. Although Bouhafa assumes college radio's concentration on the distasteful lead cut sold the album, the key factor was a U.S. tour--Standing on a Beach never cracked 25 on College Media Journal's airplay chart after its two Elektra predecessors went number one, and "Killing an Arab" wasn't a high-rotation track. Moreover, although Bouhafa and Smith's public statements leave the impression that Howard Sterns all across the land are distorting the song to their own racist ends, the Princeton incident is the only one yet reported, and sine the show wasn't taped, its details are murky. The disc jockey denies making any racist comments, and the recollection of the young woman whose complaint triggered the controversy, confirmed by another listener, indicates that Bouhafa's version is inaccurate. The deejay sounded "mellow" and faintly "sadistic" rather than "gleeful," she recalls, and his comment, which followed rather than introduced the record, went something like "That was a song by the Cure called"--or "about"--"'Killing an A-Rab.'" "About" is obviously more incriminating than "called," but in either case it was the demeaningly jocular pronunciation of "A-Rab" that roused her ire, as well it should have. But without in any way dismissing the fears and feelings of the Arab-Americans who heard or heard about the broadcast, and without denying that such a title is sure to give some young rock and roll asshole somewhere the wrong idea, I must interject that a single mispronunciation seems like mighty thin justification for corporate censorship. For despite the apparent good will of all parties to the eventual agreement, simple chronology indicates that corporate pressure made the difference. Although Parry knew of the dispute as early as August, he didn't respond to ADC until December, after Elektra had assured Bouhafa orally of its cooperation and--more significantly, because it's more concrete--after Nesuhi Ertegun had stopped the record in two markets. When Ertegun's name first came up, Parry betrayed his only rancor of the press conference; Ertegun, he said, "was jumping the gun a little bit," engaging in "a little bit of a quick reaction." Later he told me, "I'm not saying that they've got us on the run, but I will say that it's been an interesting meeting of a band that's had an upswing of popularity and a rise in anti-Arab prejudice." All of which suggests that we do have a PMRC-type incident here after all. It's impossible to measure the extent to which Elektra and Parry are acting in response to a lobby rather than in solidarity with an oppressed ethnic group, a confusion that can only redound to the benefit of less savory interests seeking to sanitize popular music in an increasingly repressive media environment. And sanitization has definitely taken place. Smith's sticker distortion to the contrary, "Killing an Arab" is not "a song which decries the existence of all prejudice and consequent violence." It doesn't have a neat little socially redeeming message. For better or worse, it's an existentialist song about the meaninglessness of ultimate choices in which race is, as Smith said a month earlier, "immaterial" (more immaterial, I'd argue, than in the novel, which takes place against the implied background of French-ruled Algeria's endemic racism and makes the subliminal point that in moments of existential choice such injustices fade into nothing). I'm not an existentialist partly because I think existentialism is too private, placing too small and arbitrary an emphasis on the sociopolitical, but neither do I want to live in a sociopolitical environment where such a position can't be dramatized in a manner that offends some citizens. And that is definitely the society we're moving toward at this moment. Early in his correspondence with Elektra, Bouhafa argued: "Freedom of artistic expression is a freedom that must be protected only to the extent that the exercise of such freedom does not infringe on the rights of others." That's not what the First Amendment says, and creative though they may be, it's unfortunate that all parties to the great "Killing an Arab" compromise have chosen to imply otherwise. Village Voice, Feb. 3, 1987Ells and I talked in such depth that Reader's Digest only used a small portion of our conversation. So, for those who share my love of long interviews, here is our full interview from 2008, as well as our catch-up conversation this month:
With 88 percent growth in the first three quarters of 2010, Chipotle Grill has been a huge success, and weathered the recession well, for many reasons. But one of them is because, since he served his first burrito, Ells has never once stopped obsessing about what goes into his food, how it's made, how it's served and the experience his customers find in his restaurants. He obsesses in detail -- and for years -- about his food, his people and his leadership to a degree that most CEOs could find daunting.
As Ells described these incremental improvements, he did so with an energy and a passion that caught my attention. Here was a CEO and entrepreneur who didn't just have a good idea -- he was prepared to back it with years and years of obsessive attention to detail. While much of what the company did was novel, underpinning it all was a relentless desire to perfect process. Many entrepreneurs claim to dislike process, but the really successful ones know that it is process that flips the switch between daydream and reality.
"Yes!" he laughed. "It's finally good enough! It took four years but we did it. Now it's perfect.The crews in the restaurants love them. You have no idea how dramatically better it is: it give us faster service; hotter, better-tasting tortillas that look better and last longer; and it uses less energy!"
At that time, the item on top of Ells's obsession list was his tortilla warmer. He'd tried every single warmer in the business; not one passed muster. So he enlisted engineers to build him one. They had made terrific headway, but after two years' work he still wasn't satisfied. So when I caught up with him again earlier this month, that was what I wanted to know: Where had his obsession taken him? Did he ever get the tortilla warmer of his dreams?
Ever since I interviewed Chipotle Grill CEO Steve Ells a few years ago for Reader's Digest, I've been obsessed by his business. Any chance I get, I try one of his restaurants. I want to test -- and taste -- how far his obsession runs. Two years ago, he was a man who worried about exactly how the oregano in the burrito was chopped. "They were washing it and not drying it â€"- so when they chopped it, it was clumpy," he told me. "This is wrong! We need it to be dry and fluffy when you chop it. So we put together a drying procedure." Could the customer tell the difference, I asked. "Probably not. But if you do a hundred things like this, they can tell the difference," he said. "In 10 years we will be selling better food because of hundreds of improvements like that."
But I think obsession's a virtue, not a vice. When I worked for the BBC, we were taught that if you could make any improvement to a show before it went out, you had to: You owed it to the public that paid for the program. And frankly, it was a joy to work for a company that understood perfectionism as a competitive advantage. The best technologists I've worked with are always obsessed â€"- late into the night â€"- over new software, computer languages and gadgets. I've sat at meetings at Eileen Fisher and marveled at just how long it's possible to obsess over a shade of green or the feel of a new fabric. All these organizations are obsessed, and they are successful because of it.
It was by accident. I studied art history, and when I graduated from college I wasn't sure what to do. A friend told me about this great cooking school, the Culinary Institute of America. Cooking was my passion; I always loved cooking for friends and having dinner parties, so it seemed like a fun thing to do. So I enrolled in a two-year program at the top cooking school in the country, classical French technique according to Escoffier. And I had a blast. I had never thought cooking would be a career for me. But by the time I graduated, I thought maybe I'd be a chef.
So I went to work in a restaurant called Stars in San Francisco, for a guy named Jeremiah Tower who had been the first chef at Chez Panisse. A lot of the philosophy of seasonal, artisanal, super high-quality ingredients started there. Jeremiah's credited with new American cuisine: call things what they are, don't give them fancy French names, that kind of thing -- all based on seasonality and local food.
So I was there for a few years and really learned how to cook and taste critically. And I started to have ideas about starting my own restaurant. I didn't know much about the economics of restaurants -- only that a lot of them went out of business quickly, or if they didn't, that margins would be thin at best.
I wanted to find a way to fund my restaurant -- to have a cash cow so that I wouldn't have to worry about economics too much. I was in a taqueria in the Mission District of San Francisco -- these places were great. It was Mexican food like I'd never seen before: everything put into these giant tortillas and wrapped up -- rice and beans and meat and cheese and sour cream -- all very authentic. And it just sort of came to me: I could use this format and reinvent this traditional Mexican food and lighten it up. Make it sexier and more relevant: Ciliantro-lime rice instead of heavy red rice. Whole beans instead of refried beans. And emphasize it with seasoning, fresh herbs and citrus -- lemon and lime on almost everything. I'd have an emphasis on bold flavors that have nuance and depth, not just spicy but the nuance that can be achieved from traditional seasonings. Layerings of flavor: cumin and cilantro and cloves and bay and fresh oregano and lemon and lime.
So I moved to Denver, Colorado, and started the first Chipotle on July 13, 1993. It took me about a year to open the first one. I borrowed $85,000 from my dad, and the idea was that this was going to be my cash cow to support my "real" restaurant.
Well, it did really well right from start: it looked, smelled and tasted different than traditional fast food. And it didn't take long before there was a line out the door. Food critics started writing about it! I remember the Rocky Mountain News food critic loved us, He never wrote about fast food, and he didn't hand out |
be wrong. I set it up only a couple of weeks ago, so unless the download link I used was already stale, that should be current.To be more certain than just me talking out of my ass, I recommend googling around as well as waiting for someone knowledgeable to answer here.ETA: According to this tutorial video on fastboot flashing the Razr, 5.6.4 is the version they were using. The general guidance I've seen is that the Razr is architecturally very similar to the D4, so that is probably the best answer unless a newer rev has leaked in the intervening month or so.ETA2: A little forum searching and I find this post with a download of RSD Lite 5.7. I stand corrected, I think. I'll be downloading and trying that tonight.Mark Walton
Mark Walton
Mark Walton
Mark Walton
Mark Walton
BERLIN—There wasn't exactly a shortage of smartwatches at this year's IFA, what with the likes of the new Moto 360 and Samsung Gear S2 both getting a public unveiling. But Sony's Wena—one of the first products to emerge out of the company's internal crowdfunding platform First Flight—does things rather differently. Wena, which stands for the slightly cringeworthy "Wear Electronic Natural," takes the smartwatch concept and turns its on its head, putting all the "smart" parts of the watch into the wrist strap, rather than the watch face.
The result is a watch that, well, looks like a watch, and a very handsome one at that too. That's thanks in part to Japanese watchmaker Citizen, which helped with the weighty and expensive stainless steel design. The Wena is, however, rather masculine in design, and those with smaller wrists may still find its 42mm face a little too big, even if it’s far smaller than a Moto 360. The front of watch does one thing, and one thing only: tell the time. There are some basic chronograph functions, too, but the meat of the Wena's functionality lies in the wrist strap.
Stuffing the contents of a smartwatch into the wrist strap isn't an entirely new idea—see the likes of the IWC Connect and Montblanc's Urban Speed e-Strap—but it is the most elegant implementation by far. Built into the clasp of the watch is a LED strip, as well as a sophisticated vibration motor, which Sony says will allow for various different types of vibration to be assigned to different notifications. For example, if you received a WhatsApp message on your phone, the Wena's LED strip could light up green, and then pulse your wrist three times to alert you.
This is basic functionality as smartwatches go, but if the likes of the Pebble have proved anything, it's that simplicity in wearables often trumps an overload of so-so features. That said, the Wena does pack a couple of other tricks up its sleeve, including NFC for contactless payments (so far limited to the Japanese Felica standard), and activity and fitness tracking via an as-yet-unspecified set of sensors. Sony claims the battery in the watch face will last around three years in the standard model, and five years in the chronograph, with the band itself needing to be charged once a week via a charging cradle.
For those not yet convinced about the likes of Android Wear and the Apple Watch—both of which are seemingly obsessed with moving as much phone functionality to the wrist as possible—but still want some sort of smartwatch experience, the Wena is an intriguing choice. It's unfortunate, then, that Japan is the only country that's (currently) slated to get the Wena when it's released in March 2016. Prices range from ¥34,800 (£191/€261/$287) for a silver Three Hands model, up to ¥69,800 (£383/€525/$576) for the Chronograph in black—fairly expensive for a smartwatch, but pretty reasonable for a Citizen chronograph. The Wena currently only supports iOS, but given that Sony is an Android phone-maker, this is expected to change by the time of release.
Sony had one other watch on display at its IFA stand, the similarly crowdfunded FES. The FES isn't a smartwatch as such, but does feature a innovative one-piece e-paper watchface and wrist strap. Sony promises that the FES will have up to two years of battery life, provided the watch pattern (of which there are 24 to choose from) is changed just once per day. The watch measures 46mm, with a thickness of 7.5mm, and is fully waterproof too. While I couldn't get a hands-on with the FES at IFA, it is striking to look at in the flesh, and as a fashion statement is very bold indeed. At ¥27,900 (about £155 or €210/$233) it's not cheap, particularly given it has zero smartwatch features, but futuristic fashionistas might want to give it look.
Pre-orders for the FES are currently sold out in Japan, and Sony doesn't yet know whether it'll ever make it to European or North American shores. But regardless of whether the FES or the Wena do get a Western release, it's great seeing Sony's Firstflight program churning out some interesting and innovative devices. The Sony of the 1980s was a design and innovation powerhouse, something that got sadly lost over the years. Here's hoping that we see more of the likes of the FES and Wena soon.I’ve done the research.
I’ve done experimenting.
Here is the final recipe that I have settled upon, loved by all who have tried it.
Read on for recipe.
Ingredients
1 bottle of beer
1 egg white
1 tablespoon of butter (unsalted)
1 teaspoon of spices (cinnamon, cloves, ginger, it is up to you. I used Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Spices that has ginger, lemon peel, cardamon, cinnamon and cloves).
1/4 cup sugar
fresh nutmeg, for grating at the end
About the beer:
I use ales. I tried with a lager last year and there was something about a warm lager that was unpleasant.
I prefer winter ales, ales spiced with cloves and cherries and cinnamon and cranberries and nutmeg and the like. I’ve never tried butterbeer with a pumpkin ale, but I’m sure it would be great. I’ve never tried butterbeer with a very dark ale. The variety of beers means there is a large variety of types of butterbeer to experiment with.
Directions:
Separate egg whites and put in bowl. Discard egg yolks or use for another recipe. Add sugar and spices to bowl with egg whites. Mix. Put a pot over medium to medium-low heat. Pour in the beer. I like to aerate it a bit. Watch carefully so it doesn’t get too hot. When you see a few bubbles and/or steam, or if you check the temperate yourself with your finger and you feel that it is warm but not hot, pour in the egg white, sugar and spice mixture. Immediately whisk to avoid the egg whites scrambling. Whisk for 1-3 minutes until the sugar has dissolved. Turn off heat. Add butter and continue whisking, until butter has melted and been fully incorporated into the liquid. Strain into a glass measuring cup or pitcher. Pour into smaller serving glasses/mugs. I like to pour 2-4 ounces per serving. Optional: spoon some of the frothy head from the pot onto the drink. Optional: grate some fresh nutmeg over the foam.
Enjoy![Updated September 12, 2013]
These chicken parm bites are something that Heather came up with back in June of 2012, very early into our real food journey. Lucky for us, we had started this blog, so the recipe was kept documented. Unlucky for us, we were very new with our presentation, so neither our directions or pictures were especially helpful.
Another win in our favor is that we have since made great friends in the community who led us to take better pictures and inspired us to do better work. As this is one of our favorite recipes, we updated it recently to share with you. This is absolutely fabulous, and I think you will really like it. These little “parm poppers” are delicious on their own, but definitely are well suited to the zoodles and red sauce. I would gather you could likely use this wash and coating on larger cuts of chicken as well, but we haven’t tried it just yet. Either way, we hope you’ll love this creation. Let us know what you think!
Ingredients
Chicken Parm Poppers
4 chicken thighs (bone-in, skin-on is cheapest so that’s what I buy; but you can save yourself some time by getting boneless, skinless thighs)
2 eggs, scrambled in a bowl
1 C of ground cashews
1/2 C almond flour
1 and 1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 and 1/2 tsp dried oregano
1 and 1/2 tsp dried basil
salt and pepper to taste (I used about 1/2 tsp each)
1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Angry Zoodles
3 medium to large zucchinis
A pinch of salt
1/2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
Approx. 1/3 jar of Rao’s Homemade Arrabbiata Sauce
Method
Start off by preparing your zoodles.
Make your mix of dry ingredients to coat the chicken thighs. Use a grinder or food processor to grind your cashews, and mix with almond flour, garlic powder, oregano, basil, and salt and pepper.
Skin and debone your chicken thighs (if you bought those), and cut into nugget sized pieces.
Prepare your station with egg wash, dry ingredients, and a plate for setting the coated chicken thighs.
Dip chicken pieces in egg wash and roll in coating.
Set aside on a plate for frying.
Heat in your stainless steel skillet 1 Tbsp olive oil over medium-low heat. Cook chicken in batches, approximately 2-3 minutes per side.
Lightly sauté your zoodles for 1-2 minutes to reduce crunchiness and stiffness. Plate with sauce and chicken bites. These are absolutely delicious, and you’re going to enjoy!I was craving something crunchy. I was craving fruit. Grapes and apples in particular. I knew I had a crinkly recipe for an apple and gr...
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All images and original content on this site are the sole property of The Cutting Edge of Ordinary and may not be used, copied or transmitted without express consent. In other words, ask please! It’s the nice thing to do.Moves for ALP expulsion of Obeid, Macdonald
Updated
NSW Opposition Leader John Robertson says he is pushing for Eddie Obeid and Ian Macdonald to be expelled from Labor because they have brought the party into disrepute.
The former state MPs have already been suspended from the ALP in connection with allegations raised at the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC).
Eric Roozendaal, who is still an MP, has also had to answer questions in the ICAC and has also been suspended from the ALP.
But Mr Robertson says Mr Roozendaal falls into a different category.
"I think most people accept that (is) a different set of circumstances," Mr Robertson said.
"The evidence that we've seen concluded just recently is extraordinary and it's for that reason that I've moved in this manner."
Topics: states-and-territories, alp, sydney-2000, nsw
First postedWelcome back to The Asia-Pacific Perspective, where James Corbett of corbettreport.com and Broc West of apperspective.net bring you the latest headline from the Asia-Pacific region. On this edition of The Asia-Pacific Perspective: China goes on a Middle East tour as the Asia-Pacific gears up for more military drills; Australia goes for cashless welfare; and the Malaysian PM receives a $681 million “gift” from his Saudi friends.
SHOW NOTES:
Chinese President’s Tour of Greater Middle East
Challenging China as a Balance Weight of Asia-Pacific
China’s ICBC Launches Second Branch in Belgium
Chinese Environmental Problems are Taking a Serious Turn for Worse
China Says Soros “Hasn’t Done His Homework,” May Be “Partially Blind”
US Pacific Chief Talks China, Regional Partnerships
Exercise Cope North 2016 begins in February
The War on Cash: A Country by Country Guide from corbettreport.com
Australian Greens senator Rachel Siewert moves to block cashless welfare card trial
Gov’t reportedly considering expanding cashless welfare card to regional Australia if trials prove successful
As Myanmar Enters a New Era, Washington and Beijing Vie for Influence
Outgoing Myanmar president pushes to expand army-run ministry
Incoming Myanmar Leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Military Chief Discuss New Government Formation
Outrage and New Questions After Malaysian PM Cleared in Scandal
Malaysians protest against TPP
New Zealand Police door knock ‘known activists’ ahead of TPP protests
Japan requests Singapore to review restriction of food imports from Fukushima
Fukushima fishermen to expand operations off crippled nuclear plant
Virtual Reality To Be Used To Help Decommission Fukushima Plant
Toshiba Unveils Remote-Control Robot to Dismantle Fukushima Plant
Toshiba to offload chip business in wake of accounting scandal
Filed in: InterviewsAston Martin announced a seriously cool DB9 GT Bond Edition just ahead of the Spectre release.
In a serious nod and paying homage to the special relationship this car has had serving one of UK’s most beloved spy’s, Aston Martin has gone ahead and outfitted one of its latest cars with all the best for 2016. According to Aston Martin’s official press release that hit the web earlier today (Sept 2, 2015) the boys at Gaydon are readying up 150 examples to be sold worldwide. By the looks of things these special edition DB9’s won’t be equipped with rocket launchers, seat ejectors, flame throwing exhausts or invisibility camouflage, but there are a few bits and pieces that do set them apart from regular DB9’s.
One of the biggest additions is a special edition silver paint rightfully named “Spectre Silver. In addition, the Aston Marin badges front and rear are made out of sterling silver with discreet 007 Bond edition badging. All around, you get 20-inch special edition 10-spoke alloys. Up front, the hood vents are bright aluminum as well as the side strakes and grille. Underneath on either end is a carbon fiber front and rear splitter and underpinning each wheel are a set of grey brake calipers.
Inside, there are a few unique numbered sill plaques on the doors. And when you do turn on the car, there’s a special startup screen. If you so feel compelled, there’s also a special edition suitcase and watch to go along with your Aston Martin DB9 Bond edition.
The engine remains untouched, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a proper barnstormer. Lightly changed throughout its 11 year history, the 6.0 liter V12 makes a standard 540 HP and 457 lb-ft which is more than enough for a blast to 60 MPH in 4.5 seconds and a terminal velocity of a brisk 183 MPH. MSRP for this limited edition DB9 starts at 165 thousand pounds or roughly $252 thousand which is $63,705 more than a regular DB9. To a Bond enthusiast, that shouldn’t mean much but $60 thousand for a couple of badges and plates? We’d probably aim to “buy another day.”After missing yet another glorious opportunity last week, many Spurs fans will be pondering if Soldado’s time is up. Maybe it’s a harsh reaction, but for a £27m striker, he has clearly not brought his old form from Valencia to Tottenham.
It’s frustrating to see an experienced, free-scoring goal scorer fade as he is, grabbing the odd goal here and there. So long as he is at White Hart Lane, Spurs fans will always sing his name, but it cannot be overlooked the fact that he is a broken man compared to how he used to perform. However, what many fans may have ignored is the fact that he still set up two goals against Burnley. The importance of this is that a striker’s role may be to score goals, but if he can create goals too is that necessarily a bad thing? Why not partner Harry Kane and Roberto Soldado? Surely, that way, Kane’s good form may well rub off on Soldado.
If Soldado was given a run of games, then he may well improve — he even set up two goals against Burnley, though was largely ineffective versus Sunderland. However, his uninspired play would be at the expense of the very in-form Kane, and Pochettino is rightfully behind Kane who just keeps on adding to his free-flowing goal tally. Pochettino would certainly not play Soldado ahead of Kane in the Premier League, or even in the later stages of the Capital One Cup, where it’s too risky to experiment. Perhaps he might earn a start in the FA Cup and Europa League, however.
A good run of form doesn’t start with a few cameos off the bench with 15 minutes to go. Soldado needs game time, and if he cannot get that, his form will continue to brood in the depths of mediocrity.
Could one solution be a move back to Spain on loan? While there is always that possibility for him, it is unlikely to happen in this window, as Spurs still need cover for Kane as Emmanuel Adebayor is still easing himself back into football. The summer might be the more likely time for a transfer out of White Hart Lane.
Sometimes transfers don’t work out how they should, and this is clearly a candidate. It would leave a bitter taste for Spurs fans to see Soldado go back to Spain, for instance, score 20 goals and then question why he was sold. After all, it’s not for lack of talent. Soldado isn’t a bad striker. In fact, he’s an experienced, seasoned professional who is the third top scorer in La Liga, eclipsed only by Messi and Ronaldo — an amazing stat, but sometimes stats hide the real story.
In short, Soldado desperately needs Premier League game time and experience at Spurs. A run of games with quality performances would not go amiss for him, but earning the manager’s trust is another story all together. Pochettino can either put faith in Soldado or sell him. It’s looking increasingly more likely that it’s the latter.
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Feel free to discuss this and other footy related articles with thousands of fans at r/football.During bacterial infections, microbes and their hosts engage in a tug-of-war over essential metals. Microbes, which need metals such as iron to survive, try to scavenge them from the host, while the host tries to lock them up so microbes can’t get them.
Both sides deploy many proteins and other molecules in this struggle, and by studying these complex interactions, MIT associate professor of chemistry Elizabeth Nolan hopes to glean information that could be useful in helping scientists design new drugs to fight bacterial infections.
“Understanding how our innate immune system works is important for thinking about the development of new ways to treat infectious disease,” says Nolan, who recently earned tenure in MIT’s Department of Chemistry.
Metals including iron, zinc, magnesium, and calcium help cells with a wide range of functions, including cell respiration, catalyzing chemical reactions, signal transduction, and maintaining structural integrity of proteins and nucleic acids. About 30 percent of cellular proteins require help from metal ions.
Nolan first got interested in the study of metals in biological systems, known as bioinorganic chemistry, when she took an advanced inorganic chemistry course during her junior year at Smith College. She applied to graduate school at MIT and ended up working in the lab of Stephen Lippard, the Arthur Amos Noyes Professor of Chemistry at MIT, who studies the roles of metals in cancer treatment and synaptic transmission.
At that time, Lippard’s lab was beginning to work on designing molecules that could be used as sensors for zinc. These sensors can be used in living cells, and when they encounter their target metal, they light up, allowing the metal’s location to be visualized. Nolan worked on the zinc sensors and later, sensors for mercury.
After doing a postdoctoral fellowship in protein biochemistry and antimicrobial peptide biosynthesis at Harvard Medical School with Professor Christopher T. Walsh, Nolan returned to MIT to start her own lab, where she began a research program focusing on the battle for metals between hosts and microbes.
“We’re interested in mammalian proteins that modulate metal ion availability and also the machinery that microbes use to acquire metals that they need from the host,” she says.
Fighting for iron
Many bacteria produce molecules called siderophores to help them obtain metals such as iron from their hosts. Once secreted into their environment, siderophores grab onto the metal and then re-enter bacterial cells along with their iron haul.
One area of Nolan’s research focuses on not only unraveling this process, but also exploiting it for possible therapeutic benefit. In one project, researchers in her lab are working on using siderophores to deliver antibiotics. Most antibiotics in clinical use are very broad-spectrum, killing not only harmful microbes but also beneficial species. However, Nolan has shown that when antibiotics are attached to siderophores specific to certain strains of bacteria, they only kill those microbes.
In another recent study, Nolan’s lab and researchers at the University of California at Irvine used modified siderophores from Salmonella to immunize mice against infection with that pathogen, and they are now working on expanding that approach to other microbes.
Nolan also studies proteins that mammals, including humans, use to defend themselves from bacterial infection. One such protein is calprotectin, which scavenges metals so that bacteria can’t grab them, effectively starving the microbes. In 2015, Nolan and her colleagues discovered that calprotectin can sequester iron, depriving microbes of the critical nutrient and strongly inhibiting their growth.
Exciting science
Nolan, who was awarded the 2016 MIT School of Science Teaching Prize for Graduate Education, says some of her favorite things about teaching are sharing her excitement about science and helping her students learn to think critically.
“In my advanced classes something I enjoy doing is drawing examples from the literature — thinking about how we test a hypothesis and asking, what are some of the experiments and data that led to the model we currently have for some complex biochemical system?” she says.
She also tries to stoke her students’ excitement about science, which she says is one of the things she likes best about being at MIT.
“I like the willingness of people to collaborate and be excited about new ideas,” she says. “There’s an open-mindedness in terms of trying something new and high-risk. I enjoy being surrounded by really smart, talented, and creative students and colleagues, and I think that just makes everyone better.”The NCAA Men's Water Polo final on Sunday will come down to a Crosstown Showdown, half ensured first with UCLA's 11-9 win over the University of Pacific. The No. 1 seed Bruins pitched a shutout during the second period to turn the momentum their way, taking a 5-3 lead at halftime over the nation's No. 5-ranked team. Freshman Nicolas Saveljic completed his hat trick with 4:11 remaining in the third.
Pacific cut the UCLA lead to 9-7 on a power play with 7:35 remaining, but the Bruins quickly responded on Jack Grover's second goal. Alex Roelse also had two goals in the victory.
The Trojans and the Golden Bears tugged a more topsy-turvy match with USC making the final push in a thrilling 12-11 win over Cal.
USC took a commanding 6-3 lead through the beginning of the second period. But the Bears stormed back with unanswered goals from Pedro Stellet, Luca Cupido and Vassilis Tzavaras to tie it up 6-6 at the intermission.
The Trojans reclaimed their lead at the start of the third period, but the Bears rattled off four goals to take a 10-7 lead.
The game's final moments belonged to USC. Goals from Marko Vavic, Marin Dasic and Zach D'Sa put the Trojans up 11-10 and a clutch game-winner by Grant Stein on the power play broke the 11-11 tie with 2:35 minutes left to play, iced with a huge defensive stop with just over 30 seconds to play.
USC and UCLA will take their rivalry poolside Sunday at 3 p.m. PT for the national title.The veteran rationalist thinker, writer and communist leader Govind Pansare was brutally assassinated in Kolhapur on February 20, 2015. More than two years have passed, but justice remains elusive. The same is true for Narendra Dabholkar and M.M. Kalburgi, whose second death anniversary is three months away. All three men were also killed by right-wing fundamentalists.
The investigations into the assassinations have been very slow and have moved only because the Dabholkar and Pansare families have petitioned the high court to monitor the investigation. The police have managed to arrest only two suspects so far and two have been absconding. All the accused are associated with the radical Hindutva organisations Sanatan Sanstha and Hindu Janjagriti Samiti, with their totally unconstitutional agenda of establishing a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ in the country.
The chargesheets filed by the police in the Dabholkar and Pansare cases clearly mention that the accused are absconding since the Margao bomb explosion case in Goa in 2009. In spite of objections on the pressure tactics used by the lawyers of the accused and the spokespersons of Sanatan Sanstha, no action has been taken against them. The state government has not yet declared the absconding suspects as wanted in the Pansare case. The investigation officer is changed at every interval and the activists’ demand to hand over the case to a dedicated team for investigation is also pending with the government.
Fundamentalism has no religion
It is really painful to define ‘justice’ in cases where people are killed because their ideology and expression of thought are not acceptable to some. Regardless of political affiliation, the government seems to be insensitive in solving these crimes and punishing the guilty. Not even a single arrest has been made in Kalburgi’s case yet.
Fundamentalism and fanaticism is not a characteristic feature of any specific religion. Farook Hameed, a young activist of the Dravidar Viduthalai Kazhagam (DVK), was killed by Muslim fundamentalists on March 17, 2017 in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. The DVK is an offshoot of the Dravidar Kazhagam founded by Periyar in the 1940s and propagates atheism and rationalism. Being an atheist in individual life is something accepted by the society, but it seems one cannot propagate atheism the way others propagate a religious faith without risking one’s life. Farook openly expressed his ideology. He had posted comments about atheism, criticising religion and caste on his Facebook page. He was the administrator of a WhatsApp group called ‘Allah Murdad,’ meaning ‘There is no God’. The result: he was killed, reports say, by his own friends. Farook’s murder is in fact a threat to all Muslim youths who embrace atheism or even rationalism.
The Coimbatore incident is, in essence, no different from those where the victims belonged to the Hindu religion and were killed by Hindu fanatics.
Shrinking freedoms
The situation in India is growing more complex by the day. The space for free expression and freedom is shrinking rapidly. The fascist forces are trying to shut voices of freedom and we are compelled to fight the battle in the available space.
The campaign of returning awards by the writers and scientists brought the anxiety of intellectuals before society. They were concerned about everything that is going against the principle of equality, freedom of expression, cultural diversity and secular values in our nation. There have been three ‘yatras’, or journeys, of writers and poets to express solidarity with the families of Pansare, Dabholkar and Kalburgi so far. The first was a part of the Dakshinayan campaign in which 14 eminent writers from Gujarat visited Pune, Kolhapur and Dharwad, where the three rationalists were killed. Then a team of Marathi writers and activists followed the same route during their journey to Goa for a national conference in defence of freedom of expression held in November, 2016. In February 2017, 11 members of the Progressive Writers’ Association, Madhya Pradesh travelled to Maharashtra, Karnataka and Goa. They condemned the respective governments for failing to arrest the killers. Based on their dialogue with local people in these regions and their experiences, they will write books, plays and hold discussions to spread their thoughts across the Hindi speaking belt.
As the atmosphere of fear and intimidation grows, hundreds of writers and artists visited the historical place of Dandi, Gujarat to hold a silent protest march on January 30, 2016 to commemorate the death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. A platform of collective voices of the left and Dalit movement was created in Mumbai Collective, while Delhi observed Pratirodh I and II with a clear stand to enjoy the right to dissent and free expression. The progressive forces in many towns, small and big, in the country have started organising programs like seminars, book publications and poetry recitations to protest against the attacks on women, minorities, progressive people and Dalit communities.
Criminalising rights
The atmosphere of fear exists, not only because of fundamentalist violence, but also because of the criminalisation of peaceful expression. Many have been attacked by the self-appointed nationalists and so-called religious people, while many from the minority communities, especially youth, have been arrested, held in pre-trial detention, and subjected to extensive criminal trials by the government machinery.
Fear of such repression, combined with uncertainty as to how the statutes will be applied, leads others to engage in self-censorship. State governments are using draconian laws such as the sedition provisions of the penal code, the criminal defamation law and laws dealing with hate speech to silence dissent. These laws have been repeatedly used for political purposes against critics.
There have been major attacks on free speech in the country from the government itself. The information and broadcasting ministry under the BJP government has become an image manager for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The government’s advisory to news channels not to telecast the Nirbhaya documentary and serving a legal notice to the BBC for airing the Nirbhaya film India’s Daughter, issuing show cause notices to channels on Yakub Memon’s execution coverage, banning a documentary on beef – all of this tell their own story. The BJP government has crushed the resistance of the students from the Film and Television Institute of India against the appointment of a pro-BJP director and has charged JNU students with sedition. It has appointed RSS affiliated people in various academic institutes. There have been cases of deaths of journalists, intellectuals, attacks, arrests, threats, sedition, defamation and censorship of films, broadcast media, print media, music, cyber media and hate speech. The attempt to impose a one-day ban on NDTV India, the filing of a complaint against an Outlook investigation on child trafficking in Assam, the trumped up cases against human rights activists in Bastar, are all attempts to silence the media and the voices of democratic dissent. Reporters covering the courts have been assaulted by lawyers, taken into police custody and their access to the courts restricted.
The bigger picture
The time has come for thinkers, writers, poets, artists, scientists to overcome this feeling of intimidation and regenerate the society. Thinkers can become an explosive, powerful force. We have seen some examples in our freedom struggle, in Revolutionary Russia, Latin America and Africa. We have seen recently in India that the individual writers chose their timing of dissent in tandem with other fellow writers. Their act wasn’t solitary, but in solidarity with others.
At such a crucial time it will be unfortunate, if the real thinkers stop writing or speaking or expressing their views. The active thinkers can awaken society, create standards of morality, humanism and honesty and preserve them. The absence of thinkers causes civilisations to collapse. We have been observing this decay with our own eyes. The process of decaying has taken alarming speed. Make the people think aptly at individual, collective level and at the level of small groups is the first step. To create a live internal debate is the second and going to the people and thinking together, is the third.
We have seen Russel taking a stand against war, we have seen Sartre taking a stand against the US in Vietnam, and we have seen Chomsky and many others taking a stand against the aggressive foreign policy of America. Many writers opposed Franco’s dictatorship. We have seen and heard Dabholkar, Pansare and Kalburgi doing this during many social campaigns. We have seen them expressing their views fearlessly throughout their lives. The strategy to fight the battle with right-wing forces, in Pansare’s words, is ‘shatru-mitra vivek’ (Śatru-bandhu bibēka). The regressive forces are in power not because they have support from the majority of people, but because the progressive forces are scattered and not united. The union of the left and Dalit movement can challenge the communal forces in power, he used to say.
So, if now the government at the Centre says that people should sacrifice their desire for justice and truth in the national interest, in the name of nationalism and patriotism, it should be opposed. If there are forces, which declare that India will be a Hindu Rashtra by 2023 or 2025, they should be opposed. For this is a secular nation and will remain secular. This is a democratic nation and will remain so.
Megha Pansare is an assistant professor at Shivaji University, Kolhapur, where she teaches Russian. She is the daughter of Govind Pansare.Op-ed: We Need Police Visibility on Muni Crimes Keep Happening on San Francisco's Buses and Trains
Over the weekend, 40 to 60 teenagers swarmed a BART station and train, robbing seven people. The story grabbed the headlines because it was so out of the ordinary. But several disturbing crimes have also hit Muni over the last few months.
At 9:40 p.m. on April 12, a mob of about 10 teenagers beat up a 30-year-old woman who was riding the 5-Fulton. When the bus stopped at Fillmore and McAllister streets, they dragged her onto the street and took her phone, wallet, and bag. On the social media site Nextdoor two similar attacks were reported nearby in the same week.
In March, a woman’s hair was set on fire while riding the 9-San Bruno and the driver of a 38-Geary bus was punched by a man with a knife. On February 9, a passenger on the T-Third line was shot in the head.
There have also been sexual assaults. “ The Muni humper,” a man who allegedly groped multiple women on the N-Judah, was arrested earlier this month. Last month, a different man on a bus groped a woman and she Tasered him, leaving the alleged perpetrator writhing on the floor. In 2012, The New York Times cited research that most sexual crimes on transit aren’t even reported.
There are stories that don’t generate headlines, such as that of Karen, who declined to give her last name. Her cell phone was lifted from her purse Wednesday morning after she got off of the 21-Hayes near her office downtown. But other than fare inspectors and police who react to crimes that have already taken place, where are the patrols? “I don’t see anyone really monitoring crime,” she said.
How is Muni Policed?
According to SFMTA, there are three teams that police Muni–a canine team with five dogs, an undercover team, and uniformed patrols. In total, that comes to 20 or fewer officers patrolling Muni at any given time. Moreover, none of the officers are dedicated to patrolling Muni–they are borrowed from other beats and duties. Meanwhile, Chris Grabarkiewctz, SFMTA’s chief security officer, said that when the police department deploys officers to patrol vehicles and stations, it targets lines with high crime.
Compare the handful of moonlighting officers who patrol Muni to the BART police department, which has 347 personnel and 227 sworn peace officers. Those officers police a system with daily ridership of 419,710, significantly less than Muni’s 718,320 daily trips. Or look at New York, with 2,600 uniformed officers who are dedicated to policing trains, buses and stations. New York’s transit system has 5.7 million daily rides. San Francisco would need 325 uniformed officers to reach New York’s equivalent level of police presence.
It wasn’t always like this. In 1996, SFPD’s Muni detail had 80 officers, a number Mayor Willie Brown considered inadequate. He also launched a program that required all 1,000 beat cops to board Muni vehicles twice a day. The program is no longer in place but resulted in crime |
these oversights. When you see a Protoss getting air weapons at that point in a game, it's usually safe to assume a carrier switch. When you see a Protoss moving dragoons to his fourth base and walling it in with pylons, it's usually safe to assume he's expanding there. I'll even give Leta some credit and say that he did scan around looking for the Protoss army before moving out, which is a pretty standard move, but maybe he got unlucky and only saw bits and pieces of it. The question is, did Leta just get very unlucky with his scans or was he actually being too conservative with them and trying to get away with using as few scans as possible?
My initial thoughts on this game were actually that it might bear some subtle similarities to
The answer to that is actually probably not, but the interesting thing is why. As I said before, there were many ways Leta could have averted disaster in that game. All a Terran really has to do when he sees the core spinning is spend 1-2 extra scans around the Protoss main and then the fake +1 does absolutely nothing because the rest of the Protoss infrastructure reveals what the real strategy is. So the question essentially becomes “is it worth spending 100/100 to force the Terran to scan a couple more times” and as negligible as that cost is, I'm sure most Protoss players would say no. On the other hand, given the number of assumptions made at the highest level of Brood War play (see Zero vs Hydra on Outlier or Soulkey vs Leta on Jade), perhaps the question is actually “is it worth spending 100/100 on an X% chance that my opponent makes too many assumptions and I get a free win?” Against Flash this is probably always a yes, but as far as'regular' players go, I'm not so sure.
Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to my little corner of this wonderful publication that is the SPL weekly news update! Today we will be looking at why Samsung Khan is the number one team in the world, why all the current SPL maps are actually Terran-favored, and why even Bunkie has a girlfriend when I don't.Actually, I thought I'd talk a little bit about a very interesting game from the recent playoff match between KT and CJ. This would be Leta vs Stats on Jade from the first Bo7 series.In this game, there was some early aggression from Stats but we basically got to an even mid-game situation with both players on three bases and Stats moving to take his fourth. What happened next was very interesting. Stats starts +1 air weapons at his cybernetics core as if going carriers. Leta presumably scans this, assumes that Stats is making the carrier transition based solely on the spinning core, then pushes out with a mere 120 or so supply and only +1 attack finished on his mech army.Stats had in fact not gone for carriers at all and easily crushed Leta's attack with a 160 supply Protoss ground army supported by storms. Now my question is, why did this happen? Leta had three comsat stations at that point in time and Stats had not gone particularly out of his way to hide his templar tech or his gateways. Everything was in the main base but the core was placed at the very bottom right. Essentially the only way for Stats' fake +1 to work was for Leta to only use a single scan on the main to check the core and not scan anywhere else on the map. Had Leta scanned anywhere else in the main, he would have seen either the templar tech or a number of gateways indicative of a bigger ground army. Had he double checked Stats' fourth just before moving out, he would have seen that Stats had in fact not made a nexus there despite walling it in, and would perhaps have been more careful. Had he scanned Stats army, he would have seen way more units than one would expect from a Protoss making a carrier switch.Individually, I don't think I can fault Leta for any of these oversights. When you see a Protoss getting air weapons at that point in a game, it's usually safe to assume a carrier switch. When you see a Protoss moving dragoons to his fourth base and walling it in with pylons, it's usually safe to assume he's expanding there. I'll even give Leta some credit and say that he did scan around looking for the Protoss army before moving out, which is a pretty standard move, but maybe he got unlucky and only saw bits and pieces of it. The question is, did Leta just get very unlucky with his scans or was he actually being too conservative with them and trying to get away with using as few scans as possible?My initial thoughts on this game were actually that it might bear some subtle similarities to Flash vs Dear. Flash tried to make an optimization based on an assumption he made from incomplete information, and Leta appeared to do the same. If it's really so easy to trick a Terran player like that, why is it not standard play in PvT to start +1 air weapon after your third base is up? The +1 air weapon upgrade costs 100/100, which is almost negligible on a 3-base Protoss economy. An example of this concept from another matchup would be Zerg making a fake hydralisk den along with their spire in ZvT. A hydralisk den is extremely cheap (100/50) and basically forces the Terran to double-defend against both lurkers and mutalisks until he can get a better read on what the Zerg is doing. Is something similar going to occur in PvT?The answer to that is actually probably not, but the interesting thing is why. As I said before, there were many ways Leta could have averted disaster in that game. All a Terran really has to do when he sees the core spinning is spend 1-2 extra scans around the Protoss main and then the fake +1 does absolutely nothing because the rest of the Protoss infrastructure reveals what the real strategy is. So the question essentially becomes “is it worth spending 100/100 to force the Terran to scan a couple more times” and as negligible as that cost is, I'm sure most Protoss players would say no. On the other hand, given the number of assumptions made at the highest level of Brood War play (see Zero vs Hydra on Outlier or Soulkey vs Leta on Jade), perhaps the question is actually “is it worth spending 100/100 on an X% chance that my opponent makes too many assumptions and I get a free win?” Against Flash this is probably always a yes, but as far as'regular' players go, I'm not so sure.
Hydra vs Wooki: Chain Reaction
A Battle Report
By: Hyde
The map is Neo Chain Reaction, a two-player map that has seen its share of'strategic plays,' and today will be no different. Hydra spawns at three o'clock, while his Protoss foe, Wooki, spawns at nine o'clock.
Hydra opens with an overpool, while Wooki places his pylon at his natural, unaware of the early aggression unfolding on the opposite side of the map.
Five drones are pulled off the mineral line and sent on a cross-map treck. The commentators shout out in surprise, as does the crowd. The drones carefully make their way over toward the Protoss base, following a plotted route and avoiding the obvious paths by which a probe-scout might travel. They wait outside Wooki's natural until the time is right to spring the trap.
Surprise!
Hydra's lings spawn and race over to the Protoss base, an overlord drifts into the natural and watches a probe plant a cannon, signalling that the time is right for the drones to move in and take it down. The crowd cheers and the CJ coach raises both arms and starts clapping, already confident that victory is assured.
The nexus continues to warp in at the natural, while the cannon is cancelled. With the cannons taken care of, the drones set their sights on the lone probe, chasing it around the natural. Wooki quickly pulls nine of his own workers to deal with the unfolding crisis. Another cannon is placed and the probes take a defensive stance, creating a barrier between the drones and the warping cannon. More probes are pulled as Wooki anticipates the impending arrival of zerglings.
Wooki displaying some great probe micro
The lings arrive at the natural and Wooki somehow manages to interpose his probes in between the lings, scattering them and blocking most from reaching the cannon. The probes manage to hold off the lings, taking a few losses along the way. Then, they drill through the drones, allowing the cannon to complete its warp-in. The crowd shrieks in excitement. Players on the KT bench are on the edges of their seats, hearts in mouths, as Wooki holds off the assault.
A shot of Wooki's main reveals no mining activity; most of the probes have been pulled to create a small line of defense at the natural, with only two probes spared to maintain a meagre income. Hydra still has five drones mining away at his main, he starts a hatchery at his natural and continues to spawn more zerglings. He then gathers a small number of lings and attempts a runby at the natural, but Wooki’s probe micro continues to impress, stopping the lings from breaking in. All the while the cannon blasts the lings away.
Wooki warps in a gateway, further narrowing the entrance, and allowing him to start massing some much-needed zealots.
Lings continue to gather at the front of Wooki's natural. A probe scout is dispatched to survey the situation, revealing more lings en route. Six lings attempt another attack, but Wooki pulls a few more probes, successfully blocking the pathway and killing two more lings.
Hydra is dogged and dispatches a detachment of another six lings as soon as possible, this time managing to breach the probe line. Four lings squeeze into the main and, in short order, the lings are free to tear down the naked nexus.
As the nexus falls, Hydra places a third hatch at twelve o'clock. More lings are made and rallied towards Wooki. A zealot spawns from the gateway and guards the narrow entrance. The lings from the main head into the mineral line at the natural and destroy many probes before finally being wiped out. At this point, Wooki's disadvantage is insurmountable, and it's only a matter of time before Hydra over powers him.
A breach to end it all
Two zealots move out and spot a pack of roving lings just outside the cannon's range. With the zealots out of the way, the zerglings run through the undefended gap, heading straight for the half-dead cannon.
Wooki concedes, knowing there's nothing more he can do.
It's the second day of playoff series between CJ Entus and KT Rolster. The teams have battled it out to the sixth set with CJ leading and hoping to end it here, rather than being forced to face Flash, for a second time, in the final set.The map is Neo Chain Reaction, a two-player map that has seen its share of'strategic plays,' and today will be no different. Hydra spawns at three o'clock, while his Protoss foe, Wooki, spawns at nine o'clock.Hydra opens with an overpool, while Wooki places his pylon at his natural, unaware of the early aggression unfolding on the opposite side of the map.Five drones are pulled off the mineral line and sent on a cross-map treck. The commentators shout out in surprise, as does the crowd. The drones carefully make their way over toward the Protoss base, following a plotted route and avoiding the obvious paths by which a probe-scout might travel. They wait outside Wooki's natural until the time is right to spring the trap.Hydra's lings spawn and race over to the Protoss base, an overlord drifts into the natural and watches a probe plant a cannon, signalling that the time is right for the drones to move in and take it down. The crowd cheers and the CJ coach raises both arms and starts clapping, already confident that victory is assured.The nexus continues to warp in at the natural, while the cannon is cancelled. With the cannons taken care of, the drones set their sights on the lone probe, chasing it around the natural. Wooki quickly pulls nine of his own workers to deal with the unfolding crisis. Another cannon is placed and the probes take a defensive stance, creating a barrier between the drones and the warping cannon. More probes are pulled as Wooki anticipates the impending arrival of zerglings.The lings arrive at the natural and Wooki somehow manages to interpose his probes in between the lings, scattering them and blocking most from reaching the cannon. The probes manage to hold off the lings, taking a few losses along the way. Then, they drill through the drones, allowing the cannon to complete its warp-in. The crowd shrieks in excitement. Players on the KT bench are on the edges of their seats, hearts in mouths, as Wooki holds off the assault.A shot of Wooki's main reveals no mining activity; most of the probes have been pulled to create a small line of defense at the natural, with only two probes spared to maintain a meagre income. Hydra still has five drones mining away at his main, he starts a hatchery at his natural and continues to spawn more zerglings. He then gathers a small number of lings and attempts a runby at the natural, but Wooki’s probe micro continues to impress, stopping the lings from breaking in. All the while the cannon blasts the lings away.Wooki warps in a gateway, further narrowing the entrance, and allowing him to start massing some much-needed zealots.Lings continue to gather at the front of Wooki's natural. A probe scout is dispatched to survey the situation, revealing more lings en route. Six lings attempt another attack, but Wooki pulls a few more probes, successfully blocking the pathway and killing two more lings.Hydra is dogged and dispatches a detachment of another six lings as soon as possible, this time managing to breach the probe line. Four lings squeeze into the main and, in short order, the lings are free to tear down the naked nexus.As the nexus falls, Hydra places a third hatch at twelve o'clock. More lings are made and rallied towards Wooki. A zealot spawns from the gateway and guards the narrow entrance. The lings from the main head into the mineral line at the natural and destroy many probes before finally being wiped out. At this point, Wooki's disadvantage is insurmountable, and it's only a matter of time before Hydra over powers him.Two zealots move out and spot a pack of roving lings just outside the cannon's range. With the zealots out of the way, the zerglings run through the undefended gap, heading straight for the half-dead cannon.Wooki concedes, knowing there's nothing more he can do.
Map Balance Analysis
The Statistical Side of Round Three
By: VGhost
Overview
This season's map pool has been fairly successful The standings (as of round three in parentheses, playoffs not included) look like this:
The PvT record is 38-30, 56% (14-7, 67%)
The TvZ record is 39-28, 58% (12-11, 52%)
The ZvP record is 43-37, 54% (19-8, 70%)
There have been about 70 games in each matchup, though ZvP got up to eighty. The win-percentages are more heavily imbalanced overall than they were last year, but are (with the possible exception of TvZ) within acceptable balance ranges and are also (including TvZ) within historical norms for the game.
I have been tracking game data based on a combination of calculated win-probabilities and actual results; for the entire set of games in the first three rounds, I have generated these balance numbers:
PvT: -0.79
TvZ: -0.49
ZvP: -1.03
What do they mean? Each number represents the likelihood that an average player from one race would upset a player of another race. All of these numbers are swung towards the "weaker" race in each matchup – because that is the direction most upsets will tend to happen. Even most bad Zergs are somewhat competent when it comes to ZvP; most bad Protoss players (and some good ones) die easily to hydra busts. Notice that these facts line up well with the win-percentages; Protoss players this season are more likely to win against Zerg than Zerg players are against Terran, and TvP is in the middle.
Of course, these overall numbers were not acquired in a vacuum, each map has its own strengths and weaknesses.
Electric Circuit
Electric Circuit has been much the most diverse map over the course of the season, with 48 Zerg players coming out, as well as 42 Terran, and (well behind, but still reasonable) 30 Protoss. The standings are as follows:
PvT 6-2, -1.00 (1-0, +0.15)
TvZ 11-11, -0.66 (7-2, +1.39)
ZvP 5-3, +0.01 (2-1, +0.01)
The map is most friendly to Zerg and looked far more so before the changes for round three. So, what did the changes mean? The 7-2 record does not indicate an awful lot, the major swing comes from – in a horrific slump – beating two competent ZvT players, and. The other five wins come from Flash, Light[aLive], Fantasy,, and the under-rated (in TvZ at least). The round was less an anomaly than a correction from the previous two rounds.
Similarly, the map is "Terran favored" in TvP, despite the record, because every Protoss to come out has been favored statistically. ZvP is right about where it "should" be.
Electric Circuit is my current candidate for map of the year; it has an interesting design, it seems viable for all races and has seen diversity of play. For the moment, I’ve attributed the lower Protoss numbers to the presence of heavily Protoss-favored maps elsewhere in the map pool.
Sniper Ridge
Sniper Ridge is the other map in the map pool to have shown evidence of really diverse play. The map has seen 50 Terran, 34 Protoss, and 30 Zergs in season one, with the following results:
PvT 10-10, -0.94 (4-4, -0.07)
TvZ 7-5, -1.02 (1-3, -0.50)
ZvP 6-2, -0.49 (2-0, +0.87)
As you can see, Sniper Ridge is somewhat Terran-favored, but it is also reasonable for Zerg, being fairly good for ZvT, relatively speaking. Moreover, Protoss players are not too far behind. The real difference on this map between results and "balance" comes in ZvP, but is relatively easily explained; almost every Zerg has been favored, while the two Protoss wins are from Stork beating ZerO. If we saw enough games on the map, I suspect the advantage would continue to swing back to Zerg, but we can only work with the dataset we have.
Sniper Ridge is another good candidate for retention in the map pool; the games have been exciting, the design is fairly unique, and the overall results have been close to what we would expect.
Ground Zero
Unfortunately, not all maps are good. Ground Zero is the last map with anything resembling equality. The numbers sit at 49 Terran, 30 Zerg, and 27 Protoss. The results of the games have given the lie to that apparent parity, though:
PvT 6-7, -0.99 (2-1, -0.12) 81%
TvZ 12-4, +0.51 (2-2, +0.18)
ZvP 4-3, -0.64 (2-1, +0.45) 44%
Ground Zero is heavily Terran favored. Games throughout the season have made this painfully clear in TvZ: most memorable, perhaps, is's win against. Meanwhile, in PvT, things aren’t quite as obvious, Protoss is favored relatively heavily. On average, Protoss players have managed a losing record, and by "losing record" I mean won a TvP.
ZvP, on the other hand, has been pretty much a disaster. beat soundly to open the season for the map; Sun beat HoeJJa, retrieved the situation somewhat for Zerg, picking up three of the four wins the bugs have managed, but two of those were busts made possible by sloppy play on the part of his opponents.
Ground Zero is not a very good map right now. However, it is a fairly standard map in terms of layout layout and the only terrible results are in TvZ; it is entirely possible that, either with small changes or player adaptation, it could well be viable.
Jade
With Jade, we reach the maps where you look at the statistics and have to say, "...lolwut?" The map has seen 53 Protoss, 52 Terran, and... 15 Zerg. How do those numbers break down?
PvT 13-10, -0.40 (6-2, +0.20)
TvZ 4-1, +0.80 (2-0, +0.81)
ZvP 4-6, -1.65 (2-1, +0.71)
The best thing you can say about Jade is that it's a great PvT map. ZvP is heavily Protoss-favored, and ZvT is badly in favor of Terran. True, it is a standard-ish map, reminiscent in some ways of
Chain Reaction
To be honest, I really want to like Chain Reaction, and I am not entirely sure why it has been such an unmitigated disaster in terms of results. Regardless, here are the numbers, and they speak for themselves: 63 Protoss, 49 Zerg, 10 Terran. That leaves us with:
PvT 2-1, -1.67 (1-0, +0.83)
TvZ 3-2, -0.85 (0-1, +0.21)
ZvP 13-15 -1.34 (9-3, +0.65)
This is a Protoss map through and through – one of two maps where Protoss has a positive record against Zerg. True, with more good Zergs playing on the changed map things are swinging back the other way, so it doesn't look quite so horrific. In truth, I do not have much confidence that the map, despite its ingenious design, can be balanced properly.
Outlier
Last in this parade of unfortunate maps comes Outlier. It’s an unholy combination of
PvT 1-0, 0.00 (0-0)
TvZ 2-5, -2.00 (0-3, -0.59)
ZvP 11-8, -1.05 (2-2, +0.03)
This is a decent ZvP map. I am not quite sure yet that it is actually terrible for TvZ – half of the "imbalance" here comes from being unable to manage his wall-in, and ’s inability to micro valkyries. Really though, the fact that no one has even bothered to send Terrans on the map is telling. The map is bad.
Conclusion
As always, the biggest problem with drawing conclusions about the balance of any particular map is a lack of data. The most games in any single matchup on any single map is 28 (that’s ZvPs on Chain Reaction). The only map with a reasonably balanced number of games across the three matchups is Ground Zero – and even there ZvP lags far behind. It is all interrelated, of course; the presence of strong Protoss maps (for instance, Jade) limits how many will play on a weaker map.
Looking over the map pool and results, taking into consideration the two maps that have done best this season in terms of balance, I would suggest (as a true amateur here) five points for mapmakers to observe to help balance.
- Avoid sunken main bases. It seems unlikely to be a coincidence that the three worst maps – Chain Reaction, Outlier, and Jade - all have sunken mains. (Whether we also need to avoid the Twilight tileset I leave to your judgment.)
- Give the natural a choke point. It doesn’t have to be the interminable overhanging cliff of Lost Temple, but you don't want zerglings waltzing through at random intervals in the early game because there is simply too much ground to cover (or should I say, too much ground to zero?).
- Allow the third.
- Allow the third to be contested. By these two points I mean that the third base should be connected to the natural; but there should be some way for an opponent to attack. The textbook example is
- Break up the middle. This is the most difficult principle to successfully implement, I suppose. You have to have a middle region, but it needs to have features. Sniper Ridge has ridges; Electric Circuit has a relatively small middle and larger outside paths. Jade's middle is virtually featureless (the violation on one side); Chain Reaction doesn't have a "middle", just bridges (the violation on the other).
This season's map pool has been fairly successful The standings (as of round three in parentheses, playoffs not included) look like this:The PvT record is 38-30, 56% (14-7, 67%)The TvZ record is 39-28, 58% (12-11, 52%)The ZvP record is 43-37, 54% (19-8, 70%)There have been about 70 games in each matchup, though ZvP got up to eighty. The win-percentages are more heavily imbalanced overall than they were last year, but are (with the possible exception of TvZ) within acceptable balance ranges and are also (including TvZ) within historical norms for the game.I have been tracking game data based on a combination of calculated win-probabilities and actual results; for the entire set of games in the first three rounds, I have generated these balance numbers:PvT: -0.79TvZ: -0.49ZvP: -1.03What do they mean? Each number represents the likelihood that an average player from one race would upset a player of another race. All of these numbers are swung towards the "weaker" race in each matchup – because that is the direction most upsets will tend to happen. Even most bad Zergs are somewhat competent when it comes to ZvP; most bad Protoss players (and some good ones) die easily to hydra busts. Notice that these facts line up well with the win-percentages; Protoss players this season are more likely to win against Zerg than Zerg players are against Terran, and TvP is in the middle.Of course, these overall numbers were not acquired in a vacuum, each map has its own strengths and weaknesses.Electric Circuit has been much the most diverse map over the course of the season, with 48 Zerg players coming out, as well as 42 Terran, and (well behind, but still reasonable) 30 Protoss. The standings are as follows:PvT 6-2, -1.00 (1-0, +0.15)TvZ 11-11, -0.66 (7-2, +1.39)ZvP 5-3, +0.01 (2-1, +0.01)The map is most friendly to Zerg and looked far more so before the changes for round three. So, what did the changes mean? The 7-2 record does not indicate an awful lot, the major swing comes from Sea – in a horrific slump – beating two competent ZvT players, great and RorO. The other five wins come from Bogus, and the under-rated (in TvZ at least) Canata. The round was less an anomaly than a correction from the previous two rounds.Similarly, the map is "Terran favored" in TvP, despite the record, because every Protoss to come out has been favored statistically. ZvP is right about where it "should" be.Electric Circuit is my current candidate for map of the year; it has an interesting design, it seems viable for all races and has seen diversity of play. For the moment, I’ve attributed the lower Protoss numbers to the presence of heavily Protoss-favored maps elsewhere in the map pool.Sniper Ridge is the other map in the map pool to have shown evidence of really diverse play. The map has seen 50 Terran, 34 Protoss, and 30 Zergs in season one, with the following results:PvT 10-10, -0.94 (4-4, -0.07)TvZ 7-5, -1.02 (1-3, -0.50)ZvP 6-2, -0.49 (2-0, +0.87)As you can see, Sniper Ridge is somewhat Terran-favored, but it is also reasonable for Zerg, being fairly good for ZvT, relatively speaking. Moreover, Protoss players are not too far behind. The real difference on this map between results and "balance" comes in ZvP, but is relatively easily explained; almost every Zerg has been favored, while the two Protoss wins are from Stork beating ZerO. If we saw enough games on the map, I suspect the advantage would continue to swing back to Zerg, but we can only work with the dataset we have.Sniper Ridge is another good candidate for retention in the map pool; the games have been exciting, the design is fairly unique, and the overall results have been close to what we would expect.Unfortunately, not all maps are good. Ground Zero is the last map with anything resembling equality. The numbers sit at 49 Terran, 30 Zerg, and 27 Protoss. The results of the games have given the lie to that apparent parity, though:PvT 6-7, -0.99 (2-1, -0.12) 81%TvZ 12-4, +0.51 (2-2, +0.18)ZvP 4-3, -0.64 (2-1, +0.45) 44%Ground Zero is heavily Terran favored. Games throughout the season have made this painfully clear in TvZ: most memorable, perhaps, is Canata's win against Jaedong. Meanwhile, in PvT, things aren’t quite as obvious, Protoss is favored relatively heavily. On average, Protoss players have managed a losing record, and by "losing record" I mean Light[aLive] won a TvP.ZvP, on the other hand, has been pretty much a disaster. BeSt beat Jaedong soundly to open the season for the map; Sun beat Neo.G_Soulkey retrieved the situation somewhat for Zerg, picking up three of the four wins the bugs have managed, but two of those were busts made possible by sloppy play on the part of his opponents.Ground Zero is not a very good map right now. However, it is a fairly standard map in terms of layout layout and the only terrible results are in TvZ; it is entirely possible that, either with small changes or player adaptation, it could well be viable.With Jade, we reach the maps where you look at the statistics and have to say, "...lolwut?" The map has seen 53 Protoss, 52 Terran, and... 15 Zerg. How do those numbers break down?PvT 13-10, -0.40 (6-2, +0.20)TvZ 4-1, +0.80 (2-0, +0.81)ZvP 4-6, -1.65 (2-1, +0.71)The best thing you can say about Jade is that it's a great PvT map. ZvP is heavily Protoss-favored, and ZvT is badly in favor of Terran. True, it is a standard-ish map, reminiscent in some ways of Byzantium ; it's possible (sort of) that it could be fixed. For the moment, my verdict is "not worth it".To be honest, I really want to like Chain Reaction, and I am not entirely sure why it has been such an unmitigated disaster in terms of results. Regardless, here are the numbers, and they speak for themselves: 63 Protoss, 49 Zerg, 10 Terran. That leaves us with:PvT 2-1, -1.67 (1-0, +0.83)TvZ 3-2, -0.85 (0-1, +0.21)ZvP 13-15 -1.34 (9-3, +0.65)This is a Protoss map through and through – one of two maps where Protoss has a positive record against Zerg. True, with more good Zergs playing on the changed map things are swinging back the other way, so it doesn't look quite so horrific. In truth, I do not have much confidence that the map, despite its ingenious design, can be balanced properly.Last in this parade of unfortunate maps comes Outlier. It’s an unholy combination of Outsider and Requiem, with a blue paint job. Play on the map so far has boiled down to 60 Zerg, 50 Protoss, and 8 Terran. And they've given us:PvT 1-0, 0.00 (0-0)TvZ 2-5, -2.00 (0-3, -0.59)ZvP 11-8, -1.05 (2-2, +0.03)Thisa decent ZvP map. I am not quite sure yet that it is actually terrible for TvZ – half of the "imbalance" here comes from Light[aLive] being unable to manage his wall-in, and Mind ’s inability to micro valkyries. Really though, the fact that no one has even bothered to send Terrans on the map is telling. The map is bad.As always, the biggest problem with drawing conclusions about the balance of any particular map is a lack of data. The most games in any single matchup on any single map is 28 (that’s ZvPs on Chain Reaction). The only map with a reasonably balanced number of games across the three matchups is Ground Zero – and even there ZvP lags far behind. It is all interrelated, of course; the presence of strong Protoss maps (for instance, Jade) limits how many will play on a weaker map.Looking over the map pool and results, taking into consideration the two maps that have done best this season in terms of balance, I would suggest (as a true amateur here) five points for mapmakers to observe to help balance.- Avoid sunken main bases. It seems unlikely to be a coincidence that the three worst maps – Chain Reaction, Outlier, and Jade - all have sunken mains. (Whether we also need to avoid the Twilight tileset I leave to your judgment.)- Give the natural a choke point. It doesn’t have to be the interminable overhanging cliff of Lost Temple, but you don't want zerglings waltzing through at random intervals in the early game because there is simply too much ground to cover (or should I say, too much ground to zero?).- Allow the third.- Allow the third to be contested. By these two points I mean that the third base should be connected to the natural; but there should be some way for an opponent to attack. The textbook example is Fighting Spirit ; as long as there is no contain on the natural bridge, the third can be taken freely, but it can be contested from outside on the ramp. On Electric Circuit, the "third" is accessible from the main, but is easily dropable and the temples can be destroyed. In contrast, on Ground Zero the third can be easily denied by a Terran without even attacking the natural; the shorter ranged Zerg and Protoss have more trouble.- Break up the. This is the most difficult principle to successfully implement, I suppose. You have to have a middle region, but it needs to have features. Sniper Ridge has ridges; Electric Circuit has a relatively small middle and larger outside paths. Jade's middle is virtually featureless (the violation on one side); Chain Reaction doesn't have a "middle", just bridges (the violation on the other).
Suffocating Force
A Khan Fan Piece By: Shader
Pitiful KT fans prepare to feel true despair as the ferocious Khan Horde tramples over your sorry excuse for a defensive line. Envision this, an angry Turn riding a galaxy tab hovercraft repeatedly running you over and rear ending your humiliated corpse down into the asphalt. We will destroy you so thoroughly that the entire roster and coaching staff will all require replacement bionic appendages.
The theme today is the number two!
Pack and spare pair of trousers and behold. The Samsung Khan lineup!
Master strategist
Beautiful coach January is her name and chaos is her game. Unassuming onlookers will think that January is random or crazy with her seemingly insane lineup choices but ya’ll just fail to see her genius. There are no troll ace match selections only epic maneuvers and incredible foresight.
Commander without peer
Dinotoss Song Byung Goo can do it all. Our commander with no weakness is actually a jack of all trades artist. With sublime shuttle reaver play Stork performs deadly incisions leaving opponents limp and helpless as well as brutally honest goon zealot aggression that hit like your grandmothers brick filled handbag. Michael Angelo and van Gogh step aside.
Almighty Storm Lord
Most well-known for his superb storm control and immaculate mechanics Jangbi is the reigning OSL champion and confirmation of the next scheduled OSL has no doubt gotten his blood pumping and what |
REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
Still, he's optimistic about the public response and that of local and state leaders to the Charlottesville protest and death, compared to the way officials reacted in Greensboro in 1979.
"The response was much different," he said. "The mayor, the governor, the leaders of Charlottesville all quickly came to the defense of those who were brutalized and abused. Nothing approximating that happened in Greensboro. And we were quickly isolated and alone."
Death threats led Johnson and his family to move from their house in the woods on the edge of the city to a home with several other families. He couldn't find a job. About 20 pro-labor protesters who had jobs in the Greensboro area were fired and left town, he said.
The attack came at a time when the WVO was "building the strongest black unity in the history of Greensboro," Johnson said. It destroyed the CWP, which changed its name once again before folding.
"If somebody could have told me that I would have become a pariah in this city, I just wouldn't have believed it," he said. While listening to a radio show, he heard callers say that his death would have been the best outcome of the Greensboro massacre.
It has taken four decades, but attitudes in Greensboro are changing. In 2015, the state placed a highway marker near the site of the march and titled it "Greensboro Massacre," a word that even the truth and reconciliation report had avoided. And last week, spurred by the Charlottesville violence, the Greensboro City Council officially apologized.
Change can be painful, Johnson said, but he's convinced it is coming.
"There are going to be, in the process of social transformation, suffering and tragedies," Johnson said, standing underneath the marker. "I do think, though, that when you can transform tragedy into triumph, it forms a justice stream. And as those justice streams begin to merge, it forms a justice river."
Rivers, Johnson said, have power to alter the landscape.
"And that's what I think this period is calling us to," he said. "There are a lot of rivers in the last few years. The Dallas river. The Charlotte river. And you could go on for a while. How do we take those struggles, where that unearned suffering becomes redemptive and becomes part of a stream building a mighty river of transformation? I see this sign here as a symbol of that."
____
Follow Martha Waggoner at http://twitter.com/mjwaggonerncWell, she is back again.
'the media
is all set for another huge coverage in media. But this time she is in the news for some enhanced reasons.
Go
go!!!
RakhiSawantkibeti'Without holding it back, let us inform you that the controversial queen Rakhi Sawant has stood for CINTAA Election 2013. Yes! You heard it correct, the sexy siren of the industry will now listen and discuss her agenda with the actors in CINTAA.Source informs that as Rakhi Sawant has stood in the election her first meeting with the CINTAA members is held today, where she along with her team will discuss their agenda at Versova. Rakhi has some great plans to help CINTAA actors get their delayed payments and also to find out the misuse of funds and many such things.Rakhi has surfaced to rattle the cage it seems. When contacted, Rakhi Sawant managed to comment, “Yes, I have stood for the CINTAA election 2013, I would be able to talk about this in detail only after sometime as currently I am getting ready for my speech.”RakhiAfter six years, significant investment by DARPA and IBM, and millions of man hours, researchers at IBM have created two silicon chips that are fundamentally brain-like in their operation.
Built using IBM’s 45nm process, these chips are still constructed out of transistors, but they’re organized into a novel arrangement that mimics the neurons and synapses of animal brains. Both of the chips have 256 digital neurons that operate at 10MHz, and standard chip features like memory, communication controllers, and so on. One of the chips has 262,144 human-programmable synapses, which makes it something of a glorified (and rather dumb) FPGA — but the other chip has 65,356 learning synapses, and that’s what we’re more interested in.
IBM’s learning digital neurons can dynamically rewire their synapses based on their inputs, just like an animal brain. The neurons remember their recent activities — which synapse they triggered — and as these communication channels are used their weighting (importance) increases, just like a software neural network. With 256 neurons and 65,356 synapses in total, each neuron can make at least 255 connections with other neurons, for a total of almost 17 million different combinations.
As far as the actual architecture goes, IBM hasn’t intimated any more than the fact that the digital neurons are arranged in a crossbar array — a matrix of switches, much like a telephone exchange or packet-switched router. Instead of having inputs and outputs, though, the IBM chips will have a crossbar that connects each neuron to its 255 cousins. Crossbars are easy to implement, however — but because of their non-blocking nature (every neuron has one or more physical connections to every other neuron) they don’t scale gracefully. The result, according to IBM Research’s Dharmendra Modha is that these chips are capable of “massive, massive amounts of parallelism” — but whether this means that all 256 neurons can operate at the same time or not, who knows.
It’s also important to note that 256 neurons is incredibly dumb, as far as brains go — a pond snail has 11,000 — but the fact that IBM has done this using conventional silicon fabrication techniques is significant. Until now, almost every foray into artificial intelligence and brain simulation has been done in software on supercomputers, like Blue Brain — and supercomputers require huge amounts of space, money, and power. By shrinking a neural network onto a chip, IBM can reduce the power requirement to just a few watts — and if their design will scale, it might be possible to create millions or billions of digital neurons on a computer chip the size of… say… the human brain.
For now, IBM says these chips have successfully learnt their way around a maze and played Pong — and the next step, along with the creation of a few more neurons, is to task the chips with challenges that humans naturally excel at, like pattern recognition. Brain-like chips could be used to analyze image and video for recognizable objects, or to analyze and react to real-time data from weather stations. The main thing, according to IBM Research’s Dharmendra Modha
Ultimately, though, IBM’s goal has always been to marry the physical world and its infrastructure with information technology. The physical universe, thanks to us humans, tends to be random, chaotic, and generally very hard to understand as far as computers are concerned. Information technology, on the other hand, generally deals with numbers and data that can be readily manipulated by computers. IBM’s brain-like chips would create the perfect interface, perhaps spurring a new era of computer-controlled traffic signals, air traffic control, utilities, and more. Imagine outfitting IBM Watson with one of these digital chips, and the running/walking functionality of MABEL…
Read more at PCWorldWhen Guillermo del Toro was a child in Mexico, he made a pact with the monsters that crowded into his room at night: If they let him go to the washroom, he'd be their friend for life. The deal worked. The monsters disappeared, and the now-acclaimed filmmaker has devoted his career to bringing those beasts back to life for everyone else.
"To this day, monsters are the thing I love most," del Toro says on a bright, hot morning in June. Del Toro, who lately calls Toronto home, has arrived at our meeting dressed all in black—black hoodie with blood-red lining, black T-shirt, black pants—and leaning on a black cane. He's a large man, but despite being physically hobbled, he moves quickly, throwing himself toward the sofa in a way that is somehow both brisk and lumbering. Our conversation is stolen from a packed schedule, as happens in the film business. But beyond the standard rush and hustle of the industry, something in del Toro's pale blue eyes and alert demeanour attests to the well of creative energy that allows him to maintain multiple movies or TV shows in active production, as well as dozens of projects in development. His prodigious output also extends well beyond filmed entertainment, including novels, comic books, video games, lecture series and, of course, designing monsters. "It's the part of my job I like best," he says.
It's also part of his job at which he excels, but certainly not the only part. The broad appeal of del Toro's filmmaking has elevated him into the highest echelon of box office success, along with the likes of James Cameron and Michael Bay. The total box office gross of all the movies he's directed, produced or written to date is well over $3-billion.
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And here's the twist in the plot of this success story. Del Toro is a key part—a driver—of the Canadian film industry, single-handedly keeping thousands of people in work. "They shouldn't give him the keys to the city–they should give him a piece of the city," says producer J. Miles Dale.
If films like Pacific Rim are a long way from the sort of art-house flick that epitomizes most people's idea of Canadian film, the two styles have nevertheless become entwined—by design. Leaving behind the era of tax write-offs that produced little in lasting benefits, the federal government, as well as most of the provinces, has aggressively sought to entice Hollywood "tent-pole" films—so named for their ability to support the whole system and create a shelter for other less-profitable movies—through generous incentives and other measures. But while del Toro's passion for making films in Ontario signifies the success of all that effort, many other countries have caught the buzz and started offering highly competitive subsidies to Hollywood. Now Canadian film workers are looking pensively forward to the third act, and wondering whether Canada can maintain its advantage.
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Hollywood's tent-pole films live and die by their success in reaching an international mass audience of adolescents and those content to regress along with them for two hours. This has put del Toro, a wunderkind who started making horror home movies as a youngster, in the sweet spot. Having scaled the ladder of cult classics, critical picks, audience favourites and franchise home runs, the relentlessly inventive filmmaker now commands the kind of budget it takes to mount an international blockbuster.
For a film industry like Canada's, toiling forever in the shadow of the behemoth to the south, the blockbuster is a beast that's easy to love. In what is now a highly globalized industry, the blockbuster occupies a huge variety of high-paying talent wherever it roams, and raises the profile of production centres like Toronto—the third-largest in North America, after L.A. and New York—as readily as it razes buildings on screen. In 2011, the film and television sector generated $9.7-billion in direct GDP in Canada; workers earned $6.4-billion in income, and produced nearly $5.5-billion in tax revenue. Del Toro's latest contribution to the genre, Pacific Rim, cost $190-million to make, most of which was spent in Toronto.
It's no surprise that these movies are so sought after. In 2012-'13, Canadian film and television production generated $2.3-billion in export value, of which three-quarters ($1.7-billion) was for Hollywood and other foreign production. Del Toro's productions alone have spent hundreds of millions in Ontario in the last three years, much of that on labour. This past year, the industry supported 127,700 direct and spinoff full-time equivalent jobs.
"Film and TV at this time are significant engines of growth for many other creative sectors," says Jonathan Olsberg of the U.K. firm Olsberg SPI, which offers advice to media organizations and companies, including the Canadian Media Production Association, the national trade association for independent producers. Olsberg points out that investment in film production has more of a multiplier effect than other cultural industries, creating work for writers, composers, musicians, programmers, advertisers and designers of every stripe.
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But despite the logistical complexity of the major Hollywood productions, involving hundreds of people in many different sectors, the jobs have a tendency to float away. And as film workers in California have discovered, there's very little on the expense sheet to tie them down.
British Columbia was one of the first jurisdictions to benefit from the portability of film and television production, when producer Stephen J. Cannell (The A-Team, 21 Jump Street) moved his studio to Vancouver in the mid-'80s to take advantage of Canadian tax shelters. More American producers began to bring their productions north, and in 1996 the Canadian government introduced two federal tax credits–one to support domestic filmmakers, and the other to entice foreign producers. The new system largely resolved the inefficiencies of the previous tax-shelter system, in which often only 40 per cent of the financing actually made its way into the film. "There's a trend globally toward a more direct, transparent production-cost rebate, which Canada practically invented," says Olsberg.
The tax credits in Canada offer a rebate on a percentage of labour (some of the provincial credits also refund other qualified production costs), which the producer can access once the project is completed. Since there's no cap on the credit and it's available for all productions over $1-million shot in Canada, banks will reliably lend on it up front, which means that producers can treat it like capital. The incentives are greater for domestic productions, but ultimately the majority of production dollars that claim the credits are from abroad.
But now more than 30 other countries are vying for that big Hollywood spend. Nineteen of those started or significantly boosted their incentive programs in the last five years, five of them in 2013 alone. American states other than the traditional production hubs of California and New York have also been very active in pursuing Hollywood. Louisiana was the first state to institute a tax incentive in 2002, and by 2010 43 states were offering subsidies at an estimated collective value of $1.5-billion (U.S.). But as the effects of the 2008 recession unfolded, six states subsequently jettisoned their programs.
Some American states have offered types of incentives that Canada has eschewed, such as rebates on income paid to non-residents. The Ontario government won't reimburse a percentage of Tom Cruise's salary if he acts in a film shot in the province, for example, but Georgia will. Many of the American tax credits are also transferable, an option that has led to the creation of a thriving secondary market for tax credits, whereby any company (for instance, Macy's and Bank of America) can purchase unused credits. A film qualifies for the credit, and then the producer sells it at a discount to a taxpayer or a corporation with a liability in that particular state. We have no such cottage industry in Canada, but it can be an appealing way for producers to get their money up front, not to mention a way for brokers to skim off the top.
All that competition is putting more and more pressure on Canadian provinces to increase their incentives, creating what some have called a "race to the bottom." A few jurisdictions are starting to falter.
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British Columbia was one of the first provinces to put the brakes on its subsidies. The province, which primarily serves the American television industry and has built up more than a billion dollars worth of infrastructure over the course of several decades, has refused to match increases in Ontario and Quebec in recent years, and has seen a stark drop in foreign productions—often referred to in Canada as "service productions"—as a result, leading to the loss of 3,500 direct and spinoff jobs. Production in B.C. has since returned to rates comparable to the previous high point in 2006, but many in the province complain that so long as Ontario offers a better incentive, Los Angeles companies accustomed to the ease of working in Vancouver will nonetheless head east. "Tax credits are part of the puzzle, but they're not the entire puzzle," says Richard Brownsey, CEO of Creative B.C., the recently reconceived B.C. film commission. "You've got to be able to compete on the service you provide, and our success depends on that whole package."
Anxious film and television workers in B.C. have somewhat less to worry about, however, now that Quebec has shaved 20 per cent off of its various tax credits for business this past June, which for foreign film and television producers means a drop from 25 per cent (Ontario's current rate) of all qualified expenses to 20 per cent. This is the first time in 16 years that Quebec has lagged behind Ontario in its subsidy offering to foreign productions. Charles David, an accountant with more than 30 years' experience consulting on film production and distribution in Quebec, says, "The moment we offer a program that's not as competitive as Toronto or Vancouver, it sends people away."
David points out that Quebec has some disadvantages compared to Vancouver and Toronto: fewer flights to L.A., a dearth of English-speaking extras. "We already have an industry that's more fragile," he says. "Handicapping it with a lower tax [credit]–it's a kiss of death." When we spoke just a few weeks after the announcement, David already knew of one big production that was threatening to move to Ontario as a result, and had heard from several post-production studios that indicated they'd have to learn to cut corners if they were to continue in Quebec.
If Quebec film and television workers are pessimistic about their economic outlook, it's still no match for the despair in Saskatchewan when Premier Brad Wall cancelled his province's tax credit outright in 2012. "There was no consultation or due diligence done. It was just a clean swipe with a pen," says filmmaker Holly Baird, former president of the Saskatchewan Media Production Industry Association.
The elimination of the credit—valued at 55 per cent of labour expenditures in the province—immediately levelled the local production industry. The SMPIA claimed hundreds of members before the cut but has since dwindled to a few dozen. The Canada Saskatchewan Production Studios, once the only purpose-built sound stage between Toronto and Vancouver, is now primarily occupied by the offices of Creative Saskatchewan, which administers a modest grant program for local productions.
As all three of B.C., Quebec and Saskatchewan have made abundantly clear, the provincial credits are intrinsically vulnerable to post-recession austerity measures and political jockeying. "The criticism of the credit was that it was taxpayers' money going to fund projects coming in from out of town. Taking the money and running, basically," says Baird of the sudden termination of the credit in Saskatchewan.
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Ontario has offered a stable tax incentive to Hollywood, but the province's value proposition extends beyond subsidies. "We don't have the richest tax credits; we simply have competitive tax credits," explains James Weyman, manager of industry initiatives at the Ontario Media Development Corp. "Ontario's value proposition is more than the tax credit; there's lots of jurisdictions with flashy tax credits, but they don't have infrastructures in place." It's these practical offerings—which, when absent, constitute hidden costs—that have appealed to del Toro and made him want to set up shop here.
"Del Toro is Toronto's unofficial ambassador," says Weyman. "I think that endorsement is a positive factor for those who don't know Ontario's value proposition in taking us more seriously."
No doubt the new subsidies played a significant role in precipitating del Toro's first visit to Canada in 1997, just one year after the tax credits were introduced, to make Mimic, a horror movie about shape-shifting insects that take human form. Such was the appeal for a studio like Miramax to send its up-and-coming Mexican filmmaker to spend $30-million (U.S.) making a horror movie in chilly Toronto: an 11 per cent rebate on money paid to Canadian workers (since then it's been raised to 16 per cent), a dollar trading at $0.73 (U.S.), and a cheaper version of New York in which to shoot. It was del Toro's first time working for one of the big five studios and he had a miserable time of it, but fell in love with Toronto. "It's one of the best film towns in the world," he says, naming "professional and artistic efficiency and commitment" among its winning attributes.
Now that he's back in Toronto all these years later, it seems like he's here to stay. "It's an eminently livable city," he says. His family has moved up from L.A., and though his hectic schedule keeps him pinballing from sound stage to shooting location to production studio, he takes his solitary work to a little office in the Leslieville neighbourhood. He even has a version of his famous Bleak House, the private museum of curiosities and horror-osities that he uses for inspiration. "Mini-Bleak," he calls it.
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Torontonians are happy to have him, but del Toro has received his best welcome at Pinewood Studios, the state-of-the-art production facility in the city's east-end factory district. Pinewood opened in 2009 for the express purpose of drawing tent-pole productions to Toronto. A sprawling facility with a dozen high-tech sound stages, it has already proven its ability to impact the local production economy. The Total Recall remake was shot at Pinewood the same year del Toro made Pacific Rim, causing a dramatic spike in the amount of foreign feature-film production money left in Ontario that year, up to $231-million from $159-million in 2010.
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Pinewood claims to offer the largest purpose-built sound stage in North America. (There are converted warehouses and hangars that are larger, even elsewhere in Toronto, but they don't boast Pinewood's load-bearing or soundproofing capabilities.) It is 46,000 square feet, or one acre of land, with no pillars, and 60 feet to the ceiling. Del Toro shot some of Pacific Rim here. The same year, a giant elevator plunged through the centre of the Earth and exploded up from the floor to create the climax for the Total Recall remake. On the day I visited, a network of thick scaffolding spanned the room in various configurations, with the verticals in bright green and horizontals in a red that will be familiar to fans of classic video games—this is the world of Donkey Kong, under construction for the set of Pixels, a comedy sci-fi starring Adam Sandler. It is Sony's second production in Toronto since Total Recall.
Pinewood as a company chases tax credits internationally, and it has grown as quickly as the competition for tent-pole productions. Founded in 1936, the U.K. company added five locations in the last five years: Toronto and Berlin in 2009, and since then Malaysia, the Dominican Republic and the state of Georgia, all subsidy hot spots. "We're in the infrastructure business," says Eoin Egan, vice-president of Pinewood International. "You can't wave a wand and go, 'I want to be Hollywood.' It doesn't work like that. You need a full complement of crew, you need a good incentive, and you need infrastructure. If you're missing any part of the puzzle, you're not going to succeed."
But even with all those elements in place, no regional industry can live on tent-poles alone. Like the industry as a whole, Pinewood needs to support a range of activities in order to keep the lights on. "The nature of the business is very cyclical," says Blake Steels, president of Pinewood Toronto Studios. "The bigger the productions you're trying to attract, the bigger the peaks and valleys. The smaller productions and TV series make the curve less dangerous for us." For this reason, the studio invites independent producers to use the stages between Hollywood productions. David Cronenberg's Cosmopolis shot in Pinewood in 2011, and Atom Egoyan's The Captive shot there last year. As well as film, the studio hosts Canadian TV series like The Listener, and Space's phenomenally successful Orphan Black will move into the Pinewood complex for its next season.
Pinewood's division of customers reflects the deeper trend of mega-vs.-modest polarization that has overtaken the film industry. "There used to be a world of $40– to $60-million movies, but that pretty much doesn't exist any more," says producer Martin Katz. His latest project, Cronenberg's Maps to the Stars, had a budget of $15-million, which makes it a fair-sized independent movie (the average budget of a Canadian feature is $4-million).
"It is those $100-million-plus movies that are competing for the $1-billion world box office gross that have changed the economics of the film business," Katz explains. Avatar, released in 2009, is the usual example given for this shift in scale: It cost $250-million (U.S.) to make and grossed $2.7-billion (U.S.) at the worldwide box office. While theatre attendance has declined in North America, emerging markets in Russia and China especially now outweigh the domestic box office, and big studio productions earn the better part of their revenue abroad. This fact better explains the reductionism in Hollywood storytelling than any morose cultural narratives: Blockbusters need to appeal to wildly disparate audiences across the entire planet in order to get made at all. If big-budget movies seem to be dumbing down, it's probably not because we're in societal decline; it's just that overcoming so many cultural differences at once means shedding some of the nuances and embracing a more elemental style of storytelling.
When it comes to this aspect of internationalization, del Toro's natural advantages come to the fore, as was demonstrated by Pacific Rim's success in Asia. "It connected very strongly both in Japan and China," del Toro says. "In both countries, the contact with the audience was coming from a very primal place for me." The movie is based on tropes from the anime and manga that del Toro consumed as a kid—giant robots and monsters, here pitched in a battle for the fate of the Earth.
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Del Toro doesn't worry about accusations of pandering. He quotes Picasso, who said, "'It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.' When you're a child, you don't censor yourself. You just express who you are and what you are freely. That's creatively very important," he says. In a business that relies on adolescents, it's also fiscally important, which in del Toro's case is more a product of good fortune than commercial cunning. "I'm not that great a businessman; I just stay true to what I like," he says, pointing out that Pacific Rim is one of only two movies he's done where he hasn't had to pour part of his own salary back into the movie to get it completed.
Del Toro's commitment to authenticity has also allowed him to work on both sides of the industry and do projects with all kinds of budgets (though he admits, "I've never found myself in a movie where my ambition is smaller than the budget"). While he was making Pacific Rim for $190-million (U.S.), he was also working simultaneously down the hall on Mama, a Canada-Spain co-production with a budget of $15-million (U.S.). Between the two movies, del Toro used every single stage at Toronto's Pinewood Studios, occupying the entire facility for 10 months during 2011 and 2012. Every day during production, he'd work on Mama from 7 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., then put in a full day on Pacific Rim, and return to Mama in the evening.
It paid off. Both of these movies achieved the kind of success that filmmakers in their respective budget streams only dream of. In the case of del Toro's banner year in 2013, Pacific Rim earned $411-million at the international box office, while Mama did well by indie standards at $146-million. That Mama is a Canadian movie attests to the internationalization of the industry. Written and directed by an Argentinian, executive-produced by a Mexican, it nonetheless fulfilled the relevant requirements and qualified for the domestic tax credit.
Del Toro's co-producer on Mama was J. Miles Dale, a go-to guy for big studio pictures looking to film in Canada, such as The Thing and Carrie, both shot at Pinewood. Dale helped negotiate the deal for Mama with UPI, Universal's international division. "They thought that kind of elevated genre movie with a Guillermo presence for marketing made sense at a certain price," he explains. But tapping both Spanish and Canadian incentives is what launched the movie out of the gate. "Tax credits are good, but co-productions can be better," says Dale.
Canada has co-production treaties with more than 50 countries, allowing Canadian filmmakers to secure financing from a wider pool of investors and punch above their weight on the international market. A co-production with Germany, for example, gives the Canadian filmmaker a chance to cast stars from any EU country, as well as get financing from that country and a better distribution deal. "They're what's keeping me here," says producer Don Carmody of the co-production deals. Carmody, who bills himself as "Hollywood's man in Canada," uses the treaties to make the sort of franchise films that would normally require backing from a big studio. His Resident Evil, Silent Hill and Mortal Instruments movies are all made with the domestic tax credit.
Reliance on international financing has made Canadian filmmaking harder to identify, though a name like Cronenberg or Egoyan at the top can make it easier. The former's Maps to the Stars, making its North American premiere this month at the Toronto International Film Festival, is a Canadian-German co-production. (Somewhat ironically, it's set in Hollywood.) Apart from incentives in those two countries and private financing, Katz made up a good portion of the film's budget through foreign pre-sales.
"The film is intellectual property, so what I own as the producer is a bundle of exploitation rights which I can divide up by territory," he says. "So I'm looking to raise as much money as I need to make the movie—hire the crews, rent the cameras, do the editing—and it's my job to do those things by pre-selling as few of those rights in the worldwide territories as I need to in order to get the movie made, with the unsold rights left to be exploited as profit after the movie is made."
The challenge for Canadian producers is holding on to those rights; often, they'll need to sell off most of the film's asset value in order to get the picture made. "A consistent syndrome in many territories is that independent producers feel that there's a very low probability that they'll ever see anything again, no matter how successful the film is," says Olsberg. As a result, it can be very difficult for Canadian producers to build up equity to invest in the next project and so retain some of the valuable distribution rights.
All the complicated international financing required to put an independent Canadian movie together doesn't leave much for marketing. As the old slow rollout into different markets has condensed into one blowout global opening weekend, the big studios need to spend enormous sums to market a blockbuster everywhere at once. The international marketing spend is often equal to the production budget itself; thus, a typical tent-pole film must earn twice what it cost just to break even. By contrast, in 2011 the average marketing budget for films supported by Telefilm, which administers the Canada Feature Film Fund as well as more than $360-million in other media funding, was only $610,026.
You can't pack theatres around the world on half a million dollars, so producers like Katz look to another form of promotion: film festivals. Toronto International Film Festival CEO Piers Handling has watched the evolution of Canadian film since he started programming for the festival in 1982, especially the evaporation of middle-budget filmmaking. "Film festivals have become an alternative exhibition and distribution model for much of this independent production," he says. "The rise and abundance of festivals around the world is essentially its own ecosystem." Katz is banking on a good reception for Maps to the Stars, which already won two awards at Cannes this spring. "It really has become a critically important festival for fall theatrical releases," he says.
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Even though the polarization of the industry is pushing studio and independent films into separate spheres of financing and distribution, one aspect of production reaches across both sides of the rift: visual effects. Digital augmentation is now indispensable to virtually every production, even TV shows and independent films lacking in epic heroes or large-scale societal devastation. VFX production in Canada grew by 67 per cent between 2009 and 2011, and has continued to rise reliably since then.
Perhaps the most portable of all the production sectors, VFX has experienced the greatest demand, the fastest growth and the biggest upsets. Many of the most venerable American studios have gone bankrupt in the last 10 years and been purchased by international companies, largely to take advantage of tax credits or cheaper labour in their home jurisdictions. Most famously, the long-running studio Rhythm & Hues went under just weeks before receiving an Oscar for its magical work on Life of Pi.
The Canadian industry has done well by the digital dissolution south of the border. In May, Sony announced its visual-effects studio Imageworks would move headquarters to Vancouver, employing up to 700. For his part, del Toro relies on Mr. X, a world-renowned studio with roughly 180 employees spread through a series of offices on a quiet Toronto street. Mr. X, the largest VFX studio in Ontario, made the digital sequences for del Toro's Mama as well as Carmody's Resident Evil movies, along with other Toronto-made blockbusters like RoboCop. The firm also provided the visual effects for del Toro's vampire TV series The Strain, and it's currently working on his upcoming film Crimson Peak, also shot in Ontario.
Walking in to meet Mr. X president Dennis Berardi, I pass rows of mostly young men, all gazing intently at various constellations of monitors. No one is talking on the phone or milling about chatting. The lighting is warm and dim, and there's a library-quality hush.
The atmosphere of calm efficiency is no accident. "We started to hit our stride about five years ago when we pivoted the company from a generalist workflow, where everyone did a bit of everything, to a specialist work line," says Berardi. The move allowed the company to take on larger products and offer lower prices. "I needed to do that because now we're getting offshore competition from everywhere: India, China, South Korea and Eastern Europe are emerging as potential powerhouses in animation and visual effects. We needed to be more productive or we wouldn't be able to compete."
Visual effects studios often suffer from directors' confused and overblown expectations. Because the work is intensely time-consuming, vague suggestions or impulsive afterthoughts can be devastating to the budget. Beyond breaking the workflow into component processes, Berardi has built the company's reputation for reliability by declining any work that sounds unrealistic, and by joining the production as early as possible on the planning side. He's found a good partner in del Toro, who has very detailed ideas of what he wants. "He always challenges us," Berardi says enthusiastically. "Every single time, he wants to see the visual reference we are using for inspiration." Del Toro will suggest an obscure painting for the type of sky he wants, and then expect to see it the next time he goes into the office.
Strolling through the studio, Berardi and I come across a designer digitizing ghosts for Crimson Peak. On his desk sits a monstrous blood-red latex head, created by del Toro as a character prototype. The studio scanned it for the designers to use in 3-D modelling. Across the hall, another designer is using that digital model to painstakingly animate the character, right down to the curve of its eyebrow. We watch the cumulative effect of all these tiny adjustments and meticulous rendering in one of the screening rooms. In a scene from The Strain, we see a man in a black hood jerk his head toward another character. Then the scene plays again with the visual effects added in, and suddenly a large stinger bursts from his mouth and plunges into the neck of his victim. It's gruesome, and in a world glutted with vampire stories, unlike anything I've seen before.
Del Toro's uniqueness isn't fabricated; it's perfectly authentic, which is precisely what gives his movies enough heft to carry a Hollywood tent-pole film and all the independent Canadian films that rely on the kind of infrastructure those big productions generate. He's not jumping ship any time soon. "Basically, I'll bring as many movies and as many projects as I can to Toronto, because I really have a great time working here," he says.
He'll begin pre-production on a second Pacific Rim movie this fall. Del Toro will also continue his tradition of working both ends of the spectrum at once, making a tiny, black-and-white feature alongside his blockbuster. In this, the resourceful director presents an approach that accurately reflects the current logic of the industry: big and little together. So long as the province holds on to its tax credits, Ontario's production studios will continue to be populated by Hollywood mega-pictures, international co-productions and every single one of del Toro's monsters.MINNEAPOLIS — President Obama traveled to the nation’s heartland on Monday to press his case for tougher national gun laws, even as he appeared to acknowledge that expanded background checks on gun sales were far more likely to pass Congress than a ban on military-style assault weapons.
In a city once called “Murderapolis” for its homicide rate in the 1990s, the president cited successful gun-violence prevention efforts here as evidence that new national laws are needed to reduce the number of shootings across the country.
“The only way we can reduce gun violence in this country is if the American people decide it’s important,” Mr. Obama said, standing in front of a sea of police officers and sheriff’s deputies at the Minneapolis Police Department Special Operations Center.
Mr. Obama renewed his call for Congress to pass a series of measures, including a ban on the manufacture and sale of new assault weapons, limits on high-capacity magazines and an expansion of the criminal background check system that currently covers only about 60 percent of gun sales.Fmr. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., proves there’s no rest for the recently retired.
On Friday’s Morning Joe, he said conclusively that he has asked Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick if he can temporarily fill Sen. John Kerry’s seat, a seat he’s held now for almost 20 years. President Obama, of course, has nominated Sen. Kerry for Secretary of State, thus leaving Kerry’s seat wide open. |
Bahrain, where the monarchy has more or less successfully crushed democracy protests that broke out in the wake of the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt in 2011, is apparently not taking any chances by loosening the reigns on open discussion and debate.
Yesterday, Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontiéres, MSF) said Bahrain's regime forced it to cancel a conference, two years in the planning, on medical ethics and conflict.
MSF Director of Operations Bart Janssens says the group had hoped to hold the regional conference in Bahrain because of the country's own recent experience with the politicization of medicine.
"We’ve seen throughout the region, how to call it, a complete loss of neutrality around medicine or medical care," says Dr. Janssens. "It's a fact that in many countries, as in Bahrain, hospitals have become forefront places for political struggles, and people who are injured can not find in any way a sort of neutral space where only clinical medicine is practiced and not find political discussions – or worse. For example in Syria, hospitals are basically traps for people to get arrested."
Janssens says the cancellation was entirely due to the decision of the Kingdom of Bahrain, and that his group's interests are nonpolitical.
"What we really wanted was to have a debate around how can we improve the difficulties of medical practitioners in the wider Middle East region, while countries are going through political and social difficulties," he says.
The notion of neutrally available medical care is a long-cherished ideal that routinely runs into trouble during conflict. In Bahrain, the Sunni monarchy rules over a Shiite majority population that has begun to chafe at the lack of political and basic human rights there, and hospitals have not been immune to national polarization.
In October last year, nine doctors, nurses, and paramedics were jailed for supporting democracy protests ("participating in illegal gatherings," "calling for the overthrow of the government," etc.) and tending to the wounds of injured demonstrators. Human Rights Watch said the evidence used to convict them was at least partially obtained through torture. (In 2012, The Christian Science Monitor reported on an underground network of medics that helped Bahrainis who felt unsafe seeking treatment in government-run hospitals.)
In 2011, the government replaced the entire board of the Bahrain Medical Society, saying the members had become politicized. The new board has been aggressive in calling for investigation and prosecution of doctors that have supported the opposition.
In Bahrain's periodic protests, injured demonstrators have learned to avoid official hospitals. Informal networks have been set up for the treatment of the wounded in private clinics.
Bahrain, a close US ally and home to the US Fifth Fleet, has successfully rejected calls for change for going on two years now, but is still wary of outside influence and scrutiny.
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The country's current position, and relationship with the US, is a reminder that the so-called Arab Spring has had a variety of outcomes. While the US and Saudi Arabia may be pushing for the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in Syria and the replacement of his Iran-friendly government with one run by Syria's majority Sunni Arab population, it would be horrified at the overthrow of Bahrain's Sunni Arab king by his mostly Shiite subjects.
Janssens says that MSF is still hoping to hold a medical ethics conference in the region – but they won't be trying to hold it in Bahrain anymore.Nuggets of info are coming in thick and fast from around the world on the next Star Wars film, the JJ Abrams directed Episode VII, but an interesting bit of casting news has dropped on our very own doorstep here in the UK. We have this from a solid source.
As previously announced this year, the latest instalment of the George Lucas space opera will film in the UK once more and some casting news has come to light from the casting and auction service, Spotlight.
A call has been put out by "Walt Disney Pictures/LucasFilm/Bad Robot" for a:
"Male, 7 ft to 7.3 ft tall with a slim/thin build and upright posture. Not too worked out or too 'thick set' especially in the shoulders. Broad facial features would be a bonus".
The casting call is for an "UNTITLED STUDIO FEATURE", but it's not too tricky to join the dots.
Now, we wouldn't want to speculate, but fact fans will note that original Chewbacca actor Peter Mayhew, who starred in all three original Star Wars films and the final prequel Revenge Of The Sith, is 7'3" (almost 2.25 metres). And the description of the desired physique is exactly that of Mayhew's. Coincidence? Could JJ be searching for a Wookie for the new trilogy? Or could it be something else entirely?
Time, of course, will tell, but those details do seem very revealing. Also of note in the casting call is the production date, stating the start date is "early 2014" whilst the producers are credited as "Kathleen Kennedy, JJ Abrams, Bryan Burk, Tommy Harper (Exec)."
We look forward to more Star Wars casting news in the UK as filming looms closer.
Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.Money is in theory just a liquid means of exchange so every bit of it should represent real world wealth.
The core problem of a society based on financialization is everyone starts to believe money itself is wealth. Then society rewards the manipulation of money more than it does the creation of real wealth that actually helps people.
Why would anyone of means do anything productive if they can just collect interest and rent?
Rent-seekers use property to extract wealth indefinitely, making their living from a distortion of reality.
In the world of material things, there is no such thing as a gold mine that never runs out. There is a limit in value to all things. Yet those who control property can extract rents in perpetuity.
Patent law recognizes a limit in the claim to the rights of an idea or invention. In time, the patented material becomes the natural inheritance of those who benefit from it. So by what principle then does rented property stay forever in the hands of an owner who never uses it for themselves and never produces anything?
In Cincinnati, where I currently live, I noticed there are small patches of land used as paid parking in downtown. Someone bought a small lot, threw down some asphalt on it, installed a ticket machine and voila, they can rake in cash every day.
The person who provides the parking lot, I thought, provides a useful service. Not to mention most of these lots are cheaper than the parking garages, so they can save people money too.
On the other hand, I noticed these lots were minimally maintained. The asphalt was worn down, cracked, with weeds growing through it. I supposed other than checking for freeloaders every once in awhile, there was no incentive for the property owner to do anything else while they reaped their dividends forever.
So the problem here is we need people to develop property and provide services but the value they bring to the table must also be recognized as finite.
The property owner must make a reasonable profit if we want them to bother but it is unnatural and improper for them to bring in an indefinite and infinite harvest once they have long since ceased to contribute new value.
So would it not make sense if there were limits to ownership of property that collects rents? Like patents, you profit for awhile, but eventually it passes on into the public domain.
This could be especially relevant where there is opportunity cost.
Those little flat, run-down parking lots in Cincinnati are surrounded by 10 story buildings.
So while the land is put to a use that creates some value, surely it would create far more value if it re-entered the market and was used for a multiple story building owned and used by a business that actively creates new value every day.
The total gain appropriate to a renter could be determined by a number of factors.
-Absolute quantity of wealth invested in the property.(Did someone spend millions or billions of dollars on it?)
-Percentage of personal wealth invested.(Did someone put a lot of their money into the property?)
-Riskiness of the investment.
-Amount of effort to develop and maintain.
-Value the property gives back to society.(Penalize houses that sit empty just to get flipped later and/or keep rents artifically high.)
-Opportunity cost to society based on the property’s location.
-Is the property a strategic chokepoint that people have to pay for and therefore easy to command unreasonably high prices for?
The point would be to impose especially harsh penalties against large, lazy property holders who try to be dogs in the manger using the state’s monopoly on force— without which they own nothing—to parasitize others. Without the threat of armed enforcers, they would probably be shot in the head trying to impose their will. Why do they deserve state backing that not only hurts society, but delegitimizes the state by association?
Money acquired through parasitism is heresy. Not only is the sacred relationship of money and wealth desecrated and distorted, every penny of false money-as-wealth is real wealth stolen from those who are trying to help the social order. Once a society rewards clever defectors, while punishing honest cooperators, it is doomed. Society cannot exist without maintaining the integrity of its wealth.
A worthwhile society understands that money used as counterfeit real-world wealth is nothing but theft and fraud—not just against one person but against the entire social order. There could be a generous grace period after implementing such rules after which, perpetrators would be regarded as far worse than mere murderers.
See Also: White Collar Criminals Are Worse Than Street CriminalsYesterday, many of you witnessed what could only be described (by me) as "the greatest interview in television history."
So sure was I that nothing could ever top the Today Show's "Haunted Toaster" demonstration that I went head first into hyperbole and declared it to be unarguably the best. Turns out I was dead wrong.
That title clearly belongs to the full segment from which the haunted toaster interview was plucked.
Producer Boyd Matson writes:
The devil toaster was part of a story I did on supermarket tabloids. It also included an interview with a man saved from an icy lake by his Howdy Doody dummy, and an interview with a woman who had sex with aliens for several years. Here's the complete story.
Hold on to something.
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Search data released by Google following the UK's shock decision to leave the EU reveals an astonishing lack of political awareness among the British population.
According to Google, the second most popular EU-related question in the UK since the referendum result was announced in the early hours of this morning is "What is the EU?"
Other popular search terms include "What does it mean to leave the EU?", "Which countries are in the EU"?, "What will happen now we've left the EU?" and "How many countries are in the EU?".
The data paints a grim picture of an uninformed public that seems to have no idea what it just voted for.
Meanwhile, disappointed Bremainers are already considering leaving the UK all together. Google searches in the UK for "How to emigrate" have skyrocketed since the Brexit vote was announced.
Twitter user John Brennan was first to notice the trend, pointing out that there had been "quite a spike" in searches from the UK.
Those worried about their future in the UK after Brexit also seem to be seeking ways to remain EU citizens.
Google Trends published data showing a 100% spike in people using the search term "getting an Irish passport".
Google also saw spikes in searches for "Move to Ireland" and "How to move to France" and "How to leave UK".
Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play nowAfter years of secrecy and much speculation, Microsoft laid out its vision for the next-generation of games and entertainment yesterday during a media briefing in Redmond, Washington.
The company claimed the Xbox One will be an all-in-one device, capable of streaming live television, powering next-generation games, and connecting users with friends and family across the world with new video services like integrated Skype calling.
But for as much as Microsoft shared, the company also kept relatively quiet on numerous issues consumers might want more information about.
How much will it cost? Will it play used games? Do I need a constant Internet connection? Will it play Xbox 360 games? Because Kinect 2.0 is always-on, is it snooping on me?
GameSpot caught up with Microsoft Game Studios VP Phil Spencer to get a fuller understanding of the Xbox One feature-set. Below are highlights from our conversation.
Is the console always connected?
So the box was designed as a connected device. We thought about people's worlds today. Whether it's on their phone, their PC, their tablet, people are always connected. And their experiences with it, things like Twitter, Facebook, Skype, [they] rely on a connection to the outside world. We're seeing more and more of that in gaming as well. All that said, we understand sometimes you lose connection. There's certainly functionality that happens in the box that if you lose a connection [it] shouldn't stop whether I'm playing a movie, playing a single-player game. So if you lose your connection, the box will continue to perform and you will be able to watch your movie, play your single-player game. We wanted to build a fault-tolerant system. That said, a lot of experiences are multiplayer in nature. Obviously, your multiplayer experiences aren't going to work if your Internet goes down; Skype stops working, Netflix stops working if the Internet goes down.
I have to ask about used games. Will the box support used games and how is that model going to work?
So we'll talk about some of the 'how' at a later date, but I will say that we understand the importance of the secondary market. The secondary market was important in the current generation. We designed Xbox One understanding secondary market would be important in the new generation as well. We'll share more details, but people should know that it is a design criteria for us on the new box.
I think it was mentioned that all new games have to be installed.
Yes.
Is there any kind of DRM or anything that's happening where you're prevented from playing a game, a single-player game even maybe, if you're offline?
So one of the advantages in the Xbox One generation, the reason we're looking at installing and understanding which games are yours and you own, is the ability for your games to roam with you. And you can go to a box and the box knows which games you have and you can take those games with you and move around. I think that's a real strong component of the platform and it obviously requires some local version of the game because you don't have to carry your disc around with you, as you're kind of bringing your content with you. So I think it's going to unlock a lot of capability for the gamer, much like they walk around with their gamerscore and their Live ID.
Given that all games need to be installed, is a 500GB [hard drive]…that doesn't seem very big. I'm assuming some of the games are going to be pretty huge now coming on Blu-rays.
We did a lot of testing; we looked at the content that's being created today and what our roadmap looked like in terms of content creation. One thing I'd say about content today is you see content being delivered at many different levels. You have big, disc-based games that come out, but you also see games that start more service-related; where they come out small and they grow as the person builds their experience. Our math says that the 500 gigs will be a lot of storage space for the gamer in terms of how much game local data that they will save. Obviously, the game is yours, so if you were to delete something off the hard drive, you could obviously always re-install something if [you] ran into a situation where you were running out of space. But our math, when we look at the number of games that somebody usually owns and the content they consume, we think the hard drive will be a nice hard drive for people.
Do I get to bring [my XBLA games] with me [to the Xbox One]?
Those games will continue to run on your Xbox 360 for as long as your Xbox 360 runs. The box is not backward compatible and we think for somebody who invests in a large digital library that you want to keep your [Xbox 360]. Keep that as a vibrant part of the ecosystem. That's why we've made sure that your identity, your friends, are constant between both platforms. You don't have a separate identity on Xbox One or [Xbox 360]; it's the same, you are you. My friend's network is the same on both boxes, my achievements are the same. So we think that service component is an important component to keep constant across both devices.
So presumably you anticipate there being sort of a lot of support for the [Xbox 360] in terms of new XBLA releases and stuff…
I think the [Xbox 360] is going to be very vibrant for many years. In fact, we have a huge, I think it's huge, [Xbox 360] announcement for E3 that I keep wanting to talk about, but I can't. I think it will surprise people. I loved what we did with Minecraft; bring Minecraft to the box; six million units later it's kind of a beast. I think there's a lot of life in the [Xbox 360] for years to come.
Is the Xbox One being designed to support things like free-to-play games and maybe like episodic games and stuff like that?
We as a first-party think it's important that we push the boundaries of business models and delivery. We launched free-to-play games on console this fall (Happy Wars), and we've had some success there and we'll continue that flow of content. The business model, the content distribution is an evolution in gaming. People are playing games on all kinds of devices today; on phones, on tablets, on PCs, on consoles. And you see different kinds of business models; games that start small and kind of grow as a service and I think the Xbox One and its capabilities and the strength of Live on the backend will bring the television screen into that same capability that people see on their other devices.
Am I right in saying the Xbox One will only work when the Kinect is attached to it?
Yes.
I had a weird experience with my original Kinect where I was playing Fable II and I had no idea that my Kinect was doing anything at that time. And so I'm in the world; I see one of those little bubbles representing someone I know.
We call them Orbs (laughs).
And I start talking to my girlfriend who was with me at the time and I mention the guy who I'm seeing in the game and he comes out of the speakers and he can hear everything I'm saying because the Kinect is plugged in. Are there going to be options to kind of turn off all of this?
You definitely will have the software capability to turn off all the capabilities of Kinect. We want to put the gamer in control. And privacy. The box data information that collects is your data; it stays with you. You are in control of what you want to be collected. Game developers will obviously enable certain features and you'll be alerted when certain things are happening. Putting the gamer in control is really important.
With the new [Kinect], I had the demo earlier, and it seems like it's tracking an awful lot. While I'm playing a game, you're tracking my heart rate, my attention. Am I looking at the screen? Am I distracted? Am I smiling?
We should be careful in how we characterize those features. Those are features that are available to game developers. You think about emotion or where your head's looking; these are tools that a game designer can use in developing the game and creating more immersion. The amount of capabilities in Kinect has grown tremendously. But the data that it's collecting is really specific to the experience that you're in.
It seems like the kind of data that could be theoretically collected and then used to influence [future developers] for a sequel or something.
I won't just focus on Kinect because I think about how far somebody gets in a game, where the pinch-points are, where do people fail. All those analytic capabilities are really important to us in designing future iterations of games and finding out what people love. That capability to the developer is really important as they try to get better at their craft and make better experience. But we obviously want to put the gamer in control of what data gets shared.
The Xbox One launches later this year. Microsoft will ship 15 exclusive titles for the platform during its first 12 months. Eight of these games will be all-new franchises. For more, check out GameSpot's Xbox One news hub.Esporte Clube Bahia ( Portuguese pronunciation: [isˈpɔʁtʃi ˈklubi baˈi.ɐ]), known familiarly as Bahia, is a Brazilian professional football club, based in Salvador, Bahia. They play in the Campeonato Baiano, Bahia's state league, and the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A, Brazil's first tier league.
Bahia has won the Brasileirão title twice: in the 1959 season, defeating the Santos' Santásticos which contained figures such as Gilmar, Mauro, Mengálvio, Coutinho, Pepe and Pelé, in the finals and in the 1988 season Bahia edged Internacional. Bahia has only appeared in the Copa Libertadores three times, reaching the quarterfinals in 1989, Bahia's best-ever performance. The club has also won their state title a record 46 times.
The 2000s have seen the club win only four state titles. Bahia was demoted to the Série B in 2003 and demoted, for the first time ever, to the Série C in 2005, spending two seasons at the bottom of the Brazilian league system. In 2007, they were promoted back to the second level, and in 2010 the club found itself back in the Série A, after eight seasons. Bahia had played its home games with 66,080 people capacity Estádio Fonte Nova since 1951 but after a section of the stadium collapsed in 2007, the Tricolor played at the Estádio de Pituaçu. With the reopening of the Fonte Nova stadium in 2013 as the Arena Fonte Nova, a modern arena built for the 2014 FIFA World Cup, Bahia resumed playing its matches there. The club's home uniform consists of white shirts with blue shorts and red socks. It has a long-standing rivalry with the Vitória and matches between the two sides are known as Ba–Vi.
History [ edit ]
Early years and the first national title [ edit ]
The Esporte Clube Bahia was founded in 1931, when players from two clubs decided to merge. The Associação Atlética da Bahia and the Clube Bahiano de Tênis had decided to discontinue their football divisions. A few years later Bahia became the most popular team in the Northeast of Brazil.[citation needed]
In the club's first year, Bahia won the Torneio Inicio and Bahia State Championship. The first Bahia president was Waldemar Costa, a doctor. Bahia's crest is based on Corinthians'[citation needed]. Bahia's state flag, created by Raimundo Magalhães, was used in place of the São Paulo state flag.
The team was founded with the motto "Nasceu para Vencer" (Born to Win). Bahia won 44 State Championships, 18 more than the Vitória (their rival club), and was the first club to participate in Taça Libertadores da America in 1960.
Between 1959 and 1963, and in 1968, the club represented the state of Bahia in Taça Brasil (the precursor of the Brazilian Championship), winning the title in 1959 and finishing as runner-up in 1961 and 1963.
The 1980s and the second national title [ edit ]
The 1980s were the best in Bahia's history. Bahia won their second national title in 1988, finishing 5th in 1986 and 4th in 1990.
In 1989, Bahia won its second Brazilian Championship against the Internacional from Porto Alegre Bahia won the first leg in Salvador by 2–1. The second leg ended in an 0–0 tie in Porto Alegre at the Beira Rio Stadium. After these results Bahia won the Brasileirão, their second national title. The championship gave to Bahia the right to play Copa Libertadores for a third time. It was a shock for the southern press[citation needed] because Salvador is in the Northeast and the victory was over the Internacional, a team from southern Brazil, the region that has the highest Human Development Index in the country.
Dark years [ edit ]
In 1997, Bahia was relegated to the Série B for the first time in its history after a 0–0 draw against the Juventude at the Fonte Nova stadium. In 1999 Bahia was close to being promoted to the Série A again. Bahia had a very good season, but finished in 3rd place, which was not enough to see them promoted.
In 2000, due to bribery scandals involving clubs such as the São Paulo and the Internacional, the team returned to the Brazilian First Division, invited by the Clube dos 13, along with the Fluminense, which was made a scapegoat for the controversy and was nationally victimized by the media (see Copa João Havelange).
In 2002 the bank that had sponsored the team went bankrupt and the Bahia began a descent down the Brazilian football pyramid. After the title of the Northeast Cup in 2001 and 2002, Bahia performed poorly in 2003, and were relegated to the Série B for the second time in the club's history. In 2004, the team was close to getting promoted to the Série A again, finishing 4th. In order to be promoted, Bahia would have to win the final match against the Brasiliense, but the referee Paulo César de Oliveira was assigned to that match and many people[who?] say he was all but fair on that day. In 2005, the club again competed in the Série B, finishing in 18th place, and was relegated to the Série C for the first time in the club's history.
Fênix tricolor (tricolored phoenix) [ edit ]
Bahia finished 2007 among the first four teams of the Third Division, and were promoted to the Second Division for the 2008 season. The Bahia began strongly, but in the last game of the 3rd stage of the Série C against the already-eliminated Fast Club, Bahia needed a win to advance to the final. The victory came in the last minute of the game with a goal scored by Charles. In the final, the team finished the third division in 2nd place, only losing the title in the final round.[citation needed] This moment is called the "Fênix Tricolor" amongst Bahia fans.[citation needed] The phoenix represents Bahia rising from the ashes.
Despite playing in the Third Division of Brazilian football in 2007, Bahia had the largest average attendance in Brazil: 40,400 people per match.[citation needed] No club in the Third, the Second, or even the First Division was able to match it.[citation needed] However, this is not unusual for Bahia, having also achieved the biggest average attendance in Brazil in 2004 (Second Division), 1988 (First Division), 1986 (First Division), and 1985 (First Division).[citation needed]
Recent years [ edit ]
From 2010 to 2014 Bahia remained in the first division. In 2014 they were relegated to the second division again, but came back in 2016. In 2017 they are playing in the first division. After 22 years out of international competition, Bahia returned in 2012 when they qualified for the Copa Sul-americana. In addition, they have won the 2012, 2014 and 2015 Bahia State Championship and the Northeast Cup in 2017.
In February 2018 the intense rivalry between Bahia and Esporte Clube Vitória drew international attention when ten players (five from each team) were shown the red card in a State Championship match.[2]
Symbols [ edit ]
Bahia's colors are blue, red, and white. The blue color pays homage to the Associação Atlética da Bahia; white, to the Clube Baiano de Tênis; and red for the Bahia state flag. The club's mascot is called Super-Homem Tricolor (Tricolor Superman) and was inspired by the DC Comics character. The mascot was created by the famous cartoonist Ziraldo based on the expression "Esquadrão de Aço" (Steel Squad), and wears a costume very similar to the original Superman's costume, which shares the team's colors.
Stadium [ edit ]
Bahia played at the Fonte Nova stadium from its inauguration in 1951 until November 2007. During the game against the Vila Nova (during Bahia's promotion campaign) a part of the stadium collapsed. Seven people died and more than 30 were injured.
After that episode, the state government declared that the stadium would be demolished. A new stadium was built on the site for the 2014 FIFA World Cup.
Some notable games at the Fonte Nova:
In April, the Bahia were back to the Arena Fonte Nova
Honors [ edit ]
Only senior titles are listed below.
National [ edit ]
Winners (2): 1959, 1988 Runners-up (2): 1961, 1963
Regional [ edit ]
Winners (3): 2001, 2002, 2017 Runners-up (4): 1997, 1999, 2015, 2018
Winners (3): 1959, 1961, 1963 Runners-up (3): 1960, 1962, 1968
Winners (1): 1948
Winners (47): 1931, 1933, 1934, 1936, 1938,[3] 1940, 1944, 1945, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1952, 1954, 1956, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1967, 1970, 1971, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1991, 1993, 1994, 1998, 1999,[4] 2001, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2018 Runners-up (19): 1941, 1955, 1957, 1963, 1964, 1969, 1972, 1985, 1989, 1992, 1997, 2000, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2013
Winners (3): 2000, 2002, 2007 Runners-up (2): 2004, 2006
Winners (9): 1931, 1932, 1934, 1937, 1938, 1951, 1964, 1967, 1979
U-20
Winners (16): 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2010, 2014
Friendly tournaments [ edit ]
Winners (1): 1997
Winners (1): 1998
Winners (3): 1953, 1954, 1955
Winners (2): 1993, 1994
Winners (2): 2001, 2002
Winners (1): 2011
Current squad [ edit ]
First team [ edit ]
As of 11 February 2019
Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
No. Position Player No. Position Player
Reserve team [ edit ]
Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
No. Position Player No. Position Player
Out on loan [ edit ]
Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
No. Position Player No. Position Player
Managers [ edit ]Removing reference to earlier lawsuit at the end. Yelp says it was no longer a defendant when that case was settled.
Two law firms filed a class-action lawsuit on Tuesday against Yelp, the Web site that lets users post reviews and recommendations for small businesses and restaurants. The lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Los Angeles, alleges unfair business practices and accuses Yelp of running an “extortion scheme.”
The suit claims that Yelp’s employees “call businesses demanding monthly payments, in the guise of ‘advertising contracts,’ in exchange for removing or modifying negative reviews appearing on the Web site.”
The suit was filed on behalf of a veterinary hospital in Long Beach, Calif., who asked Yelp to remove what it called a “false and defamatory review” from its site. The lawsuit says Yelp refused and instead demanded “roughly $300 per month” in exchange for Yelp hiding or completely removing the review in question. The filing of the suit was first reported by TechCrunch.
Vince Sollitto, Yelp’s vice president of communications, would not comment but provided this statement:
Yelp provides a valuable service to millions of consumers and businesses based on our trusted content. The allegations are demonstrably false, since many businesses that advertise on Yelp have both negative and positive reviews. These businesses realize that both kinds of feedback provide authenticity and value. Running a good business is hard; filing a lawsuit is easy. While we haven’t seen the suit in question, we will dispute it aggressively.
As we have reported, this is not the first time Yelp has received its own negative reviews. The company has heard complaints from small-business owners claiming that some reviews are unfair or inaccurate.CNN Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson and his crew were detained Friday in Tajura, Libya, east of Tripoli by forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. This is his account.
For a few moments today, for us personally, Libya’s lies and deceit were swept aside and the real deal was brutally exposed.
“Itla, itla” - "Get in the car, get in the car!" - he was screaming. My cameraman, Khalil Abdallah, and I hesitated for a split-second. But that's all it was.
We were staring down the barrel of an AK-47, the weapon was jumping in his hands. He was cocking it, wrenching the handle back, a bullet being slammed into the firing chamber.
It was only a split-second.
We are free to go anywhere, any time, talk to who we want, when we want. That's what Moammar Gadhafi’s son told me, that's what Libya told the U.N. We already knew it was all lies - look at any number of our colleagues, arrested, detained, in some cases, beaten - but today it came home to us personally.
The hyper-aggressive jerk with the gun had just hit the jackpot.
There was him and three others. They were grabbing us, bundling us towards their pickup truck. He had a pistol in his belt, one of the others kept his AK trained on us too, and an older guy with the grey beard was speed-dialing his phone.
These are Gadhafi’s enforcers. They were looking for us.`
As Khalil and I were pushed through the car doors, clambering over the body armor these thugs had strewn over the seats, I could see the rest of our team try to drive away.
We got to Tajura in a random taxi that had picked us up as we walked down a street. Now it was the best hope producer Tommy Evans had to get away and report our detention.
But it was too late. They'd been spotted, blocked, and stopped, and as I watched, Tommy was forced out of the car, kicked by another thug who already had his AK pointed at Tommy’s face.
Another member of this plainclothes security force pulled open our car door, started rifling through my pockets. Patting me down about as aggressively as he could. There was nothing we could do.
They were demanding our phones, asking where was our camera.
They'd only just got hold of us. This was no accidental arrest, no fortunate stumbling across a news team. They had planned this all along.
We were trying to cover Friday prayers on the same streets where last week police attacked protesters firing tear gas and live rounds. Now it was clear they were out in force.
The questions began. "Where are you from? Where are you from?" It seemed they didn’t quite know what to do with us.
"We are going to cuff you and we are going to throw you out of the country," the angry thug with the AK and pistol was shouting at us. Then the guy on the phone got orders. The press office would pick us up.
They'd known all along who to call - the government officials who'd invited us to the country. We parked by the roadside. No chance to call CNN head office; they had our phones now.
But much worse, they were bringing the innocent taxi driver with us. He'd done nothing more than give us a ride. He had no idea he might get in to trouble. The poor fellow looked increasingly nervous.
Not much younger than me, he probably has a family waiting for him. We felt terrible for him. But there was nothing we could do to protect him. Our camera was on |
here, it seems dangerously counterproductive. What if Americans changed the way they talk about race? What if white people tried to confront their own shortcomings, and accepted that the default presumption should probably be "implicitly racist"?
Maybe then, whites would start to work harder, collectively and individually, to show their alliance with (and acceptance of) people of color — through their words, their actions, and their deeds.
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After all, wouldn't it be better to live in a world where white people made a constant, concerted effort to overcome implicit racism? Particularly when it lurks within themselves.Two hundred and fifty years ago, the entire Atlantic coast from Maine to the Florida border was British soil. Then, of course, a hard-fought revolutionary war founded a new nation and sent tens of thousands of "redcoats" packing for home. But there's one spot on the Atlantic coast that still honors a heroic group of British servicemen—and, despite the events of Saratoga and Yorktown, it's still a tiny island of British soil, even though it's surrounded on all sides by rural North Carolina.
The Outer Banks are full of ghosts from the Battle of the Atlantic.
Today the barrier islands of the Outer Banks are a quiet and picturesque backdrop for beachcombing vacationers. It's hard to believe that just seventy years ago, the sea here was a naval graveyard. From 1942 to 1945, German U-boats lurked off the Carolinas, sinking more than 400 ships and killing 5,000 sailors in an offensive that German sailors called the "Great American Turkey Shoot." No wonder Allied vessels who braved the Outer Banks called it "Torpedo Alley."
Five British soldiers never made it home.
Because the U.S. had no anti-submarine patrol, the British Royal Navy sent 24 ships to safeguard shipping along the eastern seaboard. On May 12, 1942, the HMS Bedfordshire was struck by a German torpedo and went down with all hands. Citizens of Ocracoke, the tiny Outer Banks island where Blackbeard the pirate had died in 1718, buried four British sailors whose bodies had washed ashore. Over on neighboring Hatteras Island, locals had quietly buried a British sailor from the SS San Delfino near the Buxton Lighthouse the month before. A fifth Bedfordshire crewman was laid to rest by his side when his body was discovered a few days later.
Every year, the Queen sends a new flag to fly over Ocracoke.
After the war, Britain's Commonwealth War Graves Commission began building cemeteries for the country's war dead who had fallen overseas, eventually erecting over 350,000 new headstones in continental Europe and around the world. The two makeshift burial plots in North Carolina were leased in perpetuity to the War Graves Commission, making them, for all intents and purposes, British soil. A huge Union Jack still waves there proudly.
A white picket fence surrounds 0.052 acres of England.
The cemetery on Ocracoke Island is maintained by the U.S. Coast Guard, while the National Park Service tends the one on Hatteras. Every May 12, the sinking of the Bedfordshire is commemorated with a solemn graveside ceremony. Royal Navy sailors lay wreaths on the graves, while local villagers read the names of the dead in the distinctly Gaelic-derived brogue of Ocracoke Island. A bugle call of "Taps" is followed by a 21-gun salute. Visitors might recall Rupert Brooke's words in in his famous 1914 poem "The Soldier": "There's some corner of a foreign field that is for ever England."
Explore the world's oddities every week with Ken Jennings, and check out his book Maphead for more geography trivia.The recent agreement in Geneva between the world's major powers and Iran over its nuclear programme is a bitter pill that Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has spent much of the past week choking on.
For much of the past decade, Netanyahu has been leading the chorus of doom about Iran, warning of the imminent threat posed by its supposed pursuit of a nuclear bomb.
Seven years ago, as leader of the opposition, Netanyahu issued one of his characteristic warnings: "It's 1938 and Iran is Germany. And Iran is racing to arm itself with atomic bombs." The leadership in Tehran, he added, was "preparing another Holocaust for the Jewish state".
Despite the available intelligence, almost all politicians in Israel publicly share the assumption that Iran is close to secretly building a nuclear warhead, with many further claiming that Tehran's first priority will be to destroy Israel. More generally, an Iranian bomb is seen as a threat to Israel's nuclear monopoly in the Middle East, and likely to give Iran much greater influence both in the region and in Washington.
There is also the fear that an Iranian bomb might push Arab states to pursue their own nuclear arsenals, further eroding what Israel calls its "qualitative military edge". It emerged this month that Saudi Arabia has been in talks with Pakistan about acquiring a nuclear weapon.
'Existential' interests
Netanyahu has therefore been able to cast himself as the defender-in-chief of the Israeli interests that he describes as "existential". He, more than anyone else, has dared to risk souring relations with the White House over the issue. The prime minister is also reported to have seriously considered a go-it-alone military strike against Iran, but was prevented by vehement opposition from most of Israel's military and security leadership.
So when news of the deal emerged, secured in large part through months of back-channel negotiations that Israel knew nothing about, Netanyahu could barely contain his anger. He labelled the deal, which mildly eases the current sanctions in return for concessions from Iran on its uranium enrichment programme and increased international oversight, as a "historic mistake".
"Today the world has become a much more dangerous place because the most dangerous regime in the world has taken a significant step toward attaining the most dangerous weapon in the world," he said. This interpretation has been widely echoed by Israeli pundits and commentators, many of whom have adopted the analogy of the appeasement of Hitler by Western leaders at Munich in 1938.
Senior government ministers went on the offensive too. Naftali Bennett, the economy minister and leader of the right-wing, pro-settler Jewish Home party, warned US television viewers that the agreement was a prelude to "a nuclear suitcase" blowing up in New York and Madrid within five years.
Avigdor Lieberman, the far-right foreign minister, joined the prime minister in condemning the deal and hinting that Israeli military action was still possible. "We have to be serious enough to take responsibility for our fate," he said. "As always, all options are on the table."
Coming to terms?
But there are already strong signs that Netanyahu and his ministers are rethinking their initial, confrontational stance towards the US. Yossi Alpher, a former adviser to Ehud Barak, who was until recently Netanyahu's defence minister and shared his hawkish policy on Iran, said Netanyahu was showing signs that he was coming to terms with the outcome in Geneva.
[Netanyahu] is trying to explain that the deal reached in Geneva, however bad, is much better from Israel's point of view than the one nearly agreed a short time earlier. - Yossi Alpher, former adviser to Ehud Barak
The six-month interim agreement between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany - the so-called P5+1 - is a "done deal", said Alpher. "Netanyahu has nothing to gain now by frowning and sounding off angrily at the Americans. He will just create an unnecessary confrontation. He is too clever for that. I expect him now to spin the agreement his way."
Furthermore, Netanyahu is again reported to be facing opposition behind the scenes from his military and security advisers. Although most of them believe Iran poses a threat to Israel, they are reported to be against any unilateral action, especially if it runs counter to US wishes.
Amos Yadlin, a former head of military intelligence, urged Israelis not be taken in by the general mood of gloom. "If this were the final agreement, then it would really be a bad agreement, but that's not the situation."
Similarly, Giora Eiland, a former national security adviser, recently told the New York Times: "Netanyahu speaks only about a good deal. The Americans are speaking about a reasonable deal, which is better than having no deal at all."
According to Alpher, Netanyahu is already making clear the two main ways in which he will try to turn the agreement to his advantage, thereby avoiding damage to his image with the Israeli public and the international community. "He is trying to explain that the deal reached in Geneva, however bad, is much better from Israel's point of view than the one nearly agreed a short time earlier. He can then take the credit for that.
'Israel intends to be a player'
"And he needs to prepare for the next round of talks in six months' time to ensure Israel's position is well-represented. At the same time, he can ready his ammunition to tell the world 'I told you so' if the deal unravels."
Indications emerged this week that Netanyahu was softening his tone, following a telephone conversation with US President Barack Obama on Sunday. British Foreign Minister William Hague conveyed the sense of that conversation, when he suggested that Netanyahu had been warned not to take "any steps that would undermine this agreement".
The next day the Israeli prime minister announced he was sending a team, headed by his national security adviser, Yossi Cohen, to meet with US counterparts to discuss the nature of a future permanent agreement. Similar meetings are due to take place in the next few weeks with Britain, France and Germany.
An official close to Netanyahu told the Jerusalem Post newspaper bluntly: "Israel intends to be a player." A leading Israeli columnist has termed the period before the permanent agreement Israel's "six-month war".
According to observers, much of that effort will concentrate on using intelligence - real or otherwise - to suggest Iran is not complying with the agreement, allowing Netanyahu to emerge vindicated.
What most Israeli observers agree on is that Netanyahu will not launch a military attack to try to sabotage the deal. Amos Harel, the military correspondent for the Haaretz newspaper, said: "As long as there is such sweeping international support for the interim agreement, bombing Iran's nuclear facilities would be political and diplomatic suicide."
Pressuring Congress
Less clear is whether Netanyahu will use Israel's hawkish political lobby in Washington, led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), to arm-twist Congress into a confrontation with Obama when legislators return next week from their Thanksgiving break. Alpher said he believed Netanyahu would not risk "further battering US-Israel relations", though he conceded this might be "wishful thinking".
Uri Savir, a former Israeli diplomat and the director of the Peres Centre for Peace, agreed, saying that further erosion of relations with Washington, Israel's main patron, would be "more dangerous than anything that Iran can threaten us with".
Despite these warnings, AIPAC published a memo in the wake of the agreement that called for Congress to "legislate additional sanctions". However, AIPAC appears only to be demanding the threat of extra sanctions as a stick to extract further concessions from Iran, and possibly from the White House, when negotiations on a final agreement begin next year.
In a sign of US efforts to maintain common ground with Israel on Iran, Time magazine reported on Thursday that the two countries would stage a large joint military exercise in May as the interim agreement expires.
"The strategic decision is to continue to make noise," an unnamed high-ranking Israeli officer was quoted as saying. "[The exercise is] going to be big. … It will send signals both to Israel and to the Iranians that we are maintaining our capabilities in the military option. The atmosphere is we have to do it big time, we have to do a big show of capabilities and connections."
US Secretary of State John Kerry is due in Israel next week, reportedly to smooth relations and further cooperation between the two countries.
Fear of a 'break-out state'
The Israeli media have reported that Netanyahu's most pressing concern now is to ensure that a permanent agreement forces the Iranians to renounce their rights under the Non-Proliferation Treaty to any nuclear programme, including their current civilian one. Israel claims that any nuclear capability would give Tehran the ability to become what it terms a "break-out state", with the potential to quickly convert its nuclear energy programme into a military one.
Netanyahu told his Likud party this week that a future accord "must bring about one outcome: the dismantling of Iran's military nuclear capability."
Israel is said to want Iran to destroy all its existing centrifuges, transfer its stockpiles of enriched uranium out of the country, close the uranium enrichment facility at Fordow and stop work on the heavy-water reactor at Arak. This differs from the US position, which so far has been committed to allowing Iran a limited uranium enrichment programme.
One final question posed by the interim agreement is how it could affect Israel's other great point of contention with the White House: the current peace talks with the Palestinians. Here opinion is divided. Harel believes Obama's success on the Iranian and Syrian fronts could embolden it to tackle the issue of a Palestinian state, either putting pressure on Israel to make concessions or imposing its own solution.
But Daoud Kuttab, a Palestinian analyst, believes the US clash with Israel over Iran might push it in a different direction. "Coming out of the current public confrontation, the last thing that the White House might want is another war of words with Israel. This line of thinking might mean that the United States will try to make it up to Israel."Damon Albarn opens up about what he's been listening to
While we await for the return of Gorillaz, Damon Albarn has dropped a huge hint about a pretty massive band that may have influenced the upcoming new album from the 'Clint Eastwood' and Feelgood Inc' stars.
Albarn was appearing at yesterday's Ivor Novello Awards where he picked up the lifetime achievement award for his work with Blur, Gorillaz, The Good, The Bad & The Queen, as well as his myriad of soundtrack and other work.
Given a beautiful introduction from friend and bandmate Graham Coxon, we went along to hear his acceptance speech, where he spoke out about his love of Simple Minds - and how they may be shaping the new Gorillaz record.
"Where do I start? Well, Simple Minds - fucking hell," he said, gesturing towards the band who were in attendance to pick up the Ivor for Outstanding Song Collection. "Our first band was called Real Lives. Not a particularly memorable title, but our first gig was in a school assembly. We didn't go to a great school, well it was a great school for our musical education, but it wasn't necessarily one of the most open-minded parts of the country in the early 80s. From someone who grew up in Leytonstone, it was a culture shock to say the least."
He continued: "Anyway, we were in this band and we had a guitarist who was an Edge from U2 obsessive, but we had a more kind of loose bass player who was really Simple Minds. Graham and me were a bit kind of more mercurial about what we like and what we don't like, but they were more adamant.
"Looking back at it now, I loved pretending that I was in U2, but I just think that Simple Minds were cooler. 'Promised You A Miracle' - I listened to it when I started doing this new Gorillaz record and it just blew my mind, and it blew everyone who I was working with's mind. They hadn't even heard of Simple Minds, and they loved it - so that's testament to it being incredible."
Gorillaz have been sharing many teaser images and videos from the studio, with the likes of David Bowie and Noel Gallagher rumoured among the acts set to appear on the record.Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann has made headlines today as the first potential Republican nominee to sign the “Marriage Vow” — a pledge written by Bob Vander Plaat and The Family Leader, a conservative anti-gay, anti-choice group in Iowa.
Most of the noise about Bachmann’s vow has surrounded around its demand that pornography be banned, that same sex marriage be eradicated, that most government programs that help the low income be ended and that abortion and “infanticide” be outlawed. In fact, the pledge even goes as far as to opine that African American children were actually better off under slavery than they are today, since at least when they were slaves more of them were raised in a household by both their mothers and their fathers (Except of course when they were sold from their families. Or when their “fathers” were actually their owners.).
But something that appears to be getting less notice and is quite disturbing is this statement:
“Recognition that robust childbearing and reproduction is beneficial to US demographic, economic strategic and actuarial health and security.”
“Robust childbearing?” I wasn’t the only one who recognized what that code meant. So did a former member of the “Quiverful” movement.
“Robust childbearing and reproduction” is code for the likes of the Quiverful Movement. I was part of a Quiver… a ridiculously large family… before Quivers were cool. Having many, many children is all fine and dandy if the woman wants this. But in this context it is a form of COERCION as a result of legalistic, Biblical brainwashing. Many women suffer physical, emotional and spiritual abuse to their bodies and minds as a result of “robust childbearing.” Within the context of this document, “The Family Leaders” seem to be blind to the fact that they are more concerned about the health of the U.S. by way of “robust childbearing” than the health of the woman… and this is a form of ANTI-WOMAN TOTALITARIAN CONTROL.
We’ve been watching Republicans take away birth control subsidies allegedly to “defund abortion” but in actuality because they believe all sex should at least have the possibility of resulting in offspring. And we’ve heard Rick Santorum bemoan that Social Security is in crisis because too many potential payers were “aborted” out of the system.
A large faction of the GOP wants all women to be having babies, all of the time. And they aren’t the fringe anymore — now they are being called the “kingmakers.” They are picking people to lead the country, and lead it in their biblical worldview.
And Michele Bachmann just pledged to do exactly that.
Photo credit: fibonacciblueThe interesting question is not whether Twitter is censoring its Trends list. The interesting question is, what do we think the Trends list is, what it represents and how it works, that we can presume to hold it accountable when we think it is “wrong?” What are these algorithms, and what do we want them to be?
(Cross posted from Culture Digitally.)
It’s not the first time it has been asked. Gilad Lotan at SocialFlow (and erstwhile Microsoft UX designer), spurred by questions raised by participants and supporters of the Occupy Wall Street protests, asks the question: is Twitter censoring its Trends list to exclude #occupywallstreet and #occupyboston? While the protest movement gains traction and media coverage, and participants, observers and critics turn to Twitter to discuss it, why are these widely-known hashtags not Trending? Why are they not Trending in the very cities where protests have occurred, including New York?
The presumption, though Gilad carefully debunks it, is that Twitter is, for some reason, either removing #occupywallstreet from Trends, or has designed an algorithm to prefer banal topics like Kim Kardashian’s wedding over important contentious, political debates. Similar charges emerged around the absence of #wikileaks from Twitter’s Trends when the trove of diplomatic cables were released in December of last year, as well as around the #demo2010 student protests in the UK, the controversial execution of #TroyDavis in the state of Georgia, the Gaza #flotilla, even the death of #SteveJobs. Why, when these important points of discussion seem to spike, do they not Trend?
Despite an unshakeable undercurrent of paranoid skepticism, in the analyses and especially in the comment threads that trail off from them, most of those who have looked at the issue are reassured that Twitter is not in fact censoring these topics. Their absence on the Trends listings is a product of the particular dynamics of the algorithm that determines Trends, and the misunderstanding most users have about what exactly the Trends algorithm is designed to identify. I do not disagree with this assessment, and have no particular interest in reopening these questions. Along with Gilad’s thorough analysis, Angus Johnston has a series of posts (1, 2, 3, and 4) debunking the charge of censorship around #wikileaks. Trends has been designed (and re-designed) by Twitter not to simply measure popularity, i.e. the sheer quantity of posts using a certain word or hashtag. Instead, Twitter designed the Trends algorithm to capture topics that are enjoying a surge in popularity, rising distinctly above the normal level of chatter. To do this, their algorithm is designed to take into account not just the number of tweets, but factors such as: is the term accelerating in its use? Has it trended before? Is it being used across several networks of people, as opposed to a single, densely-interconnected cluster of users? Are the tweets different, or are they largely re-tweets of the same post? As Twitter representatives have said, they don’t want simply the most tweeted word (in which case the Trend list might read like a grammar assignment about pronouns and indefinite articles) or the topics that are always popular and seem destined to remain so (apparently this means Justin Bieber).
The charge of censorship is, on the face of it, counterintuitive. Twitter has, over the last few years, enjoyed and agreed with claims that has played a catalytic role in recent political and civil unrest, particularly in the Arab world, wearing its political importance as a red badge of courage (see Shepherd and Busch). To censor these hot button political topics from Trends would work against their current self-proclaimed purposes and, more importantly, its marketing tactics. And, as Johnston noted, the tweets themselves are available, many highly charged – so why, and for what ends, remove #wikileaks or #occupywallstreet from the Trends list, yet let the actual discussion of these topics run free?
On the other hand, the vigor and persistence of the charge of censorship is not surprising at all. Advocates of these political efforts want desperately for their topic to gain visibility. Those involved in the discussion likely have an exaggerated sense of how important and widely-discussed it is. And, especially with #wikileaks and #occupywallstreet, the possibility that Twitter may be censoring their efforts would fit their supporters’ ideological worldview: Twitter might be working against Wikileaks just as Amazon, Paypal, and Mastercard were; or in the case of #occupywallstreet, while the Twitter network supports the voice of the people, Twitter the corporation of course must have allegiances firmly intertwined with the fatcats of Wall Street.
But the debate about tools like Twitter Trends is, I believe, a debate we will be having more and more often. As more and more of our online public discourse takes place on a select set of private content platforms and communication networks, and these providers turn to complex algorithms to manage, curate, and organize these massive collections, there is an important tension emerging between what we expect these algorithms to be, and what they in fact are. Not only must we recognize that these algorithms are not neutral, and that they encode political choices, and that they frame information in a particular way. We must also understand what it means that we are coming to rely on these algorithms, that we want them to be neutral, we want them to be reliable, we want them to be the effective ways in which we come to know what is most important.
Twitter Trends is only the most visible of these tools. The search engine itself, whether Google or the search bar on your favorite content site (often the same engine, under the hood), is an algorithm that promises to provide a logical set of results in response to a query, but is in fact the result of an algorithm designed to take a range of criteria into account so as to serve up results that satisfy, not just the user, but the aims of the provider, their vision of relevance or newsworthiness or public import, and the particular demands of their business model. As James Grimmelmann observed, “Search engines pride themselves on being automated, except when they aren’t.” When Amazon, or YouTube, or Facebook, offer to algorithmically and in real time report on what is “most popular” or “liked” or “most viewed” or “best selling” or “most commented” or “highest rated,” it is curating a list whose legitimacy is based on the presumption that it has not been curated. And we want them to feel that way, even to the point that we are unwilling to ask about the choices and implications of the algorithms we use every day.
Peel back the algorithms, and this becomes quite apparent. Yes, a casual visit to Twitter’s home page may present Trends as an unproblematic list of terms, that might appear a simple calculation. But a cursory look at Twitter’s explanation of how Trends works – in its policies and help pages, in its company blog, in tweets, in response to press queries, even in the comment threads of the censorship discussions – Twitter lays bare the variety of weighted factors Trends takes into account, and cops to the occasional and unfortunate consequences of these algorithms. Wikileaks may not have trended when people expected it to because it had before; because the discussion of #wikileaks grew too slowly and consistently over time to have spiked enough to draw the algorithm’s attention; because the bulk of messages were retweets; or because the users tweeting about Wikileaks were already densely interconnected. When Twitter changed their algorithm significantly in May 2010 (though, undoubtedly, it has been tweaked in less noticeable ways before and after), they announced the change in their blog, explained why it was made – and even apologized directly to Justin Bieber, whose position in the Trends list would be diminished by the change. In response to charges of censorship, they have explained why they believe Trends should privilege terms that spike, terms that exceed single clusters of interconnected users, new content over retweets, new terms over already trending ones. Critics gather anecdotal evidence and conduct thorough statistical analysis, using available online tools that track the raw popularity of words in a vastly more exhaustive and catholic way than Twitter does, or at least is willing to make available to its users. The algorithms that define what is “trending” or what is “hot” or what is “most popular” are not simple measures, they are carefully designed to capture something the site providers want to capture, and to weed out the inevitable “mistakes” a simple calculation would make.
At the same time, Twitter most certainly does curate its Trends lists. It engages in traditional censorship: for example, a Twitter engineer acknowledges here that Trends excludes profanity, something that’s obvious from the relatively circuitous path that prurient attempts to push dirty words onto the Trends list must take. Twitter will remove tweets that constitute specific threats of violence, copyright or trademark violations, impersonation of others, revelations of others’ private information, or spam. (Twitter has even been criticized (1, 2) for not removing some terms from Trends, as in this user’s complaint that #reasonstobeatyourgirlfriend was permitted to appear.) Twitter also engages in softer forms of governance, by designing the algorithm so as to privilege some kinds of content and exclude others, and some users and not others. Twitter offers rules, guidelines, and suggestions for proper tweeting, in the hopes of gently moving users towards the kinds of topics that suit their site and away from the kinds of content that, were it to trend, might reflect badly on the site. For some of their rules for proper profile content, tweet content, and hashtag use, the punishment imposed on violators is that their tweets will not factor into search or Trends – thereby culling the Trends lists by culling what content is even in consideration for it. Twitter includes terms in its Trends from promotional partners, terms that were not spiking in popularity otherwise. This list, automatically calculated on the fly, is yet also the result of careful curation to decide what it should represent, what counts as “trend-ness.”
Ironically, terms like #wikileaks and #occupywallstreet are exactly the kinds of terms that, from a reasonable perspective, Twitter should want to show up as Trends. If we take the reasonable position that Twitter is benefiting from its role in the democratic uprisings of recent years, and that it is pitching itself as a vital tool for important political discussion, and that it wants to highlight terms that will support that vision and draw users to topics that strike them as relevant, #occupywallstreet seems to fit the bill. So despite carefully designing their algorithm away from the perennials of Bieber and the weeds of common language, it still cannot always successfully pluck out the vital public discussion it might want. In this, Twitter is in agreement with its critics; perhaps #wikileaks should have trended after the diplomatic cables were released. These algorithms are not perfect; they are still cudgels, where one might want scalpels. The Trends list can often look, in fact, like a study in insignificance. Not only are the interests of a few often precisely irrelevant to the rest of us, but much of what we talk about on Twitter every day is in fact quite everyday, despite their most heroic claims of political import. But, many Twitter users take it to be not just a measure of visibility but a means of visibility – whether or not the appearance of a term or #hashtag increases audience, which is not in fact clear. Trends offers to propel a topic towards greater attention, and offers proof of the attention already being paid. Or seems to.
Of course, Twitter has in its hands the biggest resource by which to improve their tool, a massive and interested user base. One could imagine “crowdsourcing” this problem, asking users to rate the quality of the Trends lists, and assessing these responses over time and a huge number of data points. But they face a dilemma: revealing the workings of their algorithm, even enough to respond to charges of censorship and manipulation, much less to share the task of improving it, risks helping those who would game the system. Everyone from spammers to political activist to 4chan tricksters to narcissists might want to “optimize” their tweets and hashtags so as to show up in the Trends. So the mechanism underneath this tool, that is meant to present a (quasi) democratic assessment of what the public finds important right now, cannot reveals its own “secret sauce.”
Which in some ways leaves us, and Twitter, in an unresolvable quandary. The algorithmic gloss of our aggregate social data practices can always be read/misread as censorship, if the results do not match what someone expects. If #occupywallstreet is not trending, does that mean (a) it is being purposefully censored? (b) it is very popular but consistently so, not a spike? (c) it is actually less popular than one might think? Broad scrapes of huge data, like Twitter Trends, are in some ways meant to show us what we know to be true, and to show us what we are unable to perceive as true because of our limited scope. And we can never really tell which it is showing us, or failing to show us. We remain trapped in an algorithmic regress, and not even Twitter can help, as it can’t risk revealing the criteria it used.
But what is most important here is not the consequences of algorithms, it is our emerging and powerful faith in them. Trends measures “trends,” a phenomena Twitter gets to define and build into its algorithm. But we are invited to treat Trends as a reasonable measure of popularity and importance, a “trend” in our understanding of the term. And we want it to be so. We want Trends to be an impartial arbiter of what’s relevant… and we want our pet topic, the one it seems certain that “everyone” is (or should be) talking about, to be duly noted by this objective measure specifically designed to do so. We want Twitter to be “right” about what is important… and sometimes we kinda want them to be wrong, deliberately wrong – because that will also fit our worldview: that when the facts are misrepresented, it’s because someone did so deliberately, not because facts are in many ways the product of how they’re manufactured.
We don’t have a sufficient vocabulary for assessing the algorithmic intervention a tool like Trends. We’re not good at comprehending the complexity required to make a tool like Trends – that seems to effortlessly identify what’s going on, that isn’t swamped by the mundane or the irrelevant. We don’t have a language for the unexpected associations algorithms make, beyond the intention (or even comprehension) of their designers. We don’t have a clear sense of how to talk about the politics of this algorithm. If Trends, as designed, does leave #occupywallstreet off the list, even when its use is surging and even when some people think it should be there: is that the algorithm correctly assessing what is happening? Is it looking for the wrong things? Has it been turned from its proper ends by interested parties? Too often, maybe in nearly every instance in which we use these platforms, we fail to ask these questions. We equate the “hot” list with our understanding of what is popular, the “trends” list with what matters. Most importantly, we may be unwilling or unable to recognize our growing dependence on these algorithmic tools, as our means of navigating the huge corpuses of data that we must, because we want so badly for these tools to perform a simple, neutral calculus, without blurry edges, without human intervention, without having to be tweaked to get it “right,” without being shaped by the interests of their providers.MSNBC is reporting that five congressional representatives have been arrested outside the Sudanese Embassy after headling a Darfur protest. Those arrested were: Donna Edwards (D-MD), James McGovern (D-MA), Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), Keith Ellison (D-MN) and John Lewis (D-GA). They were bound with zip-tie handcuffs and driven away in a large white van.
Update: From the Washington Post:
Eight activists protesting the expulsion of aid groups in Darfur have been arrested in front of the Sudanese Embassy in Washington.
Humanitarian leaders and U.S. lawmakers, including Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison and Maryland Rep. Donna Edwards, were led away from the embassy in handcuffs Monday after crossing a police line.
The activists are urging world leaders to take a stand against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir's decision to expel 16 aid agencies from Darfur.
Ellison says it is wrong to deny aid to what he calls "the most vulnerable people on our planet."
The United Nations says up to 300,000 people have died in Darfur, where ethnic African rebel groups have been fighting the Arab-dominated national government for six years.Photo by A. Jesse Jiryu Davis. Photo by A. Jesse Jiryu Davis.
Prayer is alive and well in Western Zen, says Jan Chozen Bays, even as it challenges us to make sense of what we’re doing.
Do Zen Buddhists Pray? This question was raised recently among Zen teachers online when someone in a drought-affected area requested that others join in a collective effort “beseeching the blessing of rain in any way that speaks to you.” The ensuing online conversation made it clear that there is no “party line” regarding prayer. One teacher called prayer “wellmeaning superstition,” akin to rubbing crystals or sacrificing goats; however, the same person later confessed to praying hard when his child was critically ill. Another teacher worried that if we pray for a resource like rain to fall in one dry area, we might effectively be asking for the rain to be diverted from another area. It turns out that’s not the case, but it would entail more water evaporating from oceans and lakes, which could then result in violent storms and flooding. Cause and effect are complicated. A scientist whom I consulted on the question advised, “Be careful what you pray for.”
Many teachers answered that they do pray. But in a nontheistic religion, this raises some questions: to whom? to what? In daily Zen practice, it seems that often we are praying to our self—both our individual-limited-lifespan self and our larger self of boundless-interbeing. We aren’t praying for personal material gain; rather, we are praying in order to turn our hearts and minds toward the positive qualities of compassion and clarity. We are voicing an aspiration that we become able to extend compassion and wisdom to ourselves and others.
We pray to be able to turn obstacles into fuel for enlightenment. We pray to cultivate a mind like a lotus, growing pure and upright out of the muddy water of delusion.
We also know that there are invisible presences all around us. There are comedies, tragedies, soap operas, rap music, and 911 calls in the room, but we can’t hear them if we don’t have the right receiver, such as a radio, computer, cell phone, or tv. The range of light and sound that our human bodies are able to perceive is quite narrow. It seems entirely possible that there are many unseen forms of existence surrounding us. Perhaps they dwell in other dimensions of spacetime. Why not be humble and ask them for assistance? our asking makes us a receiver, a vehicle through which they may be able to move and act.
If our practice at Great Vow monastery is any indication, prayer is alive and well in Western Zen. We hold chanting services four times a day in which the word “pray” comes up again and again. We pray for the well-being of a list of people who are ill and for serene transitions for those who have recently died. We pray that the world be free from violence, war, and disasters. We pray for assistance from all the enlightened and holy beings who have come before us. We express our deep gratitude to our dharma ancestors and pray that their vows will be fulfilled through us. We pray to maintain steady practice up until the time of death and beyond. One chant begins, “our deepest prayer is to be firm in our determination to give ourselves completely to the Buddha’s Way so that no doubts arise, however long the road seems to be” and ends with “our further prayer is not to be extremely ill or to be suffering at the time of departure… So that we can quiet the mind to abandon the body and merge infinitely into the whole universe.”
We pray with meals. We reflect with gratitude on all the beings whose life energy has flowed into the food in our bowls, sacrificed so that we might have more abundant life, and we pray that all beings will be as well nourished as we are. We pray to be able to turn obstacles into fuel for enlightenment. We pray to cultivate a mind like a lotus, growing pure |
St. Vrain Creek next to the Left Hand Brewing Co. tap room in Longmont in October 2013, about a month after floodwaters devastated parts of Longmont. ( Matthew Jonas / Staff Photographer )
Correction: The original version of this story said the state was seeking for $419 million from the federal government. The state is seeking $269 million with $163.5 million in state and local matching funds. This story has been corrected. If you go What: Colorado's resiliency grant application public hearing When: 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday Where: Utility Training Center, 1251 S. Bowen St., Longmont More info: View the state's application at ColoradoUnited.com Feedback: Email comments about the application to gov_coloradorecovery@state.co.us
Colorado and the city of Longmont are entering a contest to win a portion of $1 billion in federal disaster funds, and officials want the public to give their application a once-over before it gets turned in later this month.
The state is applying for the National Disaster Resiliency Competition, hosted by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for communities that have been affected by a natural disaster in 2011, 2012 or 2013.
Longmont and other Boulder County communities were severely damaged by the September 2013 flood.
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The competition will parcel out $1 billion total, with a maximum award of $500 million to any one applicant.
The state of Colorado was one of 40 applicants that advanced to Stage 2 of the competition. Now, the state must submit its Stage 2 application to HUD by Oct. 27 and the public has the opportunity to comment on the state's application until Oct. 21. HUD will announce the winners in January.
The state is applying for money on behalf of Boulder, Larimer and El Paso counties, and Longmont's Resilient St. Vrain project is a large portion of the state's $269 million request.
The Resilient St. Vrain project (formerly the St. Vrain Improvement project) is a $194 million flood recovery project shared between the city and Boulder County. Resilient St. Vrain aims to widen the river channel in several places from Airport Road to Sandstone Ranch, decreasing the floodplain and allowing for economic development in the city's core.
Longmont Public Works and Natural Resources manager Dale Rademacher told the City Council last week that the city is responsible for about $164 million of the total $194 million project cost and Boulder County is responsible for roughly $29.6 million.
Rademacher said the city is requesting a total of about $88.6 million from the National Disaster Resiliency Competition comprising:
• $56.5 million for major floodway renovations
• $3.5 million to extend the St. Vrain Greenway east to St. Vrain State Park
• $20 million for an ecology resiliency education center
• $4 million for a public plaza near the river
• $4.6 million for a 5 percent administrative cost offset
Boulder County is requesting $7.5 million from the contest comprising:
• $3.5 million to prepare the river breaches west of Longmont
• $3.5 million to extend the St. Vrain Greenway west to Lyons
• $500,000 for an environmental educational center near Hygeine
Rademacher told the council that he thinks Longmont has a good shot at getting funded because the city's flood recovery work could be used as a model for similar communities damaged by floods.
"What we're trying to do is show how our work can be replicated in communities across the country because that's important to HUD," Rademacher said. "Ours in particular is good for a western-type of flood that is a western flash flood-type of situation... What Longmont experienced can be experienced by any community up and down the Front Range from Montana to New Mexico."
A public hearing on the state's application is set for 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday at the Utilty Training Center, 1251 S. Bowen St., in Longmont.
Karen Antonacci: 303-684-5226, antonaccik@times-call.com or twitter.com/ktonacciHow To Parallelize Ruby HTTP Requests
It turns out that managing web requests is quite important when doing web development. A web application backed by an external or internal API can issue a lot of requests when rendering a seemingly simple web page. How those requests are made and in what order is very important. With improper parallelization, an end user’s entire experience can go from delightful to horrific in a matter of seconds.
The Build Up
A basic Ruby on Rails application might have the following features:
A User can create a favorite of an item, creating a FavoriteItem. A User can add an item to their wishlist, creating a WishlistItem. A User can buy an item, creating a TransactionItem.
Each model this system uses is backed by an API. User, TransactionItem, WishlistItem, and FavoriteItem models all require a remote HTTP request for their information.
As a web application experiences growth, this structure is not uncommon. The same API might back a mobile app, website, and any other internal tooling to help this company with its day to day affairs.
The API that this application uses works in a two phase manner:
A user can be requested by their id. /users/:id returns a User corresponding to the given id. Each supporting model is requested with the same user_id. /users/:id/favorite_items will return an array of FavoriteItems for the specified User.
The contract of this API is for all intents an purposes, non-negotiable. In-lined data or other request saving patterns are not available, the client must use the API as provided.
Sequential Approach
Within this example application, the most request intensive page is the User's history page. The history page consists of everything the user has done. Items a user has added to their favorites resulting in FavoriteItems, Items bought by the user resulting in TransactionItems, and Items added to a user’s wish list resulting in WishListItems.
To complement the (ex/in)ternal API, two helper methods exist on each model: remote_find which accepts an id or array of ids, returning the matching models, and remote_find_by_user_id which accepts a user_id and returns an array of ids for the corresponding model.
Leveraging the API and these two helper methods, a serial version of a User's pertinent data could look something like:
class UserHistoryController < ApplicationController def show @user = User. remote_find ( params. require ( :user_id ])) @favorite_items = FavoriteItem. remote_find_by_user_id ( @user. id ) @wish_list_items = WishlistItem. remote_find_by_user_id ( @user. id ) @transaction_items = TransactionItem. remote_find_by_user_id ( @user. id ) end end
However slow it may be, this code will indeed fulfill its duty. First the User is found, then all the supporting information about a User's history is retrieved one by one from the API.
In a worst case scenario, assume the API returns an individual request in about 150ms. With 4 requests, this means that only required page elements will take 600ms.
Tacking on view rendering, whatever data processing or formatting that needs to be done at the presentation layer, and finally some amount of Javascript, this page becomes objectively slow.
Enter EM-Synchrony
As with most problems, someone smart has had it before and probably done something about it. Luckily, this particular problem has been addressed by Ilya Grigorik’s EM-Synchrony library.
Grigorik’s library leverages the use of Ruby Fibers to parallelize* code execution.
*Note: Because of the Global Interpreter Lock (GIL) present in MRI, true parallelization is not possible.
The real benefit of using EM-Synchrony is the way it handles scheduling the underlying Fibers. A Ruby Fiber is basically a Thread that is not automatically scheduled by the Ruby VM. This means that it is up to the programmer to let the Fiber know when it should relinquish control to another Fiber.
Since this example is almost completely bound by Input/Output ( I/O ) operations, it is a perfect candidate for EM-Synchrony.
To use EM-Synchrony effectively, existing requests must be broken up into pieces that can accessed independently. A requests method can be created to extract details surrounding each request. The result of the requests method must be an enumerable.
Note: As explained below, EM-Synchrony can only be used with supported HTTP clients.
class UserHistoryController < ApplicationController #... #... private def requests { User => { method: :remote_find, arg: @user_id, instance_var: :@user }, FavoriteItem => { method: :remote_find_by_user_id, arg: @user_id, instance_var: :@favorite_items }, WishListItem => { method: :remote_find_by_user_id, arg: @user_id, instance_var: :@wish_list_items }, TransactionItem => { method: :remote_find_by_user_id, arg: @user_id, instance_var: :@transaction_items } } end end
For the sake of being explicit, this very redundant helper method will be used to iterate over requests and allow EM-Synchrony to process them in parallel:
class UserHistoryController < ApplicationController CONCURRENCY = 4 def show @user_id = params. require ( :user_id ) EM. synchrony do EM :: Synchrony :: FiberIterator. new ( requests, CONCURRENCY ). each do | key, request_hash | # Example of below with real values: # # key = Transaction # Transation.remote_find_by_user_id(@user.id) result = key. send ( request_hash [ :method ], request_hash [ :arg ]) instance_variable_set ( args [ :instance_var ], result ) end EM. stop end end end
A few important lines of this solution are worth a closer look:
CONCURRENCY = 4
This line tells EM-Synchrony how many Fibers it is allowed to run at once. Since the example needed to request four remote resources, the concurrency amount is set to four.
The next line of interest is:
EM :: Synchrony :: FiberIterator. new ( requests, CONCURRENCY ). each do | key, request_hash |
Here is where the actual work is done. After meticulously crafting the structure of the requests hash, the FiberIterator will pick the next element from the list and give it to a Fiber.
Finally the line stopping of Event Machine can not go unnoticed.
EM. stop
This method has literally no documentation but is in every example of using Event Machine, so it is probably very crucial.
And that is all there is to it! All four HTTP requests can now be run in parallel, resulting in a major speed up and a much happier user experience.
Caveats
A few considerations must be made in order to use EM-Synchrony effectively.With the US about to play Jamaica twice in four days, I thought it’d be a good time to review their only recent meeting— a 2-0 Yank win in the quarterfinals of the 2011 Gold Cup. It was a strange time for the Nats. They had stumbled through the group stage, losing to Panama before struggling past Guadeloupe, 1-0. The Reggae Boyz, on the other hand, were flying high. Jamaica had stormed through Group B, going 3-0 with a perfect 7-0 goals for/goals against. Bob Bradley’s depth was being pushed by self-selection— defenders Oguchi Onyewu and Tim Ream had shown poor form, and Fred Adu, plucked from the Turkish second division, had not even been summoned as the offense had sputtered against Panama and Guadeloupe. The US situation was made even more dire by the bizarre wedding scheduling for the respective sisters of Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey that would see both stars arrive in Washington, D.C., late Saturday night for the early afternoon kickoff. Many fancied the Jamaicans as slight favorites. With the Donovan/Dempsey situation and Chris Wondolowski struggling, Bob Bradley opted to go with a 4-2-3-1, with Sacha Kljestan having perhaps his finest match with the Yanks in the center of the “3”. Alejandro Bedoya (remember him?) and Clint Dempsey flanked Kljestan and Juan Agudelo (who came on after 12 minutes for an injured Jozy Altidore), and with Eric Lichaj and Steve Cherundolo providing great support from fullback, Dempsey and Bedoya were able to pinch to help the US control the center of the park, as Michael Cox wrote: Jamaica’s problem was that they generally had 3 v 1 at the back, which then created a shortfall in midfield – where the US could gather bodies, pass around Jamaica’s midfield, and dominate possession of the ball. Bradley has long favoured playing his wide midfielders narrow – the US formation has often looked like 4-2-2-2 under his management – and this simply emphasised the US dominance in the middle of the pitch, sometimes creating as much as 4 v 2 or 5 v 2 in that zone (see below). Jermaine Jones scored the opener shortly after halftime (later changed to an own goal by CONCACAF, although I disagree) and made a powerful forward run that drew a red on Jermaine Taylor. Dempsey later clinched progression to the semifinals off an assist from Agudelo. As Matt Tomaszewicz from The Shin Guardian noted, it was one of Bob Bradley’s better coaching jobs: Some gutsy calls here by Bob Bradley. First, going 4-2-3-1. And then, removing Landon Donovan from the line-up. Late flight arrival or not, that decision certainly would have been second-guessed had Bradley’s team lost. Most impressive from the States was their defensive shape, refusing to leave themselves open to a speedy counter from the Reggae Boyz. … Oh and lest we forget, nearly two years after Bob Bradley and Clint Dempsey had a come-to-Jesus conversation at the Confederations Cup regarding Dempsey’s role in the offense, now Bradley is showing a pattern of giving Dempsey the freedom, both positionally and tactically, to dominate the game the way he can. Never thought I would have written that last paragraph. Interesting how different the US roster is just over a year later. (The entire World Cup-Gold Cup interlude almost feels like a generation ago.) Bob Bradley is gone, of course. Kljestan— seemingly breaking out with Anderlecht and the Nats as a cool, mature central midfielder has gone to Mandyland in the new regime. Eric Lichaj, once the revelation at LB, has suffered injuries and is looking up at Fabian Johnson there now. Agudelo has vanished from MLS, and Bedoya had a forgettable time in Scotland. (Of course, the four nominal central mids + Dempsey was foreshadowing of Jürgen Klinsmann’s current approach.) The Jamaicans look salty in the attack again— Darren Mattocks, Luton Shelton, Ryan Johnson, and Dane Richards make for one fast attacking corps. Of course, Johnson hasn’t stood out with Toronto, and Richards has been up and down. Of course, a defense potentially featuring Lovel Palmer, Dicoy Williams and Shavar Thomas in front of Donovan Ricketts doesn’t intimidate. Reddit 8 0 email Print The following two tabs change content below. Bio
Latest Posts Howie Michaels Howie once received a death threat at a USA-Brazil friendly. He still believes in Fred Adu. He plays forward in coed rec, although not well. Latest posts by Howie Michaels see all) Rhett Bernstein signs with Miami FC - January 7, 2016
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Comings and goings out of Mexico - December 22, 2015Update: The mods are back online and it appears that this was just a bug.
Original Story: Valve and Bethesda announced yesterday that paid mods would be available via Steam Workshop for the game Skyrim, with more games to follow suit.
This stirred up some controversy---including my own controversial article, and my follow-up interview with DayZ creator Dean Hall.
Hours ago, the first paid mod from Steam was pulled. Apparently the mod used material from another free mod.
Lots of sites covered this, but you can also read the modders take and perspective on reddit, where he claims he received advice from Valve that said using other mods was permissible even with paid content.
Now, apparently all the paid mods for Skyrim have been pulled. You can still see the listings, but if you click on one to buy, you're met with this message:
If you can't read that you can click and open it in a new tab. It reads: "Sorry! An error was encountered while processing your request: This item is no longer for sale, but if you have purchased it, you will still have access to it."
I've reached out to Valve to see if this is just an error, or if the company has actually suspended paid mods on Steam Workshop. I will update this post when I receive an update.
For now, I can only speculate that paid mods have been pulled until Valve can find a better way to manage them. Of course, it's also possible this is just a site error. We'll know more soon.Image caption An artist's impression of the type of cold rocky planet in the research
Earth-sized planets could support life at least 10 times further away from stars than thought, researchers have claimed.
The University of Aberdeen team, which included academics from the University of St Andrews, said cold rocky planets thought uninhabitable might be able to support life beneath the surface.
They hope the study will influence other researchers.
Earth might even be unusual in having life on the surface Sean McMahon, University of Aberdeen PhD student
Their paper is published in Planetary and Space Science.
PhD student Sean McMahon explained: "A planet needs to be not too close to its sun but also not too far away for liquid water to persist, rather than boiling or freezing, on the surface.
"But that theory fails to take into account life that can exist beneath a planet's surface.
"As you get deeper below a planet's surface, the temperature increases, and once you get down to a temperature where liquid water can exist - life can exist there too."
The team created a computer model that estimates the temperature below the surface of a planet of a given size, at a given distance from its star.
'Go deeper'
Mr McMahon continued: "The deepest known life on Earth is 5.3km below the surface, but there may well be life even 10km deep in places on Earth that haven't yet been drilled.
"Using our computer model we discovered that the habitable zone for an Earth-like planet orbiting a sun-like star is about three times bigger if we include the top five kilometres below the planet surface.
"The model shows that liquid water, and as such life, could survive 5km below the Earth's surface even if the Earth was three times further away from the sun than it is just now.
"If we go deeper, and consider the top 10km below the Earth's surface, then the habitable zone for an Earth-like planet is 14 times wider."
He added: "The results suggest life may occur much more commonly deep within planets and moons than on their surfaces.
"This means it might be worth looking for signs of life outside conventional habitable zones.
"I hope people will study the ways in which life below the surface might reveal itself.
"Earth might even be unusual in having life on the surface."Most robots are programmed using one of two methods: learning from demonstration, in which they watch a task being done and then replicate it, or via motion-planning techniques such as optimization or sampling, which require a programmer to explicitly specify a task’s goals and constraints.
Both methods have drawbacks. Robots that learn from demonstration can’t easily transfer one skill they’ve learned to another situation and remain accurate. On the other hand, motion planning systems that use sampling or optimization can adapt to these changes but are time-consuming, since they usually have to be hand-coded by expert programmers.
Researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have recently developed a system that aims to bridge the two techniques: C-LEARN, which allows noncoders to teach robots a range of tasks simply by providing some information about how objects are typically manipulated and then showing the robot a single demo of the task.
Importantly, this enables users to teach robots skills that can be automatically transferred to other robots that have different ways of moving — a key time- and cost-saving measure for companies that want a range of robots to perform similar actions.
“By combining the intuitiveness of learning from demonstration with the precision of motion-planning algorithms, this approach can help robots do new types of tasks that they haven’t been able to learn before, like multistep assembly using both of their arms,” says Claudia Pérez-D’Arpino, a PhD student who wrote a paper on C-LEARN with MIT Professor Julie Shah.
The team tested the system on Optimus, a new two-armed robot designed for bomb disposal that they programmed to perform tasks such as opening doors, transporting objects, and extracting objects from containers. In simulations they showed that Optimus’ learned skills could be seamlessly transferred to Atlas, CSAIL’s 6-foot-tall, 400-pound humanoid robot.
A paper describing C-LEARN was recently accepted to the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), which takes place May 29 to June 3 in Singapore.
How it works
With C-LEARN the user first gives the robot a knowledge base of information on how to reach and grasp various objects that have different constraints. (The C in C-LEARN stands for “constraints.”) For example, a tire and a steering wheel have similar shapes, but to attach them to a car, the robot has to configure its arms differently to move them. The knowledge base contains the information needed for the robot to do that.
The operator then uses a 3-D interface to show the robot a single demonstration of the specific task, which is represented by a sequence of relevant moments known as “keyframes.” By matching these keyframes to the different situations in the knowledge base, the robot can automatically suggest motion plans for the operator to approve or edit as needed.
“This approach is actually very similar to how humans learn in terms of seeing how something’s done and connecting it to what we already know about the world,” says Pérez-D’Arpino. “We can’t magically learn from a single demonstration, so we take new information and match it to previous knowledge about our environment.”
One challenge was that existing constraints that could be learned from demonstrations weren’t accurate enough to enable robots to precisely manipulate objects. To overcome that, the researchers developed constraints inspired by computer-aided design (CAD) programs that can tell the robot if its hands should be parallel or perpendicular to the objects it is interacting with.
The team also showed that the robot performed even better when it collaborated with humans. While the robot successfully executed tasks 87.5 percent of the time on its own, it did so 100 percent of the time when it had an operator that could correct minor errors related to the robot’s occasional inaccurate sensor measurements.
“Having a knowledge base is fairly common, but what’s not common is integrating it with learning from demonstration,” says Dmitry Berenson, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan's Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department. “That’s very helpful, because if you are dealing with the same objects over and over again, you don't want to then have to start from scratch to teach the robot every new task.”
Applications
The system is part of a larger wave of research focused on making learning-from-demonstration approaches more adaptive. If you’re a robot that has learned to take an object out of a tube from a demonstration, you might not be able to do it if there’s an obstacle in the way that requires you to move your arm differently. However, a robot trained with C-LEARN can do this, because it does not learn one specific way to perform the action.
“It’s good for the field that we're moving away from directly imitating motion, toward actually trying to infer the principles behind the motion,” Berenson says. “By using these learned constraints in a motion planner, we can make systems that are far more flexible than those which just try to mimic what's being demonstrated"
Shah says that advanced LfD methods could prove important in time-sensitive scenarios such as bomb disposal and disaster response, where robots are currently tele-operated at the level of individual joint movements.
“Something as simple as picking up a box could take 20-30 minutes, which is significant for an emergency situation,” says Pérez-D’Arpino.
C-LEARN can’t yet handle certain advanced tasks, such as avoiding collisions or planning for different step sequences for a given task. But the team is hopeful that incorporating more insights from human learning will give robots an even wider range of physical capabilities.
“Traditional programming of robots in real-world scenarios is difficult, tedious, and requires a lot of domain knowledge,” says Shah. “It would be much more effective if we could train them more like how we train people: by giving them some basic knowledge and a single demonstration. This is an exciting step toward teaching robots to perform complex multiarm and multistep tasks necessary for assembly manufacturing and ship or aircraft maintenance.”This site shows all build and finished projects so far. Most projects combine a customized hardware running a open source software. Each project is described by several blog post, and can by read chronological or by stepping right into a detail. Have fun and share your impressions!
Magic Mirror
Building a 32 inch smart mirror with a metal frame including an IR camera. It’s used to display useful information like time, date, weather, calendar, …
Software is using the MagicMirror contribuation by Michael Teeuw to display.
The Idea & Concept
The Screen
The Mirror
The Frame
The Camera
The Assembling
The Summary, part list and prices
Building a mobile projector box
An easy to use and store box for the mobile projector. Fits perfectly in every home with little kids.
The Idea
The housing and the inner parts
The Summary
A retro console in a NES Cartridge
This idea was so brilliant I needed to build this. See what I learned building my version…By KrisAnne Hall, JD
What many citizens and legislators do not understand is that the federal government has no right to prevent any law-abiding citizen from owning or possessing any firearm. The entire argument for gun control is built upon a false premise. The Second Amendment is not about self-defense from criminals.
As unpleasant as it may be for this modern society to say out loud, historically and constitutionally speaking, the right of the people to keep and bear arms has always been a right to protect yourself from those in power who want to enslave you. If America wants to engage in a real factual debate on the right to keep and bear arms, then it must be approached from the proper perspective.
The Constitution and its history is unequivocally clear on this. Here is a little Second Amendment history lesson so we can defend our Rights from becoming government bestowed privileges.
Everything we need to know was explained by our founders in the years 1787-1788. Lesson one comes from George Mason, who along with James Madison, is referred to as the “Father of the Bill of Rights.” Seems to me a good person to listen to when it comes to any portion of the Bill of Rights is someone who is referred to as its “Father.” Mason first explains the reason we are to bear arms, and guess what? — it has nothing to do with hunting and skeet shooting…or fighting muggers.
Lesson one: The militia explained
“Forty years ago, when the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, (Sir William Keith) who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually, by totally disusing and neglecting the militia. [Here Mr. Mason quoted sundry passages to this effect.] Why should we not provide against the danger of having our militia, our real and natural strength, destroyed? The general government ought, at the same time, to have some such power. But we need not give them power to abolish our militia.” (George Mason, Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 14, 1788)
In the words of the “Father,” we bear arms to keep from becoming enslaved by the federal government. But Mason doesn’t end his lesson there, he continues by making sure we know who the militia is and this is contrary to what most politicians profess.
“Mr. Chairman, a worthy member has asked who are the militia, if they be not the people of this country, and if we are not to be protected from the fate of the Germans, Prussians, etc., by our representation? I ask, Who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers. But I cannot say who will be the militia of the future day. If that paper on the table gets no alteration, the militia of the future day may not consist of all classes, high and low, and rich and poor…” (George Mason, Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 16, 1788)
So Mason explains We The People are the militia who bear arms to keep from being enslaved by the federal government and to protect ourselves from the tyranny of our representatives, whose dereliction would lead us to suffer the same fate as foreign nations.
Lesson two: Who we need protection from
This comes from the great patriot Noah Webster. Speaking on the threat of an overpowering central government, he further explains, with great clarity, the reason our founders intended the entire citizenry be armed.
“Another source of power in government is a military force. But this, to be efficient, must be superior to any force that exists among the people, or which they can command: for otherwise this force would be annihilated, on the first exercise of acts of oppression. Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive.” (Noah Webster, An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, 1787)
There is no need for interpretation. These instructions are written in plain English. Why do we bear arms according to Noah Webster?
To prevent rule by a standing army;
To prevent Congress from executing unjust and unconstitutional laws;
To prevent the Federal Government from becoming unjust and oppressive;
The people bearing arms should be superior to an army controlled by Congress.
Lesson three: Duty to bear arms
This comes from a founder referred to in pseudonym as Letter from a Federal Farmer (most likely Richard Henry Lee, writer of the Resolution Declaring Independence). Lee explains,
“[W]hereas, to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them; nor does it follow from this, that all promiscuously must go into actual service on every occasion. The mind that aims at a select militia must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle; and when we see many men disposed to practice upon it, whenever they can prevail, no wonder true republicans are for carefully guarding against it.” (Letter from the Federal Farmer #18, January 25, 1788)
Lee explains that it is our duty to not simply bear arms, but to always bear arms. Lee is probably rolling over in his grave at the idea that we have to ask permission of the government to carry a firearm. How about that directive that we also must teach our children to bear arms?
Our final lessons today come from Patrick Henry, who was probably one of the most passionate champions of the citizen’s duty to bear arms. No one can break it down like Patrick Henry.
“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.” (Patrick Henry Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 5, 1788)
“Oh, sir! we should have fine times, indeed, if, to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people! Your arms, wherewith you could defend yourselves, are gone;…Did you ever read of any revolution in a nation, brought about by the punishment of those in power, inflicted by those who had no power at all? You read of a riot act in a country which is called one of the freest in the world, where a few neighbors can not assemble without the risk of being shot by a hired soldiery, the engines of despotism. We may see such an act in America.” (Patrick Henry Virginia Ratifying Convention June 5, 1788)
Well, there you have it; an historical and truthful education on your Right to Keep and Bear Arms. The writings is easy to find and easy to read. Why are our politicians and media talking heads bent on disseminating miseducation and lies? Perhaps they repeat the lies because they intend on disarming the people, because they know, as our founders did, that an armed citizenry is the last line of defense against absolute tyranny.
A proper debate on one’s right to keep and bear arms is not one that is framed in the terms of whether you can feel safe from wicked and depraved people, full of hate and malice, who want to hurt you. You will never feel safe from those people and those people will not cease to exist just because you are not allowed to legally own a gun. Why? Because those people do not care about laws and they will always find a way to hurt and destroy, with or without gun laws.
If society is honest and historically accurate, the only question that has any relevance to the gun control debate is:
“Do you trust those in government, now and forever in the future, to not take your life, liberty, or property through the force of government?”
If the answer to that question is “no,” the gun control debate is over.
KrisAnne Hall is a former biochemist, Russian linguist for the US Army, and former prosecutor for the State of Florida. KrisAnne also practiced First Amendment Law for a prominent Florida non-profit Law firm. KrisAnne now travels the country teaching the foundational principles of Liberty and our Constitutional Republic. KrisAnne is the author of 6 books on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, she also has an internationally popular radio and television show and her books and classes have been featured on C-SPAN TV. KrisAnne can be found at www.KrisAnneHall.com
Three Lessons on Your Right to Keep and Bear Arms
Liked it? Take a second to support Rod Thomson on Patreon!Image caption Vishal Nalawade and Shraddha Meshram married despite their caste difference and family opposition
By 2027, India is projected to have the biggest middle class population in the world. In a society fragmented by caste, there has been much debate about whether recent economic growth has reached the country's most disadvantaged groups.
While the change is slow, there are signs that economic growth and education are helping to bring down social barriers.
On a rainy monsoon day in Mumbai, Vishal Nalawade holds up an umbrella and escorts his new wife to the vegetable market. Vishal married Shraddha Meshram three months ago and the two have paid a heavy price to be together.
Vishal and Shraddha have been forced to cut ties with their families who opposed the match because they belong to different castes.
Caste is a hereditary division rooted in Hindu society. It's based on a number of factors, but primary among these are occupation and social ranking.
Image caption Source: Institute for Emerging Market Studies
Vishal is a web developer while Shraddha works in public relations. They are both well educated and have good job prospects but none of this mattered to their parents when it came to marriage.
Inter-caste marriages are largely frowned upon in India. There have even been cases where couples who married outside their caste were murdered by their own families. The term "honour killing" has been used to describe this.
But many from India's large young population are choosing to look beyond traditional caste hierarchies.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Watch: India's swelling middle class is reshaping the country's social categories. Yogita Limaye reports.
"I married Vishal because he is a genuine, hard-working person. When we were children, we were told about caste and religion. But as we grew up and got educated, we began to realise that these factors aren't so important.
"I think over the next two or three generations, caste divisions will disappear," says Shraddha.
Her view is reflected in trends being noted by matchmaking services. Matrimonial website shaadi.com is one of the largest in India. When creating a profile on this website, the user needs to select their caste from a dropdown menu with more than 400 choices.
But just below this the portal has introduced a little box to ask if the person is not particular about their partner's caste. The company has found that many are choosing to tick this box.
"In India, it's very much about two families marrying one another. I think in the past, caste was that indicator of inter-family compatibility. I think it's becoming much less relevant now and what we're seeing is over 50% of our audience is saying I'm not looking to marry into the caste I belong to," says Gourav Rakshit, Chief Operating Officer at shaadi.com.
But it's not just marriage where caste plays a big role. Traditionally it also dictated what job you could do. People from the lowest caste were forced to do the most menial jobs. Some were even termed untouchables.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption How the middle class revolution is changing the world
To remove this inequality, seats have been reserved for students from lower castes in educational institutes around the country. This quota system also extends to government jobs.
A proposal to introduce caste-based reservations in the private sector sparked fierce debate about whether such policies were fair. Many say they are needed to make up for decades of missed opportunities for people from India's lowest castes.
"The reservation policies that we have, have actually not reached the largest number of people. They've |
| next unless value.respond_to?(:valid_encoding?) unless value.valid_encoding? raise ActionController::BadRequest, "Invalid parameter: #{key} => #{value}" end end prepare_params!(params) # Just raise undefined constant errors if a controller was specified as default. unless controller = controller(params, @defaults.key?(:controller)) return [404, {'X-Cascade' => 'pass'}, []] end dispatch(controller, params[:action], env) end
First, a sanity check is conducted on the request params.
Rails then normalizes the params, and tries to get a controller from them. The goal is to retrieve the controller class from params[:controller]
If the controller is not found, Rails will return an empty response with the HTTP status code 404. The X-Cascade header is a Rack convention to signify that another middleware can go ahead and tries to render a webpage. In our case it will most likely be ActionDispatch::ShowExceptions, go ahead and read its code, it’s pretty straight forward.
Once we have the controller, the fun stuff begins :
dispatch(controller, params[:action], env)
Here is the dispatch method :
def dispatch(controller, action, env) controller.action(action).call(env) end
At this point, the controller variable contains a controller class, HomeController for example.
Rails controllers are instances of ActionController::Base, which itself inherits from ActionController::Metal.
ActionController::Metal Is the simplest way of using controllers in rails, you just have to create a class that inherits from it, define actions, each action can set the response body with self.response_body = 'foo', and it’s ready to roll.
The cool thing is that the action method of ActionController::Metal returns a rack endpoint for the current controller and a given action :
# Returns a Rack endpoint for the given action name. def self.action(name, klass = ActionDispatch::Request) middleware_stack.build(name.to_s) do |env| new.dispatch(name, klass.new(env)) end end
This way, the dispatch method takes an action as its parameter and has to return our well-deserved array of status code, headers, and response body!
Let’s have a look at the dispatch method
def dispatch(name, request) #:nodoc: @_request = request @_env = request.env @_env['action_controller.instance'] = self process(name) to_a end def to_a #:nodoc: response? response.to_a : [status, headers, response_body] end
As you can guess, it sets some variables about the env and the request, but nothing fun happens.
to_a will return our rack array. status, headers, and response_body are just shortcuts for the instance variables @_status, @_headers and @_response_body
All the fun actually happens in AbstractController::Base#process :
def process(action, *args) @_action_name = action.to_s unless action_name = _find_action_name(@_action_name) raise ActionNotFound, "The action '#{action}' could not be found for #{self.class.name}" end @_response_body = nil process_action(action_name, *args) end def process_action(method_name, *args) send_action(method_name, *args) end # Actually call the method associated with the action. Override # this method if you wish to change how action methods are called, # not to add additional behavior around it. For example, you would # override #send_action if you want to inject arguments into the # method. alias send_action send
First, Rails will check the action name is correct, set its response body to nil, and call the method corresponding to the action (that’s what process_action does basically)
Yes!
We did it! We followed the request from the beginning to the final action call.
Wait a minute … This won’t render anything if we don’t explicitly use self.response_body =, how come my rails app works?
That’s because our controllers are instances of ActionController::Base, that adds tons and tons of goodies over the simple and poor ActionController::Metal.
ActionController::Base includes lots of modules, I’ll just talk about two of them that are important in our case.
The first one is ActionController::Rendering (and its sibling AbstractController::Rendering ) I won’t go over the details but their roles is to provide the render method that will search the proper templates and render them.
Have a look at AbstractController::Rendering
def render(*args, &block) options = _normalize_render(*args, &block) self.response_body = render_to_body(options) _process_format(rendered_format, options) if rendered_format self.response_body end
As you can see, render will fill the response body of the request, so, if, in your action, you call render, the response body will be set and the page will show up when requested!
But, as you remember, rails is automagical, you are not forced to call render, you can implement an empty action and a template with a corresponding name, and Rails finds it for you.
That’s why I wanted to talk about ActionController::ImplicitRender, its code is dead simple :
module ActionController module ImplicitRender def send_action(method, *args) ret = super default_render unless performed? ret end def default_render(*args) render(*args) end def method_for_action(action_name) super || if template_exists?(action_name.to_s, _prefixes) "default_render" end end end end
This module overrides the send_action method, used when calling the action, to call render if it has not been called already.
This way, even if you don’t call render, Rails catches up and calls it for you.
Conclusion
Rails is automagical, but Rails is complex as well, part of it is because each part of Rails is supposed to be usable standalone. That’s nice, but it gives headaches when reading the code. You have to expect methods are overridden in one of the dozens of modules included in the class you’re reading.
426 KudosThe pair spent five days climbing to the top by using the mountain’s southeast ridge in alpine style. They overcame several risky ordeals to reach the top of the virgin peak on October 31 at 14:10.
Nov 10, 2016-Romanian climbers Vlad Capusan and Zsolt Torok have become the first persons to step foot on the summit of Mt Peak 5 in the Mahalangur Himalaya. The 6,421-metre mountain is located southeast of Makalu base camp on the border between Nepal and China.
The pair spent five days climbing to the top by using the mountain’s southeast ridge in alpine style. They overcame several risky ordeals to reach the top of the virgin peak on October 31 at 14:10.
“It was extremely adventurous to climb the technical rocky mountain that has no pre-laid route,” said 43-year-old Torok. “Attempts to scale this beautiful mountain had been abandoned seven times before.”
The alpinists had acclimatized on a peak in the Khumbu region before making their summit bid. “Initially, it was difficult for us to find the base camp as the route map we were provided was faulty.” Next, there was bad weather, he said.
“However, after we were able to locate the base camp, we launched our mission,” said Torok, who has visited Nepal six times in the last one decade. “Climbing a virgin peak is like an art of survival,” he said. “We experienced sustained winds of 95 miles per hour (150 km per hour), rain and snow.”
His companion Capusan said, “This climb was not going to be easy. Obviously, we had a short window of good weather. We had no form of contact, no rescue personnel. We were on our own.” On the first day, the duo spent their night at Camp I developed by them near the peak.
The weather was fine the second day. “We reached the top on October 31 at 14:10 am,” he said. The temperature was around 35 degrees below zero. So, we were not able to spend more than five minutes at the summit,” Capusan said.
Bodh Raj Bhandari, managing director of Snowy Horizon Treks and Expedition which handled the Romanian expedition, said that there were many unclimbed peaks in Nepal to attract potential climbers. “Peak 5 in the Makalu range can be promoted by developing packages. It can help promote such remote areas.”
In 2014, the government had opened 104 new peaks to commercial expeditions.
The number of peaks
open for commercial climbing, including eight thousanders, has now reached 414. Among the newly opened peaks, nine are higher than 7,000 metres, 90 are above 6,000 metres and four are above 5,000 metres.
There are 3,310 walking
and climbing peaks above 5,500 metres in height in Nepal, according to a
study on mountaineering conducted by the government
and the Nepal Mountaineering Association. Among them, 1,913 are climbing peaks requiring the use of mountaineering gear.
Nepal has 1,300 peaks higher than 6,000 metres; and among them, 16 are above 8,000 metres and 122 are higher than 7,000 metres. The government estimates that there are more than 1,600 virgin summits in the Nepal Himalaya.
Published: 10-11-2016 08:51Ask Michelle Bachman what her greatest concern is for our country, and she will likely say Islamic extremism. In fact, she even made sure to write to Charles Edwards, the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, asking for an investigation into "the involvement of organizations and individuals associated with the Muslim Brotherhood in Department of Homeland Security activities and policies."
Wow, that sure seems frightening, especially coupled with former Prime Minister Tony Blair's declaration that "the West is asleep on the issue of Islamic extremism." Perhaps he forgot that decade-long war... that's still going on.
Actually, even aside from Bachman's so-called witch-hunt and our record-breaking wars in the Middle East, it seems we can't get off the topic of Islam: Presidential candidate Rick Santorum called jihadism "evil"; Rep. Peter King held hearings on the radicalization of American Muslims; Sarah Palin sparked vicious protests against a proposed mosque and community center near Ground Zero.
Sure, most of these examples are blown widely out of proportion. But at least there is a recognition of something very dangerous -- something that has influenced several attacks against Americans.
But to act as though Islamic extremism presents some kind of unique threat is ignorant. According to a CNN report, right-wing extremists -- "white supremacists, anti-abortion extremists and other right-wing militants" -- pose just as much, if not more, of a threat to the public as al Qaeda.
According to the report, militants linked to or inspired by al Qaeda have carried out four attacks in the United States since September 11, 2001. Right-wing extremists, on the other hand, have carried out at least eight.
I wish I could compile a list of congressional hearings, public outrage, and quotes from presidential candidates on the issue of right-wing extremism, but I can't. Absolutely nothing has been done to combat this form of terrorism even as we fight tirelessly against an equal threat.
In fact, the same individuals that are so concerned with Islamic extremism simultaneously perpetuate right-wing extremism: Mitt Romney, along with the Republican party, defends the right to hold concealed firearms, even after two massacres in the past month; Ms. Palin placed a cross-hair over Rep. Gabrielle Gifford's district, just before she was shot in the head.
So when people act so worried about the threat of Islam while at the same time neglecting an otherwise equal concern, you have to wonder what their goal is. It can't be to save lives, because then Bachmann would have written another letter on the issue of white supremacy and gun control.
If anything, at least we now know where our country stands. We don't fear Islamic extremism because it could take our lives; we fear it because we were taught to, because that's what everyone else seems to be afraid of. At the same time, when someone attacks in the name of something other than Islam, we claim it's an isolated incident, and look the other way.Baton Rouge Police strongly believe that the fatal shootings of two black men were racially motivated, according to the Associated Press. The police told the AP Sunday that they have a 23-year-old white man in custody.
The suspect, Kenneth Gleason, was being held on drug charges because law enforcement did not have enough evidence to charge him with murder. But shell casings from the shootings and a car belonging to Gleason match a description of the shooter. Baton Rouge Sgt. L’Jean McKneely told the AP that there was circumstantial evidence that suggested the killings were racial motivated. He declined to say what the evidence was.
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“There is a strong possibility that it could be racially motivated,” he said.
The victims of the shootings were 59-year-old Bruce Cofield and 49-year-old Donald Smart. The men were killed five miles apart from each other. Smart, a father of three children, was waking to work at a popular cafe near the Louisiana State University campus, McKneely told the AP. Cofield was homeless.
A neighbor of Gleason's told the AP that he seemed like a "clean-cut American kid" and that it was "hard to believe this sort of thing is still happening."
While searching Gleason’s home on Saturday, detectives found less than a gram of marijuana in his bedroom along with vials of human growth hormones, according to a police document obtained by the AP. Gleason admitted ownership of the marijuana after he was read his Miranda rights.
The general manager of Louie's Cafe where Smart worked said that the employee was "without peer" and urged people not to view him as just another murder victim.
Here's the general manager of the 24-hour diner talking about Donald Smart, his employee who was "without peer" pic.twitter.com/OhZTCY4DI0 — Grace Toohey (@grace_2e) September 17, 2017Thirty years after the original release of Band Aid’s ‘Do they Know It’s Christmas Time’, poverty and famine still continues to reduce the quality of life within over-exploited countries globally. What’s most offensive about white saviourdom in the context of these feel good sing-alongs is the lack of critical analysis that is necessary to understand why an entire populace can live under the brutality of starvation in a world that throws away three times the amount of food it would take to feed all 7 billion of us, daily. Instead of buying into the encouragement of the western working class to give away their pennies to ‘feed the world’, we should be questioning why exactly that world is not fed. And for that there is only one answer: Capitalism survives on the myth of artificial scarcity.
Artificial scarcity, most familiar in the West, is the program of austerity that keeps wages low, prices high and bellies empty. It cites that resources are limited, that there is not enough energy or homes or jobs or food to go around. This is a myth, one perpetuated in order to sustain capitalism and drive profit up whilst letting people starve both at home and abroad. While the majority of us go hungry, tighten our belts, lose our jobs and have our homes repossessed there are many within the wealthy elite who survive beautifully. Their wealth is amassed through our labour and even our unemployment. The withholding of goods drives up competition and convinces workers that it is natural to destroy each other in order to survive. This is the inherent crisis in capitalism. In order to survive one must consume. In order to consume one must directly or indirectly limit another’s ability to survive. So, we appease our guilt with charity Christmas songs but don’t realise that we as workers and consumers perpetuate this poverty while the rich grow more powerful utilising a regime of profit starvation.
There’s a wonderful argument amongst vegans, interesting only in its reductive banality, that promotes the false idea that if we were to stop slaughtering animals for food, then the grain produced to feed the 150 billion animals annually could be used to feed humans. This buys into the agenda of state-imposed artificial scarcity and perpetuates the myth that there is not enough food for us. As much as the idea of full animal liberation excites me, it is not so that I can chew on the wealth of soy inevitably coming my way.
Artificial scarcity leads us down a long, dark path away from recovery. It creates villains where there are none, at least not in the vicinity of those most affected by its power, because artificial scarcity is manufactured into almost every facet linked to production. We are confused into thinking that what we believe to be rightfully ours (not because we laboured to produce it, which is the real issue, but instead, for example, because our genealogy matches our current geography) is being stolen from us. The idea coined by Lenin that ‘fascism is capitalism in decay’ confronts the real issues of austerity and the withholding of goods. The rise in fascism and food banks in Britain are inherently linked. Jingoism and the rise of the right are the monsters created by austerity, capitalism and artificial scarcity.
With unemployment and the unnecessary withholding of goods, we are forced to compete with each other for jobs that could just as easily be carried out through automation (machines). However, because a commodity (such as food) has its value determined by how much labour it takes to produce it, these jobs are often sourced through underpaid migrant workers which in turn breeds contempt amongst the native proletariat leading to a rise in far-right popularity. It is interesting that the deeply entrenched Islamophobia in Britain can be directly linked to the overfunding of defence that supports our neo-colonial interests.
According to the Trussell Trust’s paper Below the Breadline: The Relentless Rise of Food Poverty in Britain ‘20,247,042 meals were delivered to people in food poverty in 2013/14 by three of the main food aid providers (Trussell Trust, Fareshare and Food Cycle). This is a 54 percent increase on 2012/13, when the same providers distributed just over 13 million meals’. In the same paper we are reminded that ‘the richest one percent of Britons own the same amount of wealth as 54 percent of the population’. We need not question why in the UK, the 6th richest economy in the world, food poverty is so high. Defence spending outranks education spending (which might I add is predominantly focused on secondary schools which have been heavily academised since 2010). Military spending is higher than welfare for family and children, housing and unemployment combined. Yet, the richest Britons make their money from property, retail and investments in technology companies; three areas of capital that are necessary to human development and comfort. But we are stuck with increased homelessness, pointless jobs and underfeeding. Scarcity does not exist, but we need to believe it does to survive. We protest for access to education and are locked up or beaten. That is unsurprising. We ask for houses, we are given hostels. We ask for food and we are made to create food banks.
This is a system that need us more than we need it.
It is necessary for us to suffer in order for them to succeed. It is necessary for us to starve so that they may eat. It is necessary us to work so that they might rest. At some point, the world is going to need feeding and no band aid, no sing-along, no church based food bank is going to cut it.
Daniel DawsonPapiss Cisse starts his first pre-season friendly of the summer as Newcastle United travel to St. Mirren
By Anthony Marshall - Newcastle United Managing Editor
At St. Mirren Park
Papiss Cisse starts his first pre-season friendly of the summer as Newcastle United travel to St. Mirren on Tuesday night.
The Senegalese front man hasn't featured in any of United's four warm-up games to date but is in from the start at St. Mirren Park in an experienced Magpies' line-up.
Also included are club captain Fabricio Coloccini - who missed Saturday's game at Blackpool through suspension - and French international forward Hatem Ben Arfa, as boss Alan Pardew looks to give both key players more game time ahead of the new campaign.
United will line up in a 4-2-3-1 formation, with goalkeeper Rob Elliot protected by a back four of Mathieu Debuchy, Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa, skipper Coloccini and Academy product Paul Dummett, who spent the majority of last season on loan at St. Mirren.
Vurnon Anita and Cheick Tiote will anchor the midfield, allowing an attack-minded trio in front of them of Ben Arfa, Dan Gosling and Sammy Ameobi to feed lone striker Cisse.
On the substitutes' bench there is a place for another former Buddies loanee in Conor Newton, who scored the winner in the Scottish League Cup final last term.
And he is joined among the replacements by Jak Alnwick, Davide Santon, Remie Streete, Mike Williamson, Michael Richardson, Haris Vuckic, Yoan Gouffran and Adam Campbell.
St. Mirren (4-4-2): David Cornell; David van Zanten, Marc McAusland, Jim Goodwin, Danny Grainger; John McGinn, Paul McGowan, Gary Harkins, Gary Teale; Steven Thompson, Thomas Reilly
Substitutes: Christophe Dilo, Lee Mair, Jason Naismith, Anton Brady, Darren McGregor, Mo Yaqub, Kealan Dillon, Barry Cuddihy, Sean Kelly, Jon Scullion, Jordan Stewart
Newcastle United (4-2-3-1): Rob Elliot; Mathieu Debuchy, Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa, Fabricio Coloccini (c), Paul Dummett; Vurnon Anita, Cheick Tiote; Hatem Ben Arfa, Dan Gosling, Sammy Ameobi; Papiss Cisse
Substitutes: Jak Alnwick, Davide Santon, Remie Streete, Mike Williamson, Michael Richardson, Conor Newton, Haris Vuckic, Yoan Gouffran, Adam Campbell
Referee: John BeatonOn September 27, 2011, we announced the expansion of the Advertising SDK to a number of new markets. Today we are happy to announce, effective immediately, (hearing the updates for market selection may not be fully in there yet) the expansion of our markets to International expansion to Denmark, Hong Kong, Japan, India, Mexico, Sweden, Switzerland. Hopefully you'll find a way to make some money in the newly opened areas. Enjoy.
Some things to think about. What if you're still hitting countries with no Ad SDK support from Microsoft? Consider using a tool to roll in 'g' ads where you can't serve the pubcenter ads. Noted tools are wp7adrotator.codeplex.com and AdDuplex.com. Brian Kassay of Tampa's also done an excellent job with his blog post of Using Multiple Windows Phone 7 Ad Providers, breaking out various options for you. More goodies on the Ad SDK and Ad Toolkits can be found in the devfish wiki.
Also think about localizing your apps. Yep, no everyone is speaking the english. Why deny them the joy of running your app (and making you some coin)? Nice set of localization tips are here in the devfish wiki.
Enjoy. Hope you make some great $$$s in all the countries I want to visit one day. Well, I've actually been to Mexico, France, USA, Netherlands, and the UK already. That leaves only 13 countries to complete my Ad SDK life tour!Review by Indie Game Freak, Callabrantus and P Bartholomew
Because Clickr is a great multi-player game, IGR decided to pass it around the writing crew and do a round-table review – we wanted more than one point of view on the game and see whether it held up at all ends of the game board. So please enjoy this multi-player review of this colorful new game from NTREEV Soft.
Developer Summary:
Click, turn and match four!
Clickr, the next generation of puzzle-action!
Throughout the whole journey, compete against friends and foes in head-to-head match-ups and become the king of Clickr in the Earth!
Key features:
Four main game modes: Puzzle, Battle, Push, and IQ modes
Multiple sub-modes and missions for various playing preferences
Three sub-modes at Puzzle Mode: Point Challenge, Combo Challenge and Stage Challenge with 50 stages
16 missions and self-challenge mode at Battle and Push Modes
200 smart puzzles at IQ Mode
Multi-play also available: Head-to-head match-ups in Battle and Push Modes
Three different themes: Each of Basic, Africa and Zombie theme provides different characters, effects, skins and sounds!
More than 70 Steam Achievements to unlock
Additional Features: Help-video, controls for left-handers, and global leaderboards
What We Think:
IndieGameFreak:
Although I went feeling a little burned out on casual chain-seeking family games with little more than a new icon set – I really liked Clickr – I was more than half expecting another Bejeweled/Puzzle Quest variation, but instead found something more akin to the new wave of slick tile-based puzzle games like Cipher Prime’s Fractal.
When we started playing the multiplayer, I was both confused and distracted by the interface (the little marching characters at the top) but after I had had more time to play the solo campaign, it started to make sense and I couldn’t wait to get back to some more PvP.
Speaking of which, I love how the solo campaign keeps changing up not only the style and size of the game board, but the nature of the puzzles. Actually, once the the dead blocks and wild cards (stars) started piling up, and I started getting a little further under the hood of the game’s mechanics, I was reminded of real puzzle games like Cogs – a very good thing. I was actually strategizing forward five or six moves. I could never quite beat level 17, but it was fun getting up to that.
In terms of design and presentation, I got a kick out of the weird, annoying “It’s A Small World”-on-crack music and SFX, the smooth vectors graphics and sugary Harajuku animation. Don’t have much to complain about.
Callabrantus:
It was saccharine sweet. I thought they banned the stuff, but sure enough, Clickr! piles it on in giant heart-stopping heaps. The little voices that accompany the ooey-gooey soundtrack remind me of the ululations heard in LocoRoco.
That said, the game is blazing fast. With no limit to how many blocks you can Click out of existence, it can quickly degrade into a random mouse-button mash. If you want big points, you need big combos and chains. Just when hope seems lost, flip the screen to the left or right, and let gravity make large colourful blocks out of negative space.
A highly enjoyable game overall, great for the casual crowd, but offering a decent multiplayer challenge for those favoring a taste of adorable critter blood. I fared well, yet I know that as soon as my wife starts playing, she’s going to hand me my ass. When it comes to co-op puzzle games, it’s like she can see through the Matrix.
Oh yeah, and, I also want to mention that level 17 is f$#%g impossible.
P Bartholomew:
Speak for yourselves. I didn’t get stuck till level 34 😛
The two additional skins add a lot of fun to the mix. Zombies, ghouls, and reapers are much more fun than cute cube creatures to watch shuffle across the screen. They’re still cute though…
The audio reminded me a lot of Puzzle Bobble, even down to the “Ready … go!” of battles.
The game is really deceptive in that the presentation seems very casual, but the gameplay can get very hard, very fast. I think I’d need a mind like a steel trap and fingers to match to finish anything. Multi-player is a lot of fun, though limited.
Indie Game Freak:
Nice – you know what, I found the zombie skin (unlockable by achievements that can be accomplished in the solo campaign) to be too distracting. I never got the Africa skin because I spent my points (which are collected by making it through stages and gauntlets) on power ups and not styles. Though what I did appreciate is that it (the skins) essentially make it into a new game – not just the same thing with a different color.
Also, Callabrantus brought up a really important point about the gameplay here, something that does set Clickr apart from Hexic or Lumines – you can actually turn the game board itself around, with the bottom end using gravity physics to pull down any blocks that have an empty space below them, which can totally free up moves, or if you are a savant, allowing you to suddenly pop a series of combos out.
Overall Clickr is a well-developed, sure bet with high replay value and worth looking into, especially if you can find some friends to indulge your sudden passion for sugary sweet puzzlers.
Rating:This is the complete review as it appears (http://ianwoodnovellum.blogspot.com/2015/02/take-dog-out-by-lynne-dempsey.html) at my blog dedicated to reading, writing (no 'rithmatic!), movies, & TV</a>. Blog reviews often contain links which are not reproduced here, nor will updates or modifications to the blog review be replicated here. Graphic and children's reviews on the blog typically feature two or three images from the book's interior, which are not reproduced here.
Note that I don't really do stars. To me a book is either worth reading or it isn't. I can't rate it three-fifths worth reading! The only reason I've relented and started putting stars up there is to credit the good ones, which were being unfairly uncredited. So, all you'll ever see from me is a five-star or a one-star (since no stars isn't a rating, unfortunately).
I rated this book WORTHY!
No, this is not an order by a mob boss to assassinate a puppy! It's actually quite a charmer. Amusingly illustrated and playfully put together, this story could even classify as educational because if there's one thing dogs love to do, it’s let out their inner wolf - that's why they make that sound when they bark: "Wolf! Wolf!" They love to get out and play, and this author's story shows the dire consequences of not taking care of your young dog properly and seeing that she gets adequate exercise.
She's first rejected by mom who, I'm sorry to say is stereotypically depicted in the kitchen while dad sits on his lazy butt reading the newspaper. This would be the one complaint I had about this particular book. It's never too early to start showing children that they need not be hide-bound by traditional and misguided gender roles.
Dad also seems to think that it's more important to read the newspaper than to exercise the family pet. The dog of course has other ideas, and she demonstrates them to each family member in turn with great gusto, including grandma and the two young children.
Was that a whirlwind in the bathroom? Nope, just a dog who needs to run off some high spirits and can’t find an outlet! The story ends up happily, I'm pleased to report, as the family realizes that nature just begs to be explored, and you can’t do that stuck in the house on a beautiful day.
You might want to read the back of the book first because that's where the secrets are hidden! Each picture (I'm told) sports a sneakily-hidden dog bone. I confess I could not find them all! My excuse is that I was bone-tired.... In addition to finding these, young readers are encouraged to count - specifically the number of barks the puppy lets out in her wild enthusiasm.
So, in short, a couple of issues with this, but overall, a wonderfully illustrated story that will teach kids a thing or two about pet ownership as well as provide a fun story that I'm sure young readers will employ to exercise you (or at least your patience!) with demands to read it again and again.Earlier today, I wrote a story in which I speculated that Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers might be James Gunn's favorite superhero and that would mean that she would appear in Guardians of the Galaxy 2 - based on his recent hints. After the article was posted Gunn was bombarded with people asking him if that was possible. He replied with this tweet, "Still wondering if Captain Marvel will appear in #GoTG2" Getting this a lot this morning. As I said months ago, no, sorry."
Welp, no harm in speculating. Let's look at it from the bright side, we now know Captain Marvel isn't Gunn's favorite superhero and she won't be in Guardians of the Galaxy 2. That means, we can keep trying to piece together that puzzle. You're welcome!
Another rumor that is supposedly circulating is that Symbiotes could appear in Guardians of the Galaxy 2, but Gunn snuffed that rumor out too. It is probably being mentioned as a possibility because of "The Planet of the Symbiotes" story arc in the Guardians of the Galaxy comic books. Comic book writer Brian Michael Bendis kicked off that storyline in November of last year and it has gone over incredibly well. This should also be mentioned, in the past you could strike down such a rumor with ease because Sony has the rights to Venom which more than likely includes anything symbiote-related. BUT, Sony and Marvel recently struck a deal that will allow for their characters to crossover, so it is possible. In my opinion, it would be a clever way to plant the seeds of Venom for Marvel's new Spider-Man.
“@DrunkenShots: Still wondering if Captain Marvel will appear in #GoTG2" Getting this a lot this morning. As I said months ago, no, sorry. — James Gunn (@JamesGunn) March 7, 2015
“@Ali_Akhtar_: what about the symbiote rumours?" There are no rumors. Just guesses, which are fun. Only 6 of us know who's in GotG2. — James Gunn (@JamesGunn) March 7, 2015In the last few weeks, we’ve been learning who will be playing the heroes of the upcoming Teen Titans series Titans which will debut on a DC branded streaming service next year. But every superhero story needs a villain or two to face off, and thanks to our friends at That Hashtag Show, we now know what evil force we’ll meet in Season 1.
That Hashtag Show revealed today that the show is currently casting the DC Comics character the Acolyte, a minor villain from the comic books, who will be going after one of our heroes. The site revealed the following casting breakdown for the role, but be aware of some potentially big spoilers:
“The Acolyte – Male. African-American 40-50. Confident. The villain of our story. He is after Rachel and her powers, trying to kidnap her after he murders her mother.”
But that’s not all, as That Hashtag Show also revealed that the show is looking to cast Rachel Roth a.k.a. Raven’s (Teagan Croft) adoptive mother. Here is her character breakdown:
“Angela – Female 40-50. Rachel’s (adoptive) mom. She gets killed in an attempt to kidnap Rachel.”
The first season, which will have 13 episodes, will start production in Toronto, Canada sometime this fall. We’ll hopefully soon learn who will be playing the Acolyte and Angela in the series. Let us know about the show bringing in The Acolyte in the comments below.
“Titans explores one of the most popular comic book teams ever. It follows a group of young soon-to-be superheroes recruited from every corner of the DC Universe. In the action-adventure series, Dick Grayson emerges from the shadows to become the leader of a fearless band of new heroes that includes Starfire, Raven and others.”
Find Titans Podcast on:
Social Media: Facebook – @TitansPodcast – Instagram
Subscribe: iTunes – Stitcher Radio – YouTube – DC TV Podcasts
Contact: thetitanspodcast@gmail.com
About the authorA phone call last week from a pastor friend brought this strange report: One of the leading figures of American Evangelicalism had described me to him (apparently with considerable passion) in terms that made me sound like the most dangerous man in Christendom. My crimes are apparently numerous, but the two most egregious are that I write for First Things, a predominantly Roman Catholic organ, and that I am a high sacramentalist who denies the importance of Christian conversion. As I have never discussed either my sacramentalism or Christian conversion with the gentleman concerned, nor reflected on either at any great length in print, I can only assume that he made latter criticism as an inference from the first.
That I would deny the importance of Christian conversion would seem most unlikely, being as I am a Christian convert from an atheist household. Indeed, I regularly preach the need for those who are not Christians to turn to Christ in faith and repentance. The criticism is therefore misplaced. But it highlights a point I have made before: that the relationship between American Evangelicalism, especially its leadership, and the Reformation, which is being commemorated this year, is a complicated one. And conversion is one of the most vexed issues.
Did Luther, for example, undergo a conversion in the Evangelical sense? The famous “Tower experience” is often regarded as such by Evangelicals—but was it? Luther presents it rather as an exegetical breakthrough with existential implications. Now, whether the experience occurred as he described it, particularly in terms of its chronology, has proved an interesting discussion for scholars ever since. But whether it functioned as crisis conversion narratives function in modern Evangelical Protestantism is not a matter for debate. It simply did not. When tempted by the Devil to doubt of his salvation, Luther pointed not to the Tower but to the baptismal font. “I have been baptized!” was his consistent defense against Satan’s temptations.
This is not to advocate for Luther’s sacramental theology. As a Presbyterian, I agree with his practice of baptizing infants but not with his rationale for doing so. It is rather to point out that Luther—the very founding father of Reformation Protestantism—was by American Evangelical standards a high sacramentalist. His understanding of justification, indeed of the Reformation itself, arose within a sacramental context. To sideline this fact, to ignore it, or to damn it as anti-Evangelical is to reveal a great deal about the connection of Evangelicalism’s leadership to the historic Reformation Protestantism it claims to celebrate.
The Reformed (at least the Genevans and their progeny) |
— Haley Hinds FOX 13 (@HaleyHinds) November 29, 2017
"It's going to be a long night," Chief Brian Dugan said after Donaldson was first taken into custody.
At the press conference that night, the chief was not able to release details about detectives' questioning of Donaldson or what he may have told them.
A number of officers have gathered at district HQ in East Tampa. I am observing several groups to be jovial and upbeat and talking in good spirits pic.twitter.com/iw1bQRmaPE — Evan Axelbank Fox13 (@EvanAxelbank) November 29, 2017
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There were few details about Donaldson's past.
Stay with FOX 13 News for more on this developing story.Gillian Jacobs has discussed Community creator Dan Harmon's possible return for the fifth season.
Reports have suggested this week that Harmon is in talks with NBC, following the departures of season four showrunners David Guarascio and Moses Port.
Harmon was famously fired by NBC in the spring of 2012, following a highly publicised feud with former cast member Chevy Chase.
Jacobs - who plays Britta Perry in Community - appeared to lend credence to reports of Harmon's return to the series during a live episode of Comedy Bang Bang on Thursday (May 30).
"I'm hearing rumors… I've not heard a confirmation. I've heard rumblings," Jacobs said.
Comedy Bang Bang host Scott Aukerman then pressed Jacobs on if she had actually been contacted directly by Harmon.
"Of course we want him to come back… I love Dan Harmon," she assured Aukerman, adding: "I've not heard directly from him."
She then teased: "I read what everyone reads!"
Community's fifth season is widely expected to be the show's last, although NBC has not yet made any formal announcements beyond the renewal.
The series wrapped its most recent season on May 9 with the episode 'Advanced Introduction to Finality'.
Sony Entertainment Television currently airs Community in the UK.
Watch a clip from the show below:Promoting 'fake news' using social media sites will be made an offence
ACTIVELY promoting 'fake news' using social media sites will be made an offence under proposals to be brought before the Dáil.
New laws tabled by Fianna Fáil would also see the use of internet 'bots' to influence political debate punished with five years in jail or fines of up to €10,000.
The legislation also contains restrictions on online political advertising and will require the purchasers of ads to display a transparency notice stating their aim and target audience.
The bill comes on the back of claims that the election of US President Donald Trump was heavily influenced by Russian entities.
It is expected to have a major impact on the practices of political parties in the Republic.
It also comes as the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso) has launched a logo to reassure readers that they are being protected from fake news.
Newspapers, websites and magazines signed up to Ipso, which includes the Irish News, can use the logo as a guarantee to readers they are not being misled. The slogan that accompanies the symbol states: "For press freedom with responsibility."
Fianna Fáil TD James Lawless, wrote the legislation, said people should not be naive in thinking "Ireland will not be affected by the new form of hybrid information warfare which is underway on social media".
"Evidence suggests that an army of fake social media accounts is being amassed to disrupt the democratic process in the future, with journalists and prominent public figures highlighting an upsurge in the number of dubious accounts following them on social media platforms," he said.
"It's highly likely these dormant accounts will spring into action during a future election or referendum campaign, as happened in Britain and the US."
Mr Lawless told the Irish Independent that there needed to be a clampdown on numerous fake accounts being used "to disseminate a political message".
The law states that any person who knowingly uses an automated bot - that run 25 or more social media accounts or profiles online - in such a way as to cause multiple online profiles to act in a political way, will be guilty of an offence.
A low-level breach could result in a €500 fine or six months in jail, rising to €10,000 and up to five years for a serious infringement.
"It's important that we move swiftly to bring some transparency to political debate on social media platforms," Mr Lawless added.
Meanwhile, three Methodist College Belfast pupils have won a political prize for examining whether fake news means the end of facts.
Hala Heenan, Shannon McKeown-Gilmore and Jake Lowry won the Political Studies Association (PSA) Schools Prize.
They wrote, produced and presented a short video examining fake news and its consequences.This article is about the film. For other uses, see Chariots of Fire (disambiguation)
Chariots of Fire is a 1981 British historical drama film. It tells the fact-based story of two athletes in the 1924 Olympics: Eric Liddell, a devout Scottish Christian who runs for the glory of God, and Harold Abrahams, an English Jew who runs to overcome prejudice.
The film was conceived and produced by David Puttnam, written by Colin Welland, and directed by Hugh Hudson. Ben Cross and Ian Charleson starred as Abrahams and Liddell, alongside Nigel Havers, Ian Holm, Lindsay Anderson, John Gielgud, Cheryl Campbell, and Alice Krige in supporting roles.
It was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won four, including Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. It is ranked 19th in the British Film Institute's list of Top 100 British films. The film is also notable for its memorable electronic theme tune by Vangelis, who won the Academy Award for Best Original Score.
The film's title was inspired by the line, "Bring me my Chariot of fire!", from the William Blake poem adapted into the popular British hymn "Jerusalem"; the hymn is heard at the end of the film.[3] The original phrase "chariot(s) of fire" is from 2 Kings 2:11 and 6:17 in the Bible.
Plot [ edit ]
In 1919, Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross) enters the University of Cambridge, where he experiences anti-Semitism from the staff, but enjoys participating in the Gilbert and Sullivan club. He becomes the first person to ever complete the Trinity Great Court Run, running around the college courtyard in the time it takes for the clock to strike 12, and achieves an undefeated string of victories in various national running competitions. Although focused on his running, he falls in love with a leading Gilbert and Sullivan soprano, Sybil (Alice Krige).
Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson), born in China of Scottish missionary parents, is in Scotland. His devout sister Jennie (Cheryl Campbell) disapproves of Liddell's plans to pursue competitive running, but Liddell sees running as a way of glorifying God before returning to China to work as a missionary.
When they first race against each other, Liddell beats Abrahams. Abrahams takes it poorly, but Sam Mussabini (Ian Holm), a professional trainer whom he had approached earlier, offers to take him on to improve his technique. This attracts criticism from the Cambridge college masters (John Gielgud and Lindsay Anderson), who allege it is not gentlemanly for an amateur to "play the tradesman" by employing a professional coach. Abrahams dismisses this concern, interpreting it as cover for anti-Semitic and class-based prejudice.
When Eric Liddell accidentally misses a church prayer meeting because of his running, his sister Jennie upbraids him and accuses him of no longer caring about God. Eric tells her that though he intends to eventually return to the China mission, he feels divinely inspired when running, and that not to run would be to dishonour God, saying, "I believe that God made me for a purpose. But He also made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure."
The two athletes, after years of training and racing, are accepted to represent Great Britain in the 1924 Olympics in Paris. Also accepted are Abrahams' Cambridge friends, Lord Andrew Lindsay (Nigel Havers), Aubrey Montague (Nicholas Farrell), and Henry Stallard (Daniel Gerroll).
While boarding the boat to Paris for the Olympics, Liddell discovers the heats for his 100-metre race will be on a Sunday. He refuses to run the race, despite strong pressure from the Prince of Wales and the British Olympic committee, because his Christian convictions prevent him from running on the Sabbath.
Hope appears when Liddell's teammate Lindsay, having already won a silver medal in the 400 metres hurdles, proposes to concede his place in the 400-metre race on the following Thursday to Liddell, who gratefully agrees. His religious convictions in the face of national athletic pride make headlines around the world.
Liddell delivers a sermon at the Paris Church of Scotland that Sunday, and quotes from Isaiah 40, ending with, "But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."
Abrahams is badly beaten by the heavily favoured United States runners in the 200 metre race. He knows his last chance for a medal will be the 100 metres. He competes in the race, and wins. His coach Sam Mussabini is overcome that the years of dedication and training have paid off with an Olympic gold medal. Now Abrahams can get on with his life and reunite with his girlfriend Sybil, whom he had neglected for the sake of running.
Before Liddell's race, the American coach remarks dismissively to his runners that Liddell has little chance of doing well in his now far longer 400 metre race. But one of the American runners, Jackson Scholz, hands Liddell a note of support for his convictions. Liddell defeats the American favourites and wins the gold medal.
The British team returns home triumphant. As the film ends, onscreen text explains that Abrahams married Sybil, and became the elder statesman of British athletics. Liddell went on to missionary work in China. All of Scotland mourned his death in 1945 in Japanese-occupied China.
Cast [ edit ]
Historical accuracy [ edit ]
Characters [ edit ]
The film depicts Abrahams as attending Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge with three other Olympic athletes: Henry Stallard, Aubrey Montague, and Lord Andrew Lindsay. Abrahams and Stallard were in fact students there and competed in the 1924 Olympics. Montague also competed in the Olympics as depicted, but he attended Oxford, not Cambridge.[4] Aubrey Montague sent daily letters to his mother about his time at Oxford and the Olympics; these letters were the basis of Montague's narration in the film.
The character of Lindsay was based partially on Lord Burghley, a significant figure in the history of British athletics. Although Burghley did attend Cambridge, he was not a contemporary of Harold Abrahams, as Abrahams was an undergraduate from 1919 to 1923 and Burghley was at Cambridge from 1923 to 1927. One scene in the film depicts the Burghley-based "Lindsay" as practising hurdles on his estate with full champagne glasses placed on each hurdle – this was something the wealthy Burghley did, although he used matchboxes instead of champagne glasses.[5] The fictional character of Lindsay was created when Douglas Lowe, who was Britain's third athletics gold medallist in the 1924 Olympics, was not willing to be involved with the film.[6]
Another scene in the film recreates the Great Court Run, in which the runners attempt to run around the perimeter of the Great Court at Trinity College, Cambridge in the time it takes the clock to strike 12 at midday. The film shows Abrahams performing the feat for the first time in history. In fact, Abrahams never attempted this race, and at the time of filming the only person on record known to have succeeded was Lord Burghley, in 1927. In Chariots of Fire, Lindsay, who is based on Lord Burghley, runs the Great Court Run with Abrahams in order to spur him on, and crosses the finish line just a moment too late. Since the film's release, the Great Court Run has also been successfully run by Trinity undergraduate Sam Dobin, in October 2007.[7]
In the film, Eric Liddell is tripped up by a Frenchman in the 400-metre event of a Scotland–France international athletic meeting. He recovers, makes up a 20-metre deficit, and wins. This was based on fact; the actual race was the 440 yards at a Triangular Contest meet between Scotland, England, and Ireland at Stoke-on-Trent in England in July 1923. His achievement was remarkable as he had already won the 100- and 220-yard events that day.[8] Also unmentioned with regard to Liddell is that it was he who introduced Abrahams to Sam Mussabini.[9] This is alluded to: In the film Abrahams first encounters Mussabini while he is watching Liddell race. The film, however, suggests that Abrahams himself sought Mussabini's assistance.
Abrahams and Liddell did race against each other once, but not quite as depicted in the film, which shows Liddell winning the final of the 100 yards against a shattered Abrahams at the 1923 AAA Championship at Stamford Bridge. In fact, they raced only in a heat of the 220 yards, which Liddell won, five yards ahead of Abrahams, who did not progress to the final. In the 100 yards, Abrahams was eliminated in the heats and never raced against Liddell, who won the finals of both races the next day.[10]
Abrahams' fiancée is misidentified as Sybil Gordon, a soprano at the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. In fact, in 1936, Abrahams married Sybil Evers, who sang at the D'Oyly Carte, but they did not meet until 1934.[11] Also, in the film, Sybil is depicted as singing the role of Yum-Yum in The Mikado, but neither Sybil Gordon nor Sybil Evers ever sang that role with D'Oyly Carte,[12][13] although Evers was known for her charm in singing Peep-Bo, one of the two other "little maids from school".[11] Harold Abrahams' love of and heavy involvement with Gilbert and Sullivan, as depicted in the film, is factual.[14]
Liddell's sister was several years younger than she was portrayed in the film. Her disapproval of Liddell's track career was creative licence; she actually fully supported his sporting work. Jenny Liddell Somerville cooperated fully with the making of the film and has a brief cameo in the Paris Church of Scotland during Liddell's sermon.[15]
At the memorial service for Harold Abrahams, which opens the film, Lord Lindsay mentions that he and Aubrey Montague are the only members of the 1924 Olympic team still alive. However, Montague died in 1948, 30 years before Abrahams' death.
1924 Olympics [ edit ]
The film takes some liberties with the events at the 1924 Olympics, including the events surrounding Liddell's refusal to race on a Sunday. In the film, he doesn't learn that the 100-metre heat is to be held on the Christian Sabbath until he is boarding the boat to Paris. In fact, the schedule was made public several months in advance; Liddell did however face immense pressure to run on that Sunday and to compete in the 100 metres, getting called before a grilling by the British Olympic Committee, the Prince of Wales, and other grandees,[14] and his refusal to run made headlines around the world.[16]
The decision to change races was, even so, made well before embarking to Paris, and Liddell spent the intervening months training for the 400 metres, an event in which he had previously excelled. It is true, nonetheless, that Liddell's success in the Olympic 400m was largely unexpected.
The film depicts Lindsay, having already won a medal in the 400-metre hurdles, giving up his place in the 400-metre race for Liddell. In fact Burghley, on whom Lindsay is loosely based, was eliminated in the heats of the 110 hurdles (he would go on to win a gold medal in the 400 hurdles at the 1928 Olympics), and was not entered for the 400 metres.
The film reverses the order of Abrahams' 100m and 200m races at the Olympics. In reality, after winning the 100 metres race, Abrahams ran the 200 metres but finished last, Jackson Scholz taking the gold medal. In the film, before his triumph in the 100m, Abrahams is shown losing the 200m and being scolded by Mussabini. And during the following scene in which Abrahams speaks with his friend Montague while receiving a massage from Mussabini, there is a French newspaper clipping showing Scholz and Charlie Paddock with a headline which states that the 200 metres was a triumph for the United States. In the same conversation, Abrahams laments getting "beaten out of sight" in the 200. The film thus has Abrahams overcoming the disappointment of losing the 200 by going on to win the 100, a reversal of the real order.
Eric Liddell actually also ran in the 200m race, and finished third, behind Paddock and Scholz. This was the only time in reality that Liddell and Abrahams competed in the same race. While their meeting in the 1923 AAA Championship in the film was fictitious, Liddell's record win in that race did spur Abrahams to train even harder.[17]
Abrahams also won a silver medal as an opening runner for the 4 x 100 metres relay team, not shown in the film, and Aubrey Montague placed sixth in the steeplechase, as depicted.[4]
Personal inaccuracies at the Olympics [ edit ]
In the film, the 100m bronze medallist is a character called "Tom Watson"; the real medallist was Arthur Porritt of New Zealand, who refused permission for his name to be used in the film, allegedly out of modesty, and his wish was accepted by the film's producers, even though his permission was not necessary.[18] However, the brief back-story given for Watson, who is called up to the New Zealand team from the University of Oxford, substantially matches Porritt's history. With the exception of Porritt, all the runners in the 100m final are identified correctly when they line up for inspection by the Prince of Wales.
Jackson Scholz is depicted as handing Liddell an inspirational Bible-quotation message before the 400 metres final: "It says in the Old Book, 'He that honors me, I will honor.' Good luck."[19] In reality, the note was from members of the British team, and was handed to Liddell before the race by his attending masseur at the team's Paris hotel.[20] For dramatic purposes, screenwriter Welland asked Scholz if he could be depicted handing the note, and Scholz readily agreed, saying "Yes, great, as long as it makes me look good."[14][21]
Production [ edit ]
Script and direction [ edit ]
Ian Charleson, who studied the Bible intensively for his role, wrote Eric Liddell's post-race inspirational speech to a working-class crowd.
Producer David Puttnam was looking for a story in the mold of A Man for All Seasons (1966), regarding someone who follows his conscience, and felt sports provided clear situations in this sense.[22] He discovered Eric Liddell's story by accident in 1977, when he happened upon a reference book on the Olympics while housebound from the flu in a rented house in Los Angeles.[23][24]
Screenwriter Colin Welland, commissioned by Puttnam, did an enormous amount of research for his Academy Award-winning script. Among other things, he took out advertisements in London newspapers seeking memories of the 1924 Olympics, went to the National Film Archives for pictures and footage of the 1924 Olympics, and interviewed everyone involved who was still alive. Welland just missed Abrahams, who died 14 January 1978, but he did attend Abrahams' February 1978 memorial service, which inspired the present-day framing device of the film.[5] Aubrey Montague's son saw Welland's newspaper ad and sent him copies of the letters his father had sent home – which gave Welland something to use as a narrative bridge in the film. Except for changes in the greetings of the letters from "Darling Mummy" to "Dear Mum" and the change from Oxford to Cambridge, all of the readings from Montague's letters are from the originals.[14]
Welland's original script also featured, in addition to Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams, a third protagonist, 1924 Olympic gold medallist Douglas Lowe, who was presented as a privileged aristocratic athlete. However, Lowe refused to have anything to do with the film, and his character was written out and replaced by the fictional character of Lord Andrew Lindsay.[25]
Ian Charleson himself wrote Eric Liddell's speech to the post-race workingmen's crowd at the Scotland v. Ireland races. Charleson, who had studied the Bible intensively in preparation for the role, told director Hugh Hudson that he didn't feel the portentous and sanctimonious scripted speech was either authentic or inspiring. Hudson and Welland allowed him to write words he personally found inspirational instead.[26]
The film was slightly altered for the U.S. audience. A brief scene depicting a pre-Olympics cricket game between Abrahams, Liddell, Montague, and the rest of the British track team appears shortly after the beginning of the original film. For the American audience, this brief scene was deleted. In the U.S., to avoid the initial G rating, which had been strongly associated with children's films and might have hindered box office sales, a different scene was used – one depicting Abrahams and Montague arriving at a Cambridge railway station and encountering two World War I veterans who use an obscenity – in order to be given a PG rating.[27]
Puttnam chose Hugh Hudson, a multiple award-winning advertising and documentary filmmaker who had never helmed a feature film, to direct Chariots of Fire. Hudson and Puttnam had known each other since the 1960s, when Puttnam was an advertising executive and Hudson was making films for ad agencies. In 1977, Hudson had also been second-unit director on the Puttnam-produced film Midnight Express.[28]
Casting [ edit ]
Director Hugh Hudson was determined to cast young, unknown actors in all the major roles of the film, and to back them up by using veterans like John Gielgud, Lindsay Anderson, and Ian Holm as their supporting cast. Hudson and producer David Puttnam did months of fruitless searching for the perfect actor to play Eric Liddell. They then saw Scottish stage actor Ian Charleson performing the role of Pierre in the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Piaf, and knew immediately they had found their man. Unbeknownst to them, Charleson had heard about the film from his father, and desperately wanted to play the part, feeling it would "fit like a kid glove".[29]
Ben Cross, who plays Harold Abrahams, was discovered while playing Billy Flynn in Chicago. In addition to having a natural pugnaciousness, he had the desired ability to sing and play the piano.[14][30] Cross was thrilled to be cast, and said he was moved to tears by the film's script.[31]
20th Century Fox, which put up half of the production budget in exchange for distribution rights outside of North America,[32] insisted on having a couple of notable American names in the cast.[24] Thus the small parts of the two American champion runners, Jackson Scholz and Charlie Paddock, were cast with recent headliners: Brad Davis had recently starred in Midnight Express (also produced by Puttnam), and Dennis Christopher had recently starred, as a young bicycle racer, in the popular indie film Breaking Away.[31]
All of the actors portraying runners underwent a gruelling three-month training intensive with renowned running coach Tom McNab. This training and isolation of the actors also created a strong bond and sense of camaraderie among them.[31]
Music [ edit ]
Although the film is a period piece, set in the 1920s, the Academy Award-winning original soundtrack composed by Vangelis uses a modern 1980s electronic sound, with a strong use of synthesizer and piano among other instruments. This was a bold and significant departure from earlier period films, which employed sweeping orchestral instrumentals. The title theme of the film has become iconic, and has been used in subsequent films and television shows during slow-motion segments.
Vangelis, a Greek-born electronic composer who moved to Paris in the late 1960s, had been living in London since 1974.[33] Director Hugh Hudson had collaborated with him on documentaries and commercials, and was also particularly impressed with his 1979 albums Opera Sauvage and China.[34] David Puttnam also greatly admired Vangelis's body of work, having originally selected his compositions for his previous film Midnight Express.[35] Hudson made the choice for Vangelis and for a modern score: "I knew we needed a piece which was anachronistic to the period to give it a feel of modernity. It was a risky idea but we went with it rather than have a period symphonic score."[28] The soundtrack had a personal significance to Vangelis: After composing the iconic theme tune he told Puttnam, "My father is a runner, and this is an anthem to him."[5][33]
Hudson originally wanted Vangelis's 1977 tune "L'Enfant",[36] from his Opera Sauvage album, to be the title theme of the film, and the beach running sequence was actually filmed with "L'Enfant" playing on loudspeakers for the runners to pace to. Vangelis finally convinced Hudson he could create a new and better piece for the film's main theme – and when he played the now-iconic "Chariots of Fire" theme for Hudson, it was agreed the new tune was unquestionably better.[37] The "L'Enfant" melody still made it into the film: When the athletes reach Paris and enter the stadium, a brass band marches through the field, and first plays a modified, acoustic performance of the piece.[38] Vangelis's electronic "L'Enfant" track eventually was used prominently in the 1982 film The Year of Living Dangerously.
Some pieces of Vangelis's music in the film did not end up on the film's soundtrack album. One of them is the background music to the race Eric Liddell runs in the Scottish highlands. This piece is a version of "Hymne", the original version of which appears on Vangelis's 1979 album, Opéra sauvage. Various versions are also included on Vangelis's compilation albums Themes, Portraits, and Odyssey: The Definitive Collection, though none of these include the version used in the film.
Five lively Gilbert and Sullivan tunes also appear in the soundtrack, and serve as jaunty period music which nicely counterpoints Vangelis's modern electronic score. These are: "He is an Englishman" from H.M.S. Pinafore, "Three Little Maids from School Are We" from The Mikado, "With Catlike Tread" from The Pirates of Penzance, "The Soldiers of Our Queen" from Patience, and "There Lived a King" from The Gondoliers.
The film also incorporates a major traditional work: "Jerusalem", sung by a British choir at the 1978 funeral of Harold Abrahams. The words, written by William Blake in 1804-8, were set to music by Parry in 1916 as a celebration of England. This hymn has been described as "England's unofficial national anthem",[39] concludes the film and inspired its title.[40] A handful of other traditional anthems and hymns and period-appropriate instrumental ballroom-dance music round out the film's soundtrack.
Filming locations [ edit ]
The beach running scene
The beach scenes associated with the theme tune were filmed at West Sands, St Andrews. A plaque commemorating the filming can be found there today. The very last scene of the opening titles crosses the 1st and 18th holes of the Old Course at St Andrews Links.[41][42]
All of the Cambridge scenes were actually filmed at Hugh Hudson's alma mater Eton College, because Cambridge refused filming rights, fearing depictions of anti-Semitism. The Cambridge administration greatly regretted the decision after the film's enormous success.[14]
Liverpool Town Hall was the setting for the scenes depicting the British Embassy in Paris.[14] The Colombes Olympic Stadium in Paris was represented by the Oval Sports Centre, Bebington, Merseyside.[43] The nearby Woodside ferry terminal was used to represent the embarkation scenes set in Dover.[43] The railway station scenes were filmed in York, using locomotives from the National Railway Museum.[14] The scene depicting a performance of The Mikado was filmed in the Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool with members of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company who were on tour.[44]
Revival for the 2012 Olympics [ edit ]
Chariots of Fire became a recurring theme in promotions for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. The film's theme tune was featured at the opening of the 2012 London New Years fireworks celebrating the Olympics,[45] and the film's iconic beach-running scene and theme tune were used in The Sun's "Let's Make It Great, Britain" Olympic ads.[46] The runners who first tested the new Olympic Park were spurred on by the Chariots of Fire theme tune,[47] and the iconic music was also used to fanfare the carriers of the Olympic flame on parts of its route through the UK.[48][49] The beach-running sequence was also recreated at St. Andrews and filmed as part of the Olympic torch relay.[50]
The film's theme was also performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Simon Rattle, during the Opening Ceremony of the games; the performance was accompanied by a comedy skit by Rowan Atkinson (as Mr Bean) which included the opening beach-running footage from the film.[51] The film's theme tune was also played during each medal ceremony of the 2012 Olympics.
Stage adaptation [ edit ]
A stage adaptation of Chariots of Fire was mounted in honour of the 2012 Olympics. The play, Chariots of Fire, which was adapted by playwright Mike Bartlett and included the iconic Vangelis score, ran from 9 May to 16 June 2012 at London's Hampstead Theatre, and transferred to the Gielgud Theatre in the West End on 23 June, where it ran until 5 January 2013.[52] It starred Jack Lowden as Eric Liddell and James McArdle as Harold Abrahams, and Edward Hall directed. Stage designer Miriam Buether transformed each theatre into an Olympic stadium, and composer Jason Carr wrote additional music.[53][54][55] Vangelis also created several new pieces of music for the production.[56][57] The stage version for the London Olympic year was the idea of the film's director, Hugh Hudson, who co-produced the play; he stated, "Issues of faith, of refusal to compromise, standing up for one's beliefs, achieving something for the sake of it, with passion, and not just for fame or financial gain, are even more vital today."[58]
Another play, Running for Glory, written by Philip Dart, based on the 1924 Olympics, and focusing on Abrahams and Liddell, toured parts of Britain from 25 February to 1 April 2012. It starred Nicholas Jacobs as Harold Abrahams, and Tom Micklem as Eric Liddell.[59][60]
UK cinematic re-release, Blu-ray [ edit ]
As an official part of the London 2012 Festival celebrations, a new digitally re-mastered version of the film screened in 150 cinemas throughout the UK. The re-release began 13 July 2012, two weeks before the opening ceremony of the London Olympics.[61]
A Blu-ray of the film was released on 10 July 2012 in North America,[62] and was released 16 July 2012 in the UK.[63] The release includes nearly an hour of special features, a CD sampler, and a 32-page "digibook".[64][65]
Critical reception [ edit ]
Since its release Chariots of Fire has received generally positive reviews from critics. As of 2017 the film holds an 83% "Certified Fresh" rating on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes based on 64 reviews, accompanied by the summary "Decidedly slower and less limber than the Olympic runners at the center of its story, the film nevertheless manages to make effectively stirring use of its spiritual and patriotic themes."[66]
For its 2012 re-release, Kate Muir of The Times gave the film five stars, writing: "In a time when drug tests and synthetic fibres have replaced gumption and moral fibre, the tale of two runners competing against each other in the 1924 Olympics has a simple, undiminished power. From the opening scene of pale young men racing barefoot along the beach, full of hope and elation, backed by Vangelis's now famous anthem, the film is utterly compelling."[67]
Accolades [ edit ]
Chariots of Fire was very successful at the 54th Academy Awards, winning four of seven nominations. When accepting his Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, Colin Welland famously announced "The British are coming".[68] At the 1981 Cannes Film Festival the film won two awards and competed for the Palme d'Or.[69]
American Film Institute recognition
Awards and nominations [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Chapman, James. "The British Are Coming: Chariots of Fire (1981)". In: Past and Present: National Identity and the British Historical Film. London: I.B. Tauris & Co, 2005. pp. 270–298.
(1981)". In:. London: I.B. Tauris & Co, 2005. pp. 270–298. McLaughlin, John (February 2012). "In Chariots They Ran". Runner's World. Emmaus, Pennsylvania: Rodale.
Ryan, Mark. Running with Fire: The True Story of Chariots of Fire Hero Harold Abrahams. Robson Press, 2012 (paperback). (Original hardback: JR Books Ltd, 2011.)To understand the importance Dennis Kucinich places on spirituality, scan his generally spare Capitol Hill office: a white cloth from the Dalai Lama, a bust of Gandhi, and a picture representing "conscious light" – a gift from Brahma Kumaris nuns.
There's a Tibetan dragon washbowl and, on his desk, two heavy crucifixes once worn by Catholic nuns who taught him and who, he says, "saved my life."
"Obviously, I connect with all religions," says Representative Kucinich (D) of Ohio, in the midst of his second presidential campaign. "All manners of belief and even non-belief come from a common font, and that is the transcendent power of the human heart.... All those things that would separate us are based on misunderstandings of our nature."
They're somewhat unusual religious views for someone who still considers himself essentially Roman Catholic. But then, little about Kucinich is orthodox.
While his colleagues in Congress recently voted for more military funds for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, he is pushing for immediate withdrawal from Iraq and advocates cutting money from the defense budget. In the middle of the war on terror, he wants to establish a Department of Peace. He's the only Democratic presidential candidate who wants a Medicare system for all Americans, supports gay marriage, and advocates repealing the North American Free Trade Agreement and withdrawing from the World Trade Organization.
The congressman is also, by all reckonings, a long shot for the nomination. The latest national polls have him hovering around 1 percent. (He often wins online polls with strong liberal leanings.)
But Kucinich, who projects supreme confidence in both his views and his abilities, is anything but discouraged.
Another item he keeps in his congressional office is an original script from "The Man of La Mancha," a gift from a cast member. It's an apt memento, since Kucinich has been tilting at windmills and dreaming impossible dreams most of his life.
Quoting the romantic poets
The eldest of seven children, he grew up in a household that was chronically short of money and often had trouble finding an apartment that would accept so many children. The family moved more than 20 times and, at one point, lived out of their 1948 Dodge. Kucinich worked to pay his tuition to the Catholic schools he attended and was one of the first in his family to graduate from high school. A sports lover despite his 5-foot, 7-inch frame, he played football and basketball – and endured brutal hazing from teammates – until he was diagnosed with a heart murmur and told to stop.
From the time he was young, Kucinich has been reading the likes of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Browning, and the Romantic poets. He still quotes them and considers many of their ideas part of his broader sense of faith. A particular favorite is Percy Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound" – whose final lines mirror Kucinich's own belief that love and hope must challenge oppression. "Tennyson – 'Come, My friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.' Browning – 'A man's reach should exceed his grasp,' " Kucinich says. "The romantic poets had this understanding of the power of the human spirit…. That to me corresponds to religion, and to me the power of the human heart is an article of faith."
Those sentiments – that one should strive for the impossible, and try to create something better – were also |
by ULA — the Atlas V, manufactured by Lockheed Martin, and the Delta IV, made by Boeing.
SEE ALSO: Sequestration cuts put American lives in danger, military chiefs say
SpaceX has repeatedly charged that government payments to cover ULA overhead costs amounts to a $1 billion “subsidy” and the Air Force’s rigorous “certification” cost and accountability process amounts to a monopoly for ULA, which they argue is cost-ineffective for the Air Force.
“The cost of the EELV program has become unsustainable,” said Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s chief operating officer, in her opening statement. “According to the GAO, the price per EELV launch has quadrupled from one-hundred to four-hundred million dollars.”
SpaceX could perform the same EELV launches for only $100 million, she said.
ULA’s “monopoly” label stems from the fact that the joint venture already has a cost and accountability procedure in effect to meet USAF certification requirements. To date, the process has kept SpaceX out of the competitive bidding process, and the Air Force has spent $60 million to help the company reach certification.
The company projects it will satisfy certification requirements by June, a step some USAF officials are looking forward to.
“Make no mistake, national security will be improved the day SpaceX is certified,” testified William LaPlante, the Air Force assistant secretary who oversees acquisition issues.
In addition to the monopoly and subsidy labels, ULA carries a separate public relations burden because of its use of Russian RD-180 rocket engines. Congress placed an effective ban on the RD-180, requiring that it be phased out by 2019, and ULA is currently working with Jeff Bezos’ aerospace company Blue Origins to develop a replacement engine.
Still, the company insists its proven track record is what should remain at the center of the EELV debate.
“We enjoy a perfect success record with 94 flights,” testified ULA CEO Tory Bruno. “This is a record no one has yet to match, and from our perspective when you’re launching national security mission upon which lives depend, liability matters.”
Mr. Bruno added that ULA was taking steps to lower EELV costs by phasing out the more expensive Delta IV launches by 2018 and reducing the number of launch pads the joint venture currently uses.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.Geek Peek: First Look At Disney’s Hand-Drawn/Computer Animated Hybrid Short ‘Paperman’
Along with Disney’s new film Wreck-It Ralph, a new animated short film titled Paperman will also be released, much like Pixar Animation does with all of their movies.
Paperman actually fuses together hand-drawn and computer animation with a simplistic black and white presentation to offer a very unique new style of animated film. It tells the story of a lonely man who bumps into the girl of his dreams by chance on his morning commute and then watches her disappear just as quickly. But, as fate would have it, he spots her once again in a window across from where he works, leading him to figure out how to get her attention.
You can see the first images from Paperman below now!
ImagesI’ve just finished reading Walking with Plato. It is a diary of journalist Gary Hayden and his school teacher wife Wendy as they walk the length of Britain from John o’Groats in Scotland to Lands’ End at the tip of Cornwall. The book is a delightful account of the history and geography of Britain, witnessed from trails that wind their way through that isle’s wilder parts. It is a tribute to British custody of its many wonderful landscapes through the centuries, especially their survival through the industrial transformations of the last 200 years. But there is one landscape that our diarist admits faces extinction: the dark, clear night-sky. During their trek along a remote part of Hadrian’s Wall – the fortification across southern Scotland of the old Roman Empire – Gary Hayden finds himself staring into a moonless sky. Fascinated by the universe above, he lies outside his tent gazing at the stars into the early hours of the morning. Hayden writes of that feeling of being an insignificant dot on a little planet on the edge of one luminescent cloud of galaxies after another across an ink-black sky. The episode reminded me of a column I wrote about the absence of stars in the night sky a few years back when we were living in London. I recounted a local saying you can see London from outer space, but you can’t see outer space from London. When I drove back to our Hunter township from Sydney late last week there was night light from a fledgling moon, but still I was struck with the clarity of my view of the universe. The glow of Newcastle to the east seemed to stop at Sugarloaf and our local street lights didn’t dilute the darkness too much, although I do wonder why all that glare is necessary. A recent scientific study reported in the journal Science Advances shows that we should be worried about the loss of the ink-black sky. Artificial light continues its colonisation of the night. And this involves more than not being able to stare into infinity. The stress of not having dark nights is affecting the vigour of life on our planet. Organisms, like us, that need darkness to sleep suffer when the natural day-night cycle loses its intensity. Then, those organisms that are nocturnal – apparently 30 per cent of the world’s vertebrates and more than 60 per cent of its invertebrates – suffer because the loss of darkness curtails what they can do during their waking hours. Economic growth and urbanisation are the main causes of night time light pollution. An intriguing finding of the study is the effect of LED lights. These not only make outside lighting cheaper, hence more prolific, they emit white-toned light different to the softer yellowish light from the old sodium bulbs, which makes the atmosphere glow brighter. The study shows Australia’s night skies are getting brighter, but not to the extent found overseas. In Gary Hayden’s Britain, half of its children are said to have never seen the Milky Way. There are about 100 billion stars in the Milky Way. My calculation says this is about one star for each person who has ever lived. Beyond the Milky Way there are two trillion more galaxies. Gazing skyward on a moonless Hunter Valley night is a great joy. Stars stretch forever. I’ve never met a person not enthralled by the wonder of it all. Some say they feel a very small part of something marvellous. I say we need to play a bigger part to protect what we’ve got.
https://nnimgt-a.akamaihd.net/transform/v1/crop/frm/matthew.crossman/c42a8495-8ef3-4cc3-98c3-93bb3190bcde.jpg/r0_51_1000_616_w1200_h678_fmax.jpgFor the first time since the advent of this armed conflict in Syria, the Russian Federation is providing the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) with satellite imagery in order to promote the military cooperation between the two countries and to fulfill its promise to boost its support for the latter.
According to an SAA source, the Russian Federation sent a military delegation to meet with the logistical wing of the Syrian Arab Army in the port-city of Tartous on Tuesday; this marked the first time that the two countries agreed to direct intervention through technological resources.
The source added that Russia’s intervention through technological resources is meant to obstruct the growth of terrorism within Syria’s borders and to combat the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) – a terrorist group that is currently operating in a half dozen countries in the Middle East.
A boost in technology is not the only thing the Russian Federation is providing the Syrian Arab Army; reports of an increased supply of weapons, including heavy armory, are said to be arriving into Syria’s ports in the coming weeks.
Last week, the Syrian Arab Army showcased some of its armory at the battles of Al-Zabadani and the Al-Ghaab Plain, including the BTR-82 armored personnel carrier; however, after inquiring about the weapons delivery, the military source stated he could not divulge information regarding the heavy armory.
AdvertisementsThe first section of the Wattway road, a 0.6-mile stretch, opened this week in Normandy. The road will be tested for the next two years and is expected to generate enough power to light a city of 5,000, according to France's Ministry of Environment, Energy and the Sea.
Last week, France’s minister of Ecology and Energy announced that the country will pave 621 miles of road with solar panels over the next five years, with the goal of providing cheap, renewable energy to five million people.
Called "the Wattway," the roads will be built in collaboration with the French road-building company Colas and the National Institute of Solar Energy. The company spent the last five years developing solar panels that are only about a quarter of an inch thick and are hardy enough to stand up to heavy highway traffic without breaking or making the roads more slippery, David Rogers reports for Global Construction Review. The panels are also designed so that they can be installed directly on top of existing roadways, making them relatively cheap and easy to install without having to tear up any infrastructure.
"There is no need to rebuild infrastructure," Colas CEO Hervé Le Bouc told Myriam Chauvot for the French magazine Les Echoes in 2015. "At Chambéry and Grenoble, was tested successfully on Wattway a cycle of 1 million vehicles, or 20 years of normal traffic a road, and the surface does not move."
The panels are made out of a thin polycrystalline silicon film and coated in a layer of resin to strengthen them and make them less slippery. Because the panels are so thin, they can adapt to small changes in the surface of pavement due to temperature shifts and are sealed tightly against the weather, Fiona MacDonald reports for ScienceAlert. According to Colas, the panels are even snowplow-proof, although plows need to be a little more cautious so as not to rip the panels off the ground.
France isn’t the first country to kick around the idea of paving its roads with solar panels. In November 2015, the Netherlands unveiled a 229-foot-long bike path paved with solar panels as a test for future projects, and a couple in Idaho raised more than $2 million through Kickstarter in 2014 and received a 2-year contract from the Federal Highway Administration to develop their own solar roadways, Rob Wile writes for Fusion. However, this is the first time a panel has been designed to be laid directly on top of existing roads and the first project to install the panels on public highways.
For many environmentalists, paving roadways with solar panels sounds like a great idea. Colas says that 215 square feet of Wattway will provide enough energy to power a single French home (aside from heating), but some researchers are still skeptical that solar roadways will ever be efficient and cost-effective enough to compete with regular rooftop solar panels, MacDonald writes.
It will be difficult for photovoltaic glass to compete against the much cheaper asphalt, for example, and rooftop panels are better placed to get the best possible sunlight, researcher Andrew Thomson wrote for The Conversation. In addition, he writes, if solar roadways prove to be more slippery than traditional roadways, safety concerns could kill the burgeoning technology, regardless of how much power they may put out.
“For solar roadways to be effective, it needs a complete technological rethink,” Thomson wrote.
For now, French authorities are going ahead with the project, and will start laying down segments of Wattway this coming spring.After taking over "Jimmy Kimmel Sucks!" last January, the "Monuments Men" star and Kimmel butt heads on Thursday's episode.
Jimmy Kimmel isn't taking Matt Damon's return to Jimmy Kimmel Live! well.
Damon memorably took over Kimmel's ABC late-night talker on Jan. 23, 2013, temporarily renamed Jimmy Kimmel Sucks!, which featured a star-studded hour that included appearances by Andy Garcia, Sheryl Crow, Ben Affleck, Robin Williams, Nicole Kidman, Gary Oldman, Amy Adams, Reese Witherspoon and Demi Moore. For the entirety of the hour, Kimmel was gagged and tied to a chair.
STORY: 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!': Matt Damon Returning One Year After Hijacking Show
When Damon makes his anticipated return on Thursday, Feb. 6, alongside his Monuments Men castmates, things are still very tense between Damon and Kimmel. The Hollywood Reporter exclusively debuts a first-look photo at the awkward reunion, where Damon has been relegated to a baby chair -- and is the farthest away from Kimmel. Clearly, time hasn't healed all wounds. (Watch a brief preview of the baby chair gag.)
If that wasn't enough, Kimmel will do another installment of "Mean Tweets," this time with a tweet from his own Twitter handle, @jimmykimmel. In the clip, Kimmel bashes Damon, though the Oscar winner has the last laugh (yoga pants!).
George Clooney, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Bob Balaban and Cate Blanchett also appear on the episode, which airs opposite Jay Leno's Tonight Show swan song.
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Email: Philiana.Ng@THR.com
Twitter: @insidethetubeDanny Masterson steadfastly defended his religion to 'Paper' magazine in an interview published in 2015. “I work, I have a family and I'm a spiritual being who likes to understand why things happen in the world and want to learn more so that I can have them not affect me adversely,” the actor said. “So if that's weird, then, well, you can go (expletive) yourself.” (Photo11: Joe Scarnici, Getty Images for DirecTV)
Actor Danny Masterson has been ousted from The Ranch amid multiple sexual assault allegations, Netflix said in a statement to USA TODAY.
“As a result of ongoing discussions, Netflix and the producers have written Danny Masterson out of The Ranch," the statement read. "Yesterday was his last day on the show, and production will resume in early 2018 without him.”
In a statement provided to USA TODAY Tuesday, Masterson said he was "very disappointed" in Netflix's decision to write his character off the show, adding that he has "denied the outrageous allegations" against him from Day 1.
"Law enforcement investigated these claims more than 15 years ago and determined them to be without merit. I have never been charged with a crime, let alone convicted of one," the statement read. "In this country, you are presumed innocent until proven guilty. However, in the current climate, it seems as if you are presumed guilty the moment you are accused."
He added that he looks forward to clearing his name "once and for all," but thanked his fans and the cast and crew of the show, wishing them "nothing but success."
Masterson, who plays Jameson "Rooster" Bennett on the Emmy-winning series, has been a part of the the show since it began in 2016. The series also stars Ashton Kutcher, who is credited as a producer.
The Los Angeles police department confirmed in March it began investigating Masterson, who his best known for his role as Steven Hyde on the TV series That '70s Show, after three women reported being sexually assaulted by him in the early 2000s.
A representative for Masterson, who has not been charged with a crime, denied the allegations in a statement the same month. The representative said one of the accusers was Masterson's longtime girlfriend, who continued to date him after the alleged incident.
"The alleged incident occurred in the middle of their six-year relationship, after which she continued to be his longtime girlfriend," the statement said.
Masterson, who has identified himself as a practicing Scientologist, said in the statement that he believes the "false allegations" are an attempt to boost a television series featuring former members of the Church of Scientology. He says one of the women only came forward after speaking with one of the show's producers.
HuffPost reports that a case from one of Masterson’s accuser did not move forward because the Church of Scientology intervened with more than 50 affidavits from Scientologists who denied the woman’s account.
The news site also reported Monday that one of Masterson's alleged sexual assault victims said a Netflix executive told her the company did not believe the accusers.
Netflix confirmed in a statement to the site that Andy Yeatman, the streaming service's director of global kids content, made “careless” and “uninformed” comments, but was unaware that the woman he was speaking to was one of Masterson's accusers.
Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2zNNhanA screenshot of the Malaysia Airlines’ Chinese New Year video.
KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 26 — Malaysia Airlines’ Chinese New Year video was the talk of the town for not featuring any ethnic Chinese, showing other Malaysians instead speaking in various Chinese dialects.
The 1.41-minute video showed mostly Malays and Indians wishing Malaysians Happy Chinese New Year in Mandarin, Cantonese and Hokkien fluently.
The video titled “A truly Malaysian greeting”, released ahead of Chinese New Year this weekend, encouraged Malaysians to get together and to return home, besides depicting thoughts of the non-Chinese about the festive season.
The video started with a man by the name of Ashwin, who said that Chinese New Year was a unique celebration celebrated by all.
It then cut to a Malay woman, who expressed hopes for everyone to be able to travel more often during this festive season.
Halfway through the video, it showed another Indian man speaking excitedly about songs and clothing associated to Chinese New Year at a place believed to be Petaling Street in Chinatown.
Another Malay woman was then seen saying how she loved Malaysians getting together during this festive season.
The video ended with a Malaysia Airlines crew wishing those returning home a pleasant journey.
Netizens praised the national carrier for coming up with the brilliant concept.
“This video is the epitome of beauty in simplicity! love the heart-warming wishes delivered by a inspiring potpourri of Malaysians with their multilingual prowess. A very Happy Chinese New Year to all involved in this ad [advertisement], and thank you Malaysia Airlines!” Facebook user Michelle Tam posted.
Another Facebook user, Kelvin Coolboy, said: “Great video and CNY Greetings! Be proud to be a Malaysian and share the tradition together no matter what races and background u came from!”.
“Great ad! Kudos to Malaysian Airlines. This is how it should be for a progressive and united
country,” posted Florence Oh, another user.
The video was released late last night on Malaysia Airlines’ Facebook page and YouTube channel.Android 5.1.1 Lollipop comes with many improvements and it is the latest Lollipop OS version, most of the devices that have been updated lately to Android Lollipop are preparing to be updated to the latest Android OS version, which is 6.0 and it is named Marshmallow.
The Galaxy Note 4 and Galaxy Note Edge that are connected to AT&T are now receiving the Android 5.1.1 Lollipop. However, if you own an LG G3, you will need to be connected to the Verizon carrier, as this is the carrier that is currently rolling out the Android Lollipop for your device.
We remind you that the OTA update is released in phases and depending on the region where you’re from, the update will be available sooner or later.
The Android 5.1.1 Lollipop comes with many fixes for the bugs that have been discovered in Android 5.0 Lollipop. At the same time, this update is fixing one of the most dangerous issues that Zimperium (security firm) has discovered, the name of the bug is Stagefright and it was allowing hackers to gain full control of the infected mobile device that was running on Android. The hackers just had to send a MMS containing a malicious code and just waited for the recipients to open it, in order to gain full access of their Android devices.
If you didn’t receive the Android 5.1.1 Lollipop on Galaxy Note 4, Galaxy Note Edge or LG G3, you can also check to see if there is an OTA update available for your device by going to Settings->About Phone->Software Updates and tap on “Check for Updates”.
If you don’t have too much mobile data to spare, we suggest you to connect to a Wi-Fi network before starting the download of the Android 5.1.1 Lollipop. Also, don’t start the installation if you don’t have at least 60-70% battery left on your Android device, because there is a chance that your mobile device will shutdown during the installation process.PARDON ROW
Executive members oppose Makkar’s decision
Jupinderjit Singh & GS Paul
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh/Amritsar, Oct 22
The Sikh religious establishment seemed in a disarray a day after Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) president Avtar Singh Makkar suspended the Panj Pyaras for summoning the five Sikh high priests over pardon to Dera Sacha Sauda chief in an alleged blasphemy case. The SGPC’s executive committee today refused to go with Makkar’s decision and Akal Takht Jathedar Gurbachan Singh questioned Panj Pyaras’ authority to call the high priests.
The committee’s support to the Panj Pyaras will likely lead to revocation of their suspension, but it isn’t clear yet whether their summoning of the Takht heads would hold relevance.
The members, who met here today, are learnt to have registered their protest with Makkar over his “unilateral” decision, though they subsequently authorised him to take the final call.
Makkar told The Tribune the decision would be taken in another two days. “The executive members have apprised me of their views. We had a long discussion… the issue concerns the sentiments of the Sikh community.”
On September 24, the five Takht heads — Gurbachan Singh (Akal Takht), Mal Singh (Kesgarh Sahib), Gurbaksh Singh (Damdama Sahib), Iqbal Singh (Patna Sahib) and Ram Singh (Hazoor Sahib) —had issued an edict pardoning Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh for his alleged blasphemous act of wearing an attire similar to that of Guru Gobind Singh in 2007. The Panj Pyaras had, going by the “powers” vested in them as representatives of the community, summoned the Jathedars, only to be suspended afterwards.
The Akal Takht Jathedar today said, “The Panj Pyaras do not have the authority to summon the five Takht heads. They are among the ordinary ‘granthis’ of the Golden Temple nominated to conduct ‘amrit sanchar’ (baptism ritual) or lead ‘nagar kirtans’. It is the first time they have overstepped their jurisdiction.”
On the other hand, the Panj Pyaras today refused to join their new postings (as assigned by the SGPC). Sources said they would assemble at Akal Takht tomorrow to decide their future strategy. While Satnam Singh Khanda, Major Singh, Satnam Singh were shifted to the UP Sikh Mission headquarters at Hapar, Tirlok Singh and Mangal Singh have been told to join work at the Sikh Mission in Kurukshetra.
Apart from the SGPC members, several Sikh bodies have announced their support for the Panj Pyaras. Chief Khalsa Diwan (CKD) head Charanjit Singh Chadha called it a “hasty” decision. “The CKD has always played a pivotal role in Sikh matters, but no one feels the need to take us into confidence on vital issues now. The five Takht heads landing in a disgraceful situation or the Panj Pyaras being treated in a nonchalant manner is a serious matter,” he said. Shiromani Akali Dal (Delhi) president Paramjit Singh Sarna alleged the suspension order was an attack on Sikhism itself. “The Panj Pyaras have the powers to pronounce religious punishment to anybody over blasphemy,” he said.In February Union Pacific railroad informed the Lone Star Rail District that it would not hand over a critical line of track that ran parallel to I-35.
The dream was to use the track to operate a daily commuter rail service connecting San Antonio and Austin.
Speaking on The Source on Monday County Commissioner Kevin Wolff said he’s lost confidence in the Lone Star Rail District and it’s time to defund the operation.
“We will essentially abolish the operational arm until such time there is a solid legitimate plan and a way to pay for the building – the capital costs – of actually building a rail line there’s no sense in us having to spend good money after bad.”
The Lone Star Rail District was established in 2003 by the Texas Legislature and has spent over 28 million dollars in the endeavor with little to show for it. District 9 City Councilmember Joe Krier said there is still the need for a regional commuter rail but not with the Lone Star Rail District.
“What we oughta do is to get the two MPO’s to sit down with each other rather than complaining about who is spending who’s money for what – and figure out a joint policy between our MPO and Austin MPO to move this project forward. We have got to have this. We can’t get people to work, school and church 20 years from now if we don’t.”
The Lone Star Rail District has released possible alternative routes including one vision to build and operate an elevated rail line along I-35. Another concept is to build a line along the SH130 corridor. Regardless an 8 million dollar environmental study for the defunct Union Pacific line is continuing.
Guests:RYAN JOHNS
RUNS EUROPE
On May 22 2009 I will begin a run from Amsterdam to Athens. The run will carry me over 2,300 miles through 7 countries and will take about 4 months to complete. I will be completely unsupported, carrying only the bare necessities on my back. I will average almost 20 miles per day.
Sounds crazy right? Well, add to that no reservations and no money for lodging and you’ve got...one sweet adventure. In order to meet new people, I’m nixing the hotel and hoping that I can depend on hospitality as frequently as possible.
Every day I’m going to wake up, put on my gear, and run for a few hours. When I get to the next town, I’ll have the whole day to: recuperate / find food / practice my French, German, and Italian (or pick up some Dutch or Greek) / discover something new / see some architecture / make new friends / wash up / update my log / find somewhere to sleep / do whatever else comes up. Then I’ll go to sleep, and the next day I’ll wake up and do it again...for four months.
This website is devoted to this trip: to allowing my friends and family to follow my run and to spreading the word to anyone who might want to help make this dream become reality.Time to Get the VA Out of Medical Care Delivery
To all my fellow veterans, I'm about to tip a sacred cow here. I would ask that for the sake of our many fellow warriors who need relief ASAP, please read this with an open mind and a willingness to offer tweaks, embellishments or outright different approaches: Many of us can agree that the Veterans Administration has done a less-than-stellar job in delivering timely, high-quality and cost-effective medical care, especially when it comes to "wait times," for veterans injured serving this great nation. However, there is one piece of good news in this situation: The American public is outraged and sincerely wants to help. This gives us a window of opportunity and leverage to achieve major changes, something historically, very difficult to do in the D.C. bureaucracy. An intermediate solution now in place, has its own issues. In response to the public furor over Veterans' Health Care, the Obama Administration initiated the "Veterans Choice" initiative, which allows Veterans to seek service outside the VA, if there is expected to be a long wait period for internal service. A longtime friend and fellow vet wrote the following about this: If you are considering Veterans Choice with the VA, think long and hard. I am out and here is why.
1. Referrals: The system is totally broken. Requests for referrals are sent by the primary care VA choice doctor to the VA, and then supposedly approved and placed in your file so you can schedule an appointment. Admittedly, this is but one anecdote, but it does showcase the continued tension between prompt, effective treatment for a veteran, and a slovenly, calcified bureaucracy with little motivation or accountability, as well as some financial considerations. A more recent solution being bandied about is to "just give the veterans a card and let them use that to get service at the private facility of their choice." At first blush, this sounds like the perfect solution. Give the veteran a "Medical Charge Card" that lets him or her seek medical care in the private economy, while the government simply writes the checks as in Medicare. After a little reflection however, we can see that the costs for that could rapidly spiral out of control, endangering the program for everyone. We want to enact our reform of the VA at least as well as that and get it right the first time -- quickly. What we need is a system that identifies veterans eligible for VA-funded care, identifies the specific care they are eligible for, adequately funds that care, and does those things in a timely and cost-effective manner while minimizing the potential for abuse. The first thing we need to do is get the Veteran's Administration out of the Medical Care Delivery aspect of Veteran's Medicine. The VA should be limited to determining the extent of the injury/illness, service connection of that injury/illness and disability rating resulting from service connected injuries/illnesses. After that, another entity should take over to ensure delivery of treatment -- TRICARE. TRICARE is the health care management/payment system that takes care of Active Duty Military (when not being treated in a military facility) selected reservists and their dependents. TRICARE also covers military retirees. TRICARE manages the administration & payment for health care for all of the above categories -- each of which is entitled to a different level of coverage/payment. For example, an Active Duty Army Staff Sergeant being treated by a civilian specialist, will usually have 100% of the cost covered. That same Staff Sergeant, now retired, will be able to get the same treatment, but will have to pay a modest co-pay. The TRICARE computer management algorithm(s) know(s) the difference. The above capability makes TRICARE, an existing system that works, the ideal choice to ensure disabled vets get the treatment they need and are entitled to. Instead of the billions of dollars we spend to fund the overhead and facility costs of Veterans' hospitals and treatment clinics, those funds could instead be allocated to TRICARE to pay for actual medical treatment. This would result in lower overhead costs and hence provide more money for actual treatment and best of all, do it with a much more rapid response time. TRICARE's algorithm would need to differentiate between the following categories of veterans: Cat 1: A disabled veteran who is also retired from the military, either medically or by virtue of length of service. Cat 2: A disabled veteran who has been separated from the military, but not for medical reasons or via retirement. This veteran is your typical patriotic American who has honorably served one or more military enlistments but has decided to pursue civilian opportunities instead of a twenty (or more year) career in the military. However, he does have one or more "souvenirs" of his military service; a souvenir the American public has the legal and moral obligation to pay for. Differentiating between these two categories is critical in order to execute a dual-use system as proposed above. At the secretary level in the U.S. government, which pot of money pays for what service, is always important. Although TRICARE would manage physician reimbursement in both categories, the differences between the two above categories would determine which agency would pay TRICARE: The Veteran's Administration or the Department of Defense. Here are two examples: Case 1: A disabled veteran who is retired from the military goes to his family practice provider for two issues, a head cold and recurring pain from a service-connected knee injury. As a military retiree, he would pay a partial co-pay for the head cold portion of his family practice visit, while DOD, through TRICARE would pay for the reimbursement. The VA would pay TRICARE 100% of the reimbursement, including the co-pay, for the part of the visit and any subsequent referrals for the knee pain. Put more tersely, this appropriately splits the cost of treatment between the VA and DOD. Case 2: A disabled veteran who is honorably separated from the military, but not via retirement, goes to that same family practice doctor for the same two complaints. In this case, our veteran will pay either out of pocket or via private insurance, the cost associated with his head cold. The VA however, through TRICARE, will pay 100% of the costs associated with the knee pain. What will enable this to work are advances in data-driven technology. Up until recently, the degree of granularity required as to what treatment would be authorized for payment would be difficult to achieve in a distributed system. With advances in automation in the medical billing industry, it would be quite simple for the VA to issue a TRICARE ID card to eligible veterans. Such a card would be tied to a discrete "account" for each veteran that would contain all of the treatment codes authorized for that veteran based on his service-connected illnesses/injuries. For veterans who are retired from the military, the VA can easily transmit this treatment code information to TRICARE so that its computer algorithm can properly assign costs for treatment, either VA or DOD. I have spent a significant amount of space in this article, on what my fellow "shooters," would call "bean-counter stuff." At first blush, our instinct is to say, "Damn the cost! Do whatever it takes to help our vets!" However, such an open-ended system would be rife for abuse, which in turn could burn up a lot of goodwill for the troops on the part of the American taxpayer. We're only going to get one chance to get this right, before a historically shortsighted electorate moves on to other things. With an intent to follow the example of our incoming president, I offer my services to the Veteran's Administration, for $1.00/year salary, to help develop and implement such a program. Mike Ford is a retired infantry colonel in the U.S. Army.From Dr. Roger Pielke Senior’s Climate Sci blog, a discussion on the “missing heat” in Earth’s climate system gives me a motivation to write some silly prose:
The heat is gone, oh where, oh where?
Maybe in the oceans?
Maybe in the air?
It’s just not there.
They could not find it any-where.
Is There “Missing” Heat In The Climate System? My Comments On This NCAR Press Release
There was a remarkable press release 0n April 15 from the NCAR/UCAR Media Relations titled
“Missing” heat may affect future climate change
The article starts with the text
BOULDER—Current observational tools cannot account for roughly half of the heat that is believed to have built up on Earth in recent years, according to a “Perspectives” article in this week’s issue of Science. Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) warn in the new study that satellite sensors, ocean floats, and other instruments are inadequate to track this “missing” heat, which may be building up in the deep oceans or elsewhere in the climate system. “The heat will come back to haunt us sooner or later,” says NCAR scientist Kevin Trenberth, the lead author. “The reprieve we’ve had from warming temperatures in the last few years will not continue. It is critical to track the build-up of energy in our climate system so we can understand what is happening and predict our future climate.”
Excerpts from the press release reads
“Either the satellite observations are incorrect, says Trenberth, or, more likely, large amounts of heat are penetrating to regions that are not adequately measured, such as the deepest parts of the oceans. Compounding the problem, Earth’s surface temperatures have largely leveled off in recent years. Yet melting glaciers and Arctic sea ice, along with rising sea levels, indicate that heat is continuing to have profound effects on the planet.”
“A percentage of the missing heat could be illusory, the result of imprecise measurements by satellites and surface sensors or incorrect processing of data from those sensors, the authors say. Until 2003, the measured heat increase was consistent with computer model expectations. But a new set of ocean monitors since then has shown a steady decrease in the rate of oceanic heating, even as the satellite-measured imbalance between incoming and outgoing energy continues to grow.”
Some of the missing heat appears to be going into the observed melting of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, as well as Arctic sea ice, the authors say.
Much of the missing heat may be in the ocean. Some heat increase can be detected between depths of 3,000 and 6,500 feet (about 1,000 to 2,000 meters), but more heat may be deeper still beyond the reach of ocean sensors.”
Trenberth’s [and co-author, NCAR scientist John Fasullo], however, are grasping for an explanation other than the actual real world implication of the absence of this heat.
First, if the heat was being sequestered deeper in the ocean (lower than about 700m), than we would have seen it transit through the upper ocean where the data coverage has been good since at least 2005. The other reservoirs where heat could be stored are closely monitored as well (e.g. continental ice) as well as being relatively small in comparison with the ocean.
Second, the melting of glaciers and continental ice can be only a very small component of the heat change (e.g. see Table 1 in Levitus et al 2001 “Anthropogenic warming of Earth’s climate system”. Science).
Thus, a large amount heat (measured as Joules) does not appear to be stored anywhere; it just is not there.
There is no “heat in the pipeline” [or “unrealized heat”] as I have discussed most recently in my post
Continued Misconception Of The Concept of Heating In The Pipeline In The Paper Vermeer and Rahmstorf 2009 Titled “Global Sea Level Linked To Global Temperature”
Kevin Trenberth and John Fasullo are not recognizing that the diagnosis of upper ocean heat content changes (with it large mass) makes in an effective |
.3 heavyweight contender Alistair Overeem will take on No.5 heavyweight Andrei Arlovski in the main event for the organisation's debut event in The Netherlands on Sunday, May 8 at Ahoy Rotterdam.
Tickets for UFC FIGHT NIGHT®: OVEREEM vs. ARLOVSKI will go on general sale on Thursday, March 24.
Overeem (40-14, 1NC; fighting out of Amsterdam, The Netherlands), who previously held the heavyweight title in Strikeforce, is looking to make another run at UFC gold in 2016 following three consecutive notable wins over Junior dos Santos, Roy Nelson and Stefan Struve. Overeem will be returning to compete in front of a home crowd for the first time since 2009, bringing the UFC’s first ever event to The Netherlands.
“I feel honored to be able to bring the UFC to The Netherlands” commented Overeem, “Holland has grown a lot of champions and striking is our forte. Andrei is a former UFC champion, an accomplished fighter and my teammate at Jacksons MMA in Albuquerque. I'm looking forward to the fight, he has excellent skills all-round and it promises to be an exciting fight.”
Since his return to the UFC in 2014, Arlovski (25-11, 1NC; fighting out of Chicago, Illinois, USA) has notable wins over Travis Browne, Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva and Frank Mir. The former UFC heavyweight champion, and first European UFC champion ever, has his eyes on reclaiming his title as these two legends collide.
With the top of the heavyweight division currently in such close contention, a possible title shot could be the next opportunity for the winner of Overeem and Arlovski in Rotterdam on May 8.
Sure to delight the Dutch fans even more, UFC added another important heavyweight bout to the card as Dutch national Stefan Struve (30-8; fighting out of Boca Raton, Florida, USA) takes on Brazilian Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva (19-8, 1NC; fighting out of Coconut Creek, Florida, USA).
“I got goosebumps when I was told the UFC is finally coming our way, I’m thrilled it’s finally going to happen,” said Struve.
Addition bouts include:
• Dominic Waters (9-4; fighting out of Santa Rosa, California, USA) vs Peter Sobotta (15-5-1; fighting out of Au, Ballingen, Germany) in a welterweight tilt
• Lightweights Chris Wade (11-1; fighting out of Islip, New York, USA) vs Rashid Magomedov (19-1; fighting out of Dagestan, Russia) in a pivotal matchup
• Reza Madadi (13-4; fighting out of Stockholm, Sweden) vs. Yan Cabral (12-2; fighting out of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) squaring off in a lightweight contest.
• Garreth McLellan (12-3; fighting out of Johannesburg, South Africa) vs. Magnus Cedenblad (13-4; fighting out of Stockholm Sweden) matching up in the middleweight division
Tickets for UFC FIGHT NIGHT®: OVEREEM vs. ARLOVSKI go on sale to the general public Thursday, March 24. Tickets are available for purchase via Ticketmaster.nl. UFC FIGHT CLUB members have the opportunity to purchase tickets early, on Tuesday, March 22 via www.ufcfightclub.com. UFC newsletter subscribers will also have priority access starting on Wednesday, March 23.
To register your interest for UFC FIGHT NIGHT®: OVEREEM vs. ARLOVSKI and receive the latest news and alerts sign up here.
For further information and to sign up for the UFC newsletter, visit UFC.com or follow @UFCEurope on Twitter.GETTY Afghan youngsters are being forced to dress up and are sexually abused by their masters
Bacha bazi, meaning ‘boy play’, is a tradition found across the country where boys are made to perform. But the Afghan custom has a darker side that sees the youngsters treated as little more than sex slaves.
GETTY War lords may own as many as 10 boys, generally aged between 13 and 15
The young victims are ‘bought’ by their masters, made to wear dresses and makeup and satisfy their owners’ twisted sexual desires. For the boys, more than two fifths of whom are aged between 13 and 15, being chosen means a life sentence – one which will see them cast out of their families and shunned by society.
GETTY Boys are passed round by groups of middle aged men and forced to please them sexually
Shukur was 12 years old when he was stolen away from his family and made to be a ‘bacha bereesh’. It took him five years to escape from his master.
GETTY Afghan boys who are bought face being turned away by their families and shunned by society
Dr Soraya Sobhrang, who campaigned against the crime, said: “A war lord has many - they keep maybe 10 boys altogether." She added: “When the boys are beautiful it shows they are powerful, but also the number. "You have to spend a lot of money to pay the boys, feed the boys, keep them clothed. It shows your wealth.”
GETTY 'Owners' force the boys to wear makeup and wear dresses before satisfying their sexual desires
In a 2009 documentary, The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan, a musician revealed: “They have sex with their masters and then at parties they are abused by different people."He was just a small boy at morning Mass, watching the priest give Communion, when he first heard a whisper of a calling: “I just had the little insight as a 4-year-old that the priest must be the luckiest man ever, to be holding God in his hand and giving him to others.” He entered seminary after graduating from Harvard in 1993, and he arrived at St. Anthony’s in 2005, after stints in Fall River and Hyannis, Mass.
As a priest, Father Landry has tried, gently, to lead couples away from contraception. “I know from their having told me that many of the couples here have stopped contracepting,” Father Landry said. “In terms of the numbers, it’s probably between 15 and 20 couples who have explicitly told me that.”
Father Landry gets his message across in several ways. First, he talks to engaged couples about their plans for a family. To facilitate that conversation, he gives them a questionnaire.
“The last question,” Father Landry said, “is always ‘Are you planning to have children? Are you planning to start right away after you’re married?’ The vast majority of couples answer, ‘Yes, we definitely want to have children, but we want to wait two or three years.’ ”
The priest asks if they are aware of church teaching about contraception. “Shockingly, 50 percent of the couples that I prepare for marriage have never heard that the church teaches about contraception,” he said.
Father Landry also gives sermons on contraception, something very few priests do. He says he relies on Pope John Paul II’s argument against contraception, which he summarizes. “That God has made us fundamentally for love,” Father Landry said, “and that marriage is supposed to help us to love for real. In order for that to happen, we need to totally give ourselves over to someone else in love, and receive the other’s total self in love.
“What happens in the use of contraception, rather than embracing us totally as God made the other, with the masculine capacity to become a dad, or the feminine capacity to become a mom, we reject that paternal and maternal leaning.”
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Father Landry argues that contraception can be the gateway to exploitation: “When that petition is made for contraception, it’s going to make pleasure the point of the act, and any time pleasure becomes the point rather than the fruit of the act, the other person becomes the means to that end. And we’re actually going to hurt the people we love.”
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Many non-Catholics — and many Catholics — see the church’s teaching on contraception as cruel toward women. But Father Landry says it’s women who intuitively get how divorcing sex from procreation allows men to use them; in his experience, it is almost always the woman who moves a couple toward abandoning artificial contraception.
“They have a lot of times experienced having been used in their marriage or their previous relationship,” Father Landry said.
After Mass, during the coffee hour in the church basement, parishioners expressed a range of views on the pastor’s teachings.
One couple with grown children agreed that if they had benefited from Father Landry’s teachings years ago, they would have had more children. “We definitely would not have used contraception,” the wife said, “not if we had it to do over again.”
An older woman with white hair, sitting near the doughnuts being sold for $1, appeared to disagree. “Don’t get me started on him,” she said, rolling her eyes when asked about Father Landry’s teachings on contraception.
Father Landry does not think contraception is the most important issue he faces. He worries about couples living together before marriage, not to mention the poverty and violence that afflict New Bedford. But he sees the Catholic sexual ethic as crucial to his message — and not just the part about contraception.
Last spring, scenes of a movie called “Whaling City” were being shot in St. Anthony’s. During the filming, the priest noticed that the church’s rack of sexuality pamphlets was being depleted.
“I saw all the camera men and sound guys,” Father Landry said, “and in their back pockets, coming down the main aisle, one had one on pornography, the other had ‘Sex and Contraception’ hanging out of his pocket, the other one had ‘In Vitro Fertilization.’ ”
Father Landry aimed his cellphone camera at one of the men and “snapped a photo of his derriere,” he said. “Because it’s exactly what I’m trying to do.”Named in honor of the late Harvey Kurtzman, one of the industry's most innovative talents, the Harvey Awards recognize outstanding work in comics and sequential art. The winners were presented September 6, 2014 in Baltimore, MD, in conjunction with the Baltimore Comic-Con. This was the ninth year for the Harvey Awards in Baltimore, MD. Without further delay, the 2014 Harvey Award Winners: Best Artist: Fiona Staples (Saga) Best Writer: Brian K. Vaughan (Saga) Best Continuing or Limited Series: Saga by Brian K. Vaughn & Fiona Staples, Image Comics Best Cover Artist: Fiona Staples, Saga, Image Comics Best Graphic Album- Original: The Fifth Beatle by Vivek J. Tiwary, Andrew Robinson & Kyle Baker, Dark Horse Best Biographical, Historical, or Journalistic Presentation: The Fifth Beatle by Vivek J. Tiwary, Andrew Robinson & Kyle Baker, Dark Horse Best New Series: Sex Criminals by Matt Fraction & Chip Zdarsky, Image Comics Most Promising New Talent: Chip Zdarsky, Sex Criminals, Image Comics Best Original Graphic Publication for Younger Readers: Adventure Time, KaBOOM! Special Award for Humor in Comics: Ryan North, Adventure Time, KaBOOM! Best Graphic Album Previously Published: Mouse Guard Vol. 3 The Black Axe by David Peterson, BOOM! Studios/Archaia Best Anthology: Dark Horse Presents, Dark Horse Best Cartoonist: Paul Pope, Battling Boy, First Second Best Single Issue : Hawkeye #11 “Pizza Is My Business” by Matt Fraction & David Aja, Marvel Comics Best Domestic Reprint Project: Best of Comix Book: When Marvel Comics Went Underground Kitchen Sink Books, Dark Horse Special Award for Excellence in Presentation: Best of Comix Book: When Marvel Comics Went Underground by John Lind, Kitchen Sink Books, Dark Horse Best US Edition of Foreign Material : Attack on Titan, Kodansha Best Online Comics Work: Battlepug by Mike Norton Best Syndicated Strip or Panel: Dick Tracy by Joe Staton & Mike Curtis, Tribune Media Services Best Letterer: Terry Moore, Rachel Rising, Abstract Studios Best Colorist: Dave Stewart, Hellboy The Midnight Circus, Dark Horse Comics Best Inker: Wade Von Grawbadger, All New X-Men, Marvel Comics Harvey Kurtzman Hall of Fame: Charles Schulz Dick Giordano Humanitarian Award: Stan Goldberg Hero Initiative Lifetime Achievement Award: Herb Trimpe For additional information about Harvey Kurtzman and the Harvey Awards, visit www.harveyawards.org.NetherRealm has been on a roll since 2011's Mortal Kombat reboot, and with the release of Injustice 2, it's come one step closer to perfecting its particular brand of fighting game. Injustice 2 is dense, deep, and refined, but also accessible to newcomers thanks to relatively simple move lists and a variety of rewarding new gameplay opportunities. The addition of gear makes the biggest splash in this regard, allowing you to craft a personalized hero or villain, both inside (with stat boosts) and outside (with elaborate costume upgrades)--all while maintaining the game's balanced roster. There are some complications to gear management that may frustrate, but minor gripes aside, character growth and customization proves to be the biggest boon for an already strong fighting game set in a fractured DC Comics universe.
It may sound unusual for a fighting game, but Injustice 2's story is a prominent feature, told through a multi-hour campaign filled with NetherRealm's most impressive cutscenes to date. An ideological gulf divides the Justice League; Superman's desire to execute criminals is at odds with Batman's non-lethal approach to justice. This conflict is woven throughout the story, but the arrival of Brainiac temporarily unites the League against a common enemy. Though some interactions and events come off forced as you battle mind-controlled allies and true enemies alike, these narrative shortcuts are ultimately there to introduce you to the large and eccentric character roster.
The cast sees the return of familiar faces--the likes of The Flash and Green Lantern--but also introduces unlikely fan favorites such as the blood-barfing Red Lantern Atrocitus and the plant-based behemoth, Swamp Thing. The nearly 30 characters offer a broad range of super powers and fighting styles, and each has a distinct trait that can instantly trigger a status buff or summon an underling in the middle of a fight.
DC's famous faces have never looked better, but the real star of the show is the fighting system, which consists of a mix of hand-to-hand combat, super powers, weapons, and environmental hazards. How characters fit into these styles of combat differs, but as is the norm for NetherRealm's games, most attacks feel hefty and deliberate at first. Special moves and combos are easy enough to learn, but it takes time and practice to get combo timing under your skin--to move fluidly from one attack to the next.
Still, newcomers can easily impress each other with simple two-button Super moves that pause the action for an absurd and cinematic combo attack, or halt an incoming combo attack by activating Clash--a move that forces players to gamble segments of their Super meter in hopes of regaining health or inflicting damage. In the hands of a new player, clashing can provide an escape plan. In the hands of a pro, it opens up a mind game that can drastically alter the playing field.
With AI battles, online and local versus matches, the diverse and ever-changing Multiverse, and an impressive story mode, Injustice 2 offers numerous ways of engaging with its characters and testing your abilities without feeling repetitive.
Injustice 2 provides basic, practical tutorials for every mechanic and each character's notable attacks, though neither avenue goes in-depth enough to satisfy prolonged research. The most specific info you can find pertains to frame data for each attack, but this will only be helpful if you already understand the esoteric terms therein and how their measurements apply in action.
Ultimately there's no better teacher for a new player than experience. In this sense, Injustice 2 is packed with learning opportunities in the Multiverse, a mode that benefits from randomly generated battle modifiers and the temptation of gear-based rewards. Not all Multiverse challenges are enjoyable, like the modifier that causes the screen to black out every few seconds. But sometimes you get a satisfying leg-up over the competition, such as the ability to summon an off-screen assist character. Regardless of whether modifiers make the act of fighting more or less difficult, they nevertheless serve as a valuable opportunity to see your character's abilities under a different lens and study their potential.
Perhaps more importantly, depending on your love for loot, the Multiverse is your primary means of acquiring gear, item boxes, and experience points--though most modes will allow you to earn a little of each. Specific types of gear are often teased before you choose a mission, and a shiny new helmet for Dr. Fate or a sword for Wonder Woman (for example) can often prove to be tempting enough to walk into the game's more troublesome modifiers. Otherwise, random gear drops after individual battles, and blind loot boxes are rewarded based on a score derived from how efficiently and dominantly you fight.
With five gear slots, two extra ability slots, and custom shading unlocks for each fighter, there's a lot of character-specific gear to collect. By default, gear is distributed in the Multiverse with a slight bias towards the character you're playing. Regardless, you will ultimately earn items for other characters, practically to the point that you rarely get what you're looking for. Even when that unexpected epic-grade item drops for your favorite hero, you may still find that it's temporarily out of reach, as all gear is level locked--the current cap is level 20. It's not uncommon to earn items that are one to ten levels higher than your assigned character. That is, unless you have enough funds to get around this pesky rule.
Watching a character's traditional outfit transform into something fresh or unexpected, and seeing their stats grow through leveling up and equipping gear, grants a satisfying sense of ownership over your accomplishments and possessions.
Injustice 2's currency system has many layers but can be broken down into two use-cases: Spending relatively common credits, guild credits, and regen coins to earn random gear; and trading in source crystals (which can cost real-world money) to have total control over the items in your inventory. In the latter scenario, you are spending large amounts of a valuable resource to use or manipulate items that you already own. Though you can earn some source crystals by playing Injustice 2 over dozens of hours, they come few and far between to seemingly make spending real money seem like a necessary evil.
This misgiving aside, you can still get a lot of enjoyment out of collecting gear and outfitting characters without spending additional money. Watching a character's traditional outfit transform into something fresh or unexpected, and seeing their stats grow through leveling up and equipping gear, grants a satisfying sense of ownership over your accomplishments and possessions. Your character's appearance will carry over to every mode, from the Multiverse to online battles. Gear stat boosts, however, will only count in unranked online matches when both players agree to do so, and never in ranked matches. This allows Multiverse to serve as the anything-goes variety show without negatively impacting the balanced roster for the competitive community, all the while preserving the use of expressive custom costumes.
The introduction of automated AI battles is a nice touch for people who want a taste of online competition without the pressure to train and master a character, and an easy way to earn free item boxes every day. After creating a team of three fighters--who retain any and all stat boosts--you pit them against another player's online team and watch fights play out in front of you. Because these fights are simulated, they can be sped up to four times their normal speed. While you can pick fights manually, you can also rely on other players to fight your AI team while you're away from the game. You retain a win-loss record and are often treated to item boxes whenever you login--an occurrence that will fluctuate based on how often your team defeats incoming challenges while you're offline.
With AI battles, online and local versus matches, the diverse and ever-changing Multiverse, and an impressive story mode, Injustice 2 offers numerous ways of engaging with its characters and testing your abilities without feeling repetitive. This variety is further bolstered by gear. Despite the needlessly complex economy tied to item management, the value of customization and expression that comes with gear ultimately makes up for it. And with over 25 characters to explore, it's easy to look forward to watching your next character grow while your understanding of the game continues to expand. NetherRealm has delivered a fighting game that can be enjoyed by new players and pros alike in ways that go beyond pure competition. It's a bar that every fighting game should meet, but one that has up until now seemed out of reach.How To Earn Gold & Unlock Heroes For Free In Blizzard's Heroes Of The Storm
The Ways You Can Earn Free Gold In Heroes Of The Storm:
Player Level Rewards - Once per account at each gold award interval.
Hero Level Rewards - Once per each individual character.
Daily Quests - Repeatable quests that unlock one per day.
Game Rewards - Playing matches earns gold.
Earning Gold With Player Level Rewards As a player you have an overall player level. As your player level increases from playing matches, you unlock various player level rewards at certain levels. Included in these rewards are nice chunks of gold, in addition to unlocking more free characters slots.
Here are the current Player Level Rewards:
Level 2 - 1000 Gold
Level 4 - 1000 Gold
Level 6 - Unlock Daily Quests (Each Rewards Gold)
Level 8 - 2000 Gold
Level 10 - 2000 Gold
Level 12 - Extra Free Hero Rotation Slot
Level 15 - Extra Free Hero Rotation Slot
So in addition to unlocking the daily quests, which will award more gold, you can earn a free 6000 gold just by leveling up your player level simply by playing the game.
Earn Gold While Leveling Each Hero As a player you have an overall player level. As your player level increases from playing matches, you unlock various player level rewards at certain levels. Included in these rewards are nice chunks of gold, in addition to unlocking more free characters slots.So in addition to unlocking the daily quests, which will award more gold, you can earn a free 6000 gold just by leveling up your player level simply by playing the game.
Currently there are 32 different heroes in Heroes of the Storm (including the recent Jaina addition), which means you can earn a free 16,000 gold just by leveling all heroes to level 5. Thrall is going to be available on the launch of the closed beta, which adds hero #32 and another chance for a free 500 gold. The new heroes tend to take 5-6 weeks before showing up in the free heroes rotation slot options.
Making Gold From Daily Quests
Daily quests in Heroes of the Storm are unlocked once you reach Player Level 6. You will receive a random daily quest each day and these daily quests can award anywhere from 200 to 800 gold each. You only can hold 3 uncompleted daily quests at a time, but let me tell you these daily quests are stupid easy!
Only one of the quests require you to win anything, for most of the Hots daily quests you only have to play! For example, one quest is "Play 2 games with a Warcraft Hero." It's not Win 2 games, but just Play 2 games. Some require you to use a specific type of character, like "Play 3 games with a Specialist Hero", or "Play 3 games with a Warrior Hero." You also don't have to log in each day to collect the daily quests. As long as you have room in your 3 quest hold bin, you will still get the daily quest added to your queue. This daily quest system is one of the easiest I've ever seen in any Blizzard game.
Playing Matches Awards Gold You can also earn gold in Heroes of the Storm just from completing matches. Currently you receive gold from completing a match in Cooperative or Versus modes. In Cooperative Mode you get 10 gold for a Win, none for a loss. In Versus Mode you earn 20 gold if you lose. If you Win in Versus Mode you get a 10 gold bonus, which makes the total 30 gold per Versus match won. So playing Versus other players will always be the best option when you are grinding for gold in Heroes of the Storm.
Co-Op Loss - 0 Gold
Co-Op Win - 10 Gold
Versus Loss - 20 Gold
Versus Win - 30 Gold
Tips For Unlocking Free Gold In Heroes of the Storm Focus On Getting to Player Level 6 To Unlock Daily Quests. Complete Daily Quests. Or at least never let your daily log get filled where you are missing out on potential gold from quests that you have no room for. Follow the Daily Quest Hold Bin Strategy for increased gold gains from the daily quests. Play Each Free Hero Just To Level 5, Then Switch To Another Free Hero. Mix Up The Hero Types That You Play. If you just played a melee warrior to level 5, don't do another melee warrior next. If you leveled a Warcraft hero to 5, don't choose another Warcraft hero next. This is because you want to minimize the chances of having to play a character for the daily quests that you've already leveled to 5. If you knock out all of your warriors first, then you don't have a fresh warrior to level to 5 while doing the daily quest for that warrior. Advance Your Player Level So You Get All Free Rotation Slots Unlocked. More heroes to choose from means more heroes to push to level 5 for free 500 gold each week and helps provide more options for daily quest choices to help minimize leveling characters you've already pushed to level 5. Play Versus Mode. There is no reason to play Cooperative mode. Versus awards a lot more experience and much more gold per match. Always Invite A Party Member To Be Your Friend. Having a friend in your group earns you +50% bonus experience. Complete the Heroes of the Storm Tutorials - Earn an easy extra 1000 gold.
Check the Current Pricing On The Heroes of the Storm Headset
Check out More Heroes of the Storm Gifts Ideas, Tees, & Buttons
Each hero in Heroes of the Storm has his own level, that raises as you play that hero more. You earn experience from each match that you use that hero. As you level the hero up, you unlock more talent choices, skin and mount options, and a character portrait. What we are most interested in is that for each hero, you are awarded 500 gold once that hero reaches level 5. So you can unlock a free 500 gold for every hero added into the game just by playing each hero to level 5. At Blizzcon 2014, they've already announced 4 more new heroes that will be added to the game, so that is another free 2k gold you can earn from playing the new heroes to level 5 as well.Currently there are 32 different heroes in Heroes of the Storm (including the recent Jaina addition), which means you can earn a free 16,000 gold just by leveling all heroes to level 5. Thrall is going to be available on the launch of the closed beta, which adds hero #32 and another chance for a free 500 gold. The new heroes tend to take 5-6 weeks before showing up in the free heroes rotation slot options.Daily quests in Heroes of the Storm are unlocked once you reach Player Level 6. You will receive a random daily quest each day and these daily quests can award anywhere from 200 to 800 gold each. You only can hold 3 uncompleted daily quests at a time, but let me tell you these daily quests are stupid easy!Only one of the quests require you to win anything, for most of the Hots daily quests you only have to play! For example, one quest is "Play 2 games with a Warcraft Hero." It's not Win 2 games, but just Play 2 games. Some require you to use a specific type of character, like "Play 3 games with a Specialist Hero", or "Play 3 games with a Warrior Hero." You also don't have to log in each day to collect the daily quests. As long as you have room in your 3 quest hold bin, you will still get the daily quest added to your queue. This daily quest system is one of the easiest I've ever seen in any Blizzard game.You can also earn gold in Heroes of the Storm just from completing matches. Currently you receive gold from completing a match in Cooperative or Versus modes. In Cooperative Mode you get 10 gold for a Win, none for a loss. In Versus Mode you earn 20 gold if you lose. If you Win in Versus Mode you get a 10 gold bonus, which makes the total 30 gold per Versus match won. So playing Versus other players will always be the best option when you are grinding for gold in Heroes of the Storm.
Heroes of the Storm is Blizzard's newest game currently in the Technical Alpha Stage. This MOBA style game is free to play, but there are additional skins, heroes, and mounts that are able to be purchased with cash or gold in the store's in game shop. Just like you can earn gold in Blizzard's game Hearthstone, you also can earn gold in Heroes of the Storm. Grinding for gold within Heroes of the Storm will allow you to unlock mounts, skins, and heroes without spending any cash. Sure you can eventually unlock many items without spending any real life cash in the game's store, but that would take you quite some time to grind out that much gold.The items in the cash shop are not cheap; some heroes cost 10k gold for a single hero alone without any new skins. That's just the price for the single hero, so it is going to take a lot of grinding for gold to unlock everything you can obtain in Heroes of the Storm without paying. And by then, there will be even more heroes, mounts, and skins to keep grinding out gold to unlock these new additions. Be Warned - Some items are only available for cash and cannot be purchased for gold.Let's take a look at all the ways you can earn free gold in Heroes of the Storm as well as some tips for efficient gold grinding to make unlocking the heroes for free much easier. These numbers are tips are based off of the current build for the Heroes of the Storm Tech Alpha. Blizzard has stated their will be no more wipes of accounts, so these numbers should be pretty close to the final launch build.The White House "drug czar" office would see a dramatic cut if a budget document's figures are incorporated by Congress in budgeting for fiscal 2018, which begins in October. The Associated Press
The White House “drug czar” would see an almost 95 percent reduction in its office’s funding under a budget proposal drafted by the Office of Management and Budget.
The cuts would eliminate the two large grant programs managed by the Office of National Drug Control, along with a substantial reduction in staff salaries.
The 70-employee ONDCP was established in the late 1980s to guide federal anti-drug policies and with a national opioid epidemic its defenders say it's needed more than ever.
But in the draft budget document shared with U.S. News, the OMB takes aim at what it calls “duplicative and burdensome administrative tasks.”
The proposal would eliminate funding for regional law enforcement task forces called High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas that were allocated $254 million in fiscal 2017. It would also eliminate Drug-Free Communities grants, previously funded at $100 million.
The HIDTA program “is duplicative of other Federal efforts,” the document says, and the DFC program, aimed at preventing youth drug use, is “duplicative of other Federal programs.”
Funding for ONDCP salaries and expenses would fall from $19 million to $12 million.
The document says the changes “will allow ONDCP to focus on identifying priorities and coordinating interagency efforts, particularly in policy development and implementation, in order to better address the top drug threats, including the opioid epidemic.”
ONDCP acting director Rich Baum outlined the proposal in a Friday morning email to staff. He said he's lobbying against the proposal and “would encourage you not to panic, since these events are still unfolding.”
Baum’s email comes after the unexpected news this week that Rep. Tom Marino, R-Pa., would not be nominated to lead the office. Marino, who had seen scandals from his past surface in the press, attributed the news to a family member's illness but said he would remain in Congress.
Defenders of ONDCP and its primary grant programs say they should be retained, and expressed optimism that members of Congress would block the move.
The proposal by OMB comes after years of tension between the office and the ONDCP, which has unique budgetary authority to craft the spending of other agencies. In the past, OMB has sought to move the grant program to other agencies.
“ONDCP is unique in its authority. Sometimes that bumps up against other agencies such as OMB,” says Regina LaBelle, chief of staff at the ONDCP during the Obama administration.
LaBelle says the Drug-Free Communities grants in particular are worth keeping.
“There’s been a lot of complaints about the lack of evidence-based prevention dollars,” she says. “This is really one of the only programs left that gives money to local communities to prevent drug and alcohol abuse.”
Sue Thau, a public policy consultant representing Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America, which guides groups that receive grants, points to some research showing grant recipients have reduced teen drug use.
DFC grantee work includes staging prescription take-back efforts, raising awareness of issues that exist and convening in-school assistance, Thau says.
“We’re the front end of the continuum” in seeking prevention of drug use, she says. “In the middle of an opioid epidemic when you have a program that can dramatically reduce use of opiods, it doesn't make sense to put that on the chopping block.”
HIDTAs, meanwhile, are well-established, though they have taken controversial stances such as opposition to marijuana legalization using questionable statistics.
Bill Piper, senior director for national affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance, says he agrees with the budget proposal.
“ONDCP could be a good agency if it took an evidence-based approach, but historically it's been a propaganda group more than anything else,” he says. “Given everything Trump and [Attorney General Jeff] Sessions have said and done, it’s probably a good thing if this agency is eliminated.”
Though it could increase the role of the Justice Department, Piper says that's something he could support, as elimination of HIDTAs historically has been envisioned as part of a move to bolster a Justice Department division that handles generalized organized crime, not just targeting drugs.
“In particular, the HIDTA and DFA programs are a waste of money,” Piper says. HIDTAs “contribute to mass incarceration” and “use taxpayer dollars to oppose legalization," he says, and the drug-free community grants generally go to groups that “focus on stigmatizing drug users,” a characterization with which Thau disagrees.
Still, with lobbying beginning to resist the budget change, Piper says the most he can see Congress doing is cutting some funding, but not taking the sledgehammer to the office.
The White House press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The OMB draft document:Glen Wilson blackmailed young girls who were between the ages of 12 and 15.
Glen Wilson: Jailed for three and a half years. Perthshire Picture Agency
A St Andrews university student who blackmailed girls into making sexually explicit videos after grooming them on the internet has been jailed for three and a half years.
Perth Sheriff Court heard 19-year-old Glen Wilson, from Perthshire, targeted eight girls from around the UK.
Wilson persuaded his victims, who were aged between 12 and 15, to send pictures of themselves in states of undress.
He then threatened to send the pictures to friends and family if they did not comply with his requests for more images and videos.
Wilson was arrested after a young girl in Derbyshire reported to the police that she was being blackmailed into sending images to a man.
Some of the girls confessed to parents, while another reported what Wilson had done to the Childline service.
One told the authorities that she felt suicidal over Wilson's actions, which took place over a ten-month period between 2015 and 2016.
On Tuesday Wilson was sentenced to three years and six months in prison.
Sheriff Gillian Wade said Wilson had frightened the girls into providing him with more and more images to satisfy his sexual gratification.
The nature of his threatening messages was "despicable," the sheriff added.
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Download: The STV News app is Scotland's favourite and is available for iPhone from the App store and for Android from Google Play. Download it today and continue to enjoy STV News wherever you are.The Ontario government is closing in on a plan to put a price on carbon emissions after nearly seven years of delays.
The Liberals have promised to make corporations and consumers pay for burning carbon – an effective way to battle global warming – since 2008, but have put off making a decision. However, Environment Minister Glen Murray is now working on a comprehensive plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions, and he pledges carbon pricing will be part of it.
"We're looking at how we can transition Ontario to a low-carbon economy through initiatives such as setting a price on carbon … it will be real, efficient, effective and economically positive," Mr. Murray, who will unveil his strategy this year, told The Globe and Mail. He said his plan will also include cleaner fuel standards and energy conservation measures.
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The province committed to carbon pricing when it signed the Western Climate Initiative (WCI) with California, British Columbia and Quebec in the summer of 2008. Since then, B.C. has implemented a carbon tax that has helped slash fuel use by 16 per cent. Quebec and California, meanwhile, created a joint |
2.93 3.8 ± 2.9 4.0 ± 2.92 Glycemic index 50.9 ± 8.1 47.2 ±7.32 50.6 ± 8.0 47.8 ± 7.22 50.7 ± 7.9 47.7 ± 7.72 51.2 ± 8.5 47.7 ± 7.22 51.9 ± 8.9 46.7 ± 7.02 51.1 ± 8.0 44.9 ± 7.52 Family history of diabetes (%) 26.3 27.8 26.3 29.22 26.4 30.02 28.2 28.0 30.0 27.02 29.0 26.32 Vigorous activity, ≥5 h/wk (%) 20.6 10.22 22.0 10.82 16.8 11.92 13.3 13.5 14.6 12.72 12.4 14.62 Cigarettes, ≥15/d (%) 3.6 6.02 4.2 6.32 4.7 7.62 5.8 5.6 6.7 5.32 6.4 5.32 Soda, ≥1 can/d (%) 7.0 29.72 7.9 29.42 13.5 26.62 18.1 23.72 11.7 27.72 18.3 24.13 Coffee, ≥2 cups/d (%)4 11.3 11.12 12.5 11.33 12.1 12.2 10.9 12.4 13.2 10.92 11.3 14.42 Alcohol, ≥7 drinks/wk (%) 5.0 6.1 5.1 7.92 4.9 8.82 4.5 7.42 6.2 7.0 5.2 7.72 Burgers Fried chicken Fried fish Chinese food Pizza Mexican food Never ≥1 time/wk Never ≥1 time/wk Never ≥1 time/wk Never ≥1 time/wk Never ≥1 time/wk Never ≥1 time/wk Subjects n 5453 7790 3949 5811 9026 3277 3178 5076 2556 4350 15,428 1600 (%) 12 18 9 13 20 7 7 12 6 10 35 4 Age (y) 41.4 ± 11.31 34.4 ± 8.32 40.3 ± 11.1 36.7 ± 9.22 38.1 ± 10.7 38.3 ± 9.53 41.1 ± 11.7 36.4 ± 8.92 46.5 ± 11.1 34.6 ± 8.02 40.1 ± 10.7 35.1 ± 8.72 Education (y) 15.3 ± 1.7 14.8 ± 1.72 15.3 ± 1.8 14.6 ± 1.82 15.0 ± 1.8 14.5 ± 1.82 14.5 ± 1.9 14.9 ± 1.72 14.7 ± 1.9 14.9 ± 1.72 14.6 ± 1.9 15.0 ± 1.72 Energy (kcal/d) 1426 ± 624 1948 ± 7302 1442 ± 617 1958 ± 7432 1495 ± 654 1988 ± 7612 1524 ± 692 1921 ± 7332 1419 ± 646 1992 ± 7332 1546 ± 694 2023 ± 732 Fat (g/d) 45.2 ± 24.8 72.4 ± 27.92 44.9 ± 24.4 73.2 ± 27.82 50.0 ± 26.2 72.6 ± 28.22 52.5 ± 27.6 69.3 ± 28.22 47.1 ± 26.3 72.2 ± 28.12 54.1 ± 27.8 72.5 ± 28.32 Protein (g/d) 54.2 ± 24.5 69.2 ± 25.82 54.6 ± 24.5 70.4 ± 26.12 56.1 ± 25.0 71.1 ± 26.52 54.2 ± 25.2 72.6 ± 25.92 53.9 ± 25.3 71.7 ± 25.82 56.5 ± 25.6 74.4 ± 25.72 Cereal fiber (g/d) 4.4 ± 3.2 3.9 ± 2.72 4.7 ± 3.4 3.7 ± 2.82 4.1 ± 3.0 4.0 ± 2.92 4.1 ± 3.1 3.9 ± 2.83 4.1 ± 3.2 4.1 ± 2.93 3.8 ± 2.9 4.0 ± 2.92 Glycemic index 50.9 ± 8.1 47.2 ±7.32 50.6 ± 8.0 47.8 ± 7.22 50.7 ± 7.9 47.7 ± 7.72 51.2 ± 8.5 47.7 ± 7.22 51.9 ± 8.9 46.7 ± 7.02 51.1 ± 8.0 44.9 ± 7.52 Family history of diabetes (%) 26.3 27.8 26.3 29.22 26.4 30.02 28.2 28.0 30.0 27.02 29.0 26.32 Vigorous activity, ≥5 h/wk (%) 20.6 10.22 22.0 10.82 16.8 11.92 13.3 13.5 14.6 12.72 12.4 14.62 Cigarettes, ≥15/d (%) 3.6 6.02 4.2 6.32 4.7 7.62 5.8 5.6 6.7 5.32 6.4 5.32 Soda, ≥1 can/d (%) 7.0 29.72 7.9 29.42 13.5 26.62 18.1 23.72 11.7 27.72 18.3 24.13 Coffee, ≥2 cups/d (%)4 11.3 11.12 12.5 11.33 12.1 12.2 10.9 12.4 13.2 10.92 11.3 14.42 Alcohol, ≥7 drinks/wk (%) 5.0 6.1 5.1 7.92 4.9 8.82 4.5 7.42 6.2 7.0 5.2 7.72 View Large
TABLE 1 Burgers Fried chicken Fried fish Chinese food Pizza Mexican food Never ≥1 time/wk Never ≥1 time/wk Never ≥1 time/wk Never ≥1 time/wk Never ≥1 time/wk Never ≥1 time/wk Subjects n 5453 7790 3949 5811 9026 3277 3178 5076 2556 4350 15,428 1600 (%) 12 18 9 13 20 7 7 12 6 10 35 4 Age (y) 41.4 ± 11.31 34.4 ± 8.32 40.3 ± 11.1 36.7 ± 9.22 38.1 ± 10.7 38.3 ± 9.53 41.1 ± 11.7 36.4 ± 8.92 46.5 ± 11.1 34.6 ± 8.02 40.1 ± 10.7 35.1 ± 8.72 Education (y) 15.3 ± 1.7 14.8 ± 1.72 15.3 ± 1.8 14.6 ± 1.82 15.0 ± 1.8 14.5 ± 1.82 14.5 ± 1.9 14.9 ± 1.72 14.7 ± 1.9 14.9 ± 1.72 14.6 ± 1.9 15.0 ± 1.72 Energy (kcal/d) 1426 ± 624 1948 ± 7302 1442 ± 617 1958 ± 7432 1495 ± 654 1988 ± 7612 1524 ± 692 1921 ± 7332 1419 ± 646 1992 ± 7332 1546 ± 694 2023 ± 732 Fat (g/d) 45.2 ± 24.8 72.4 ± 27.92 44.9 ± 24.4 73.2 ± 27.82 50.0 ± 26.2 72.6 ± 28.22 52.5 ± 27.6 69.3 ± 28.22 47.1 ± 26.3 72.2 ± 28.12 54.1 ± 27.8 72.5 ± 28.32 Protein (g/d) 54.2 ± 24.5 69.2 ± 25.82 54.6 ± 24.5 70.4 ± 26.12 56.1 ± 25.0 71.1 ± 26.52 54.2 ± 25.2 72.6 ± 25.92 53.9 ± 25.3 71.7 ± 25.82 56.5 ± 25.6 74.4 ± 25.72 Cereal fiber (g/d) 4.4 ± 3.2 3.9 ± 2.72 4.7 ± 3.4 3.7 ± 2.82 4.1 ± 3.0 4.0 ± 2.92 4.1 ± 3.1 3.9 ± 2.83 4.1 ± 3.2 4.1 ± 2.93 3.8 ± 2.9 4.0 ± 2.92 Glycemic index 50.9 ± 8.1 47.2 ±7.32 50.6 ± 8.0 47.8 ± 7.22 50.7 ± 7.9 47.7 ± 7.72 51.2 ± 8.5 47.7 ± 7.22 51.9 ± 8.9 46.7 ± 7.02 51.1 ± 8.0 44.9 ± 7.52 Family history of diabetes (%) 26.3 27.8 26.3 29.22 26.4 30.02 28.2 28.0 30.0 27.02 29.0 26.32 Vigorous activity, ≥5 h/wk (%) 20.6 10.22 22.0 10.82 16.8 11.92 13.3 13.5 14.6 12.72 12.4 14.62 Cigarettes, ≥15/d (%) 3.6 6.02 4.2 6.32 4.7 7.62 5.8 5.6 6.7 5.32 6.4 5.32 Soda, ≥1 can/d (%) 7.0 29.72 7.9 29.42 13.5 26.62 18.1 23.72 11.7 27.72 18.3 24.13 Coffee, ≥2 cups/d (%)4 11.3 11.12 12.5 11.33 12.1 12.2 10.9 12.4 13.2 10.92 11.3 14.42 Alcohol, ≥7 drinks/wk (%) 5.0 6.1 5.1 7.92 4.9 8.82 4.5 7.42 6.2 7.0 5.2 7.72 Burgers Fried chicken Fried fish Chinese food Pizza Mexican food Never ≥1 time/wk Never ≥1 time/wk Never ≥1 time/wk Never ≥1 time/wk Never ≥1 time/wk Never ≥1 time/wk Subjects n 5453 7790 3949 5811 9026 3277 3178 5076 2556 4350 15,428 1600 (%) 12 18 9 13 20 7 7 12 6 10 35 4 Age (y) 41.4 ± 11.31 34.4 ± 8.32 40.3 ± 11.1 36.7 ± 9.22 38.1 ± 10.7 38.3 ± 9.53 41.1 ± 11.7 36.4 ± 8.92 46.5 ± 11.1 34.6 ± 8.02 40.1 ± 10.7 35.1 ± 8.72 Education (y) 15.3 ± 1.7 14.8 ± 1.72 15.3 ± 1.8 14.6 ± 1.82 15.0 ± 1.8 14.5 ± 1.82 14.5 ± 1.9 14.9 ± 1.72 14.7 ± 1.9 14.9 ± 1.72 14.6 ± 1.9 15.0 ± 1.72 Energy (kcal/d) 1426 ± 624 1948 ± 7302 1442 ± 617 1958 ± 7432 1495 ± 654 1988 ± 7612 1524 ± 692 1921 ± 7332 1419 ± 646 1992 ± 7332 1546 ± 694 2023 ± 732 Fat (g/d) 45.2 ± 24.8 72.4 ± 27.92 44.9 ± 24.4 73.2 ± 27.82 50.0 ± 26.2 72.6 ± 28.22 52.5 ± 27.6 69.3 ± 28.22 47.1 ± 26.3 72.2 ± 28.12 54.1 ± 27.8 72.5 ± 28.32 Protein (g/d) 54.2 ± 24.5 69.2 ± 25.82 54.6 ± 24.5 70.4 ± 26.12 56.1 ± 25.0 71.1 ± 26.52 54.2 ± 25.2 72.6 ± 25.92 53.9 ± 25.3 71.7 ± 25.82 56.5 ± 25.6 74.4 ± 25.72 Cereal fiber (g/d) 4.4 ± 3.2 3.9 ± 2.72 4.7 ± 3.4 3.7 ± 2.82 4.1 ± 3.0 4.0 ± 2.92 4.1 ± 3.1 3.9 ± 2.83 4.1 ± 3.2 4.1 ± 2.93 3.8 ± 2.9 4.0 ± 2.92 Glycemic index 50.9 ± 8.1 47.2 ±7.32 50.6 ± 8.0 47.8 ± 7.22 50.7 ± 7.9 47.7 ± 7.72 51.2 ± 8.5 47.7 ± 7.22 51.9 ± 8.9 46.7 ± 7.02 51.1 ± 8.0 44.9 ± 7.52 Family history of diabetes (%) 26.3 27.8 26.3 29.22 26.4 30.02 28.2 28.0 30.0 27.02 29.0 26.32 Vigorous activity, ≥5 h/wk (%) 20.6 10.22 22.0 10.82 16.8 11.92 13.3 13.5 14.6 12.72 12.4 14.62 Cigarettes, ≥15/d (%) 3.6 6.02 4.2 6.32 4.7 7.62 5.8 5.6 6.7 5.32 6.4 5.32 Soda, ≥1 can/d (%) 7.0 29.72 7.9 29.42 13.5 26.62 18.1 23.72 11.7 27.72 18.3 24.13 Coffee, ≥2 cups/d (%)4 11.3 11.12 12.5 11.33 12.1 12.2 10.9 12.4 13.2 10.92 11.3 14.42 Alcohol, ≥7 drinks/wk (%) 5.0 6.1 5.1 7.92 4.9 8.82 4.5 7.42 6.2 7.0 5.2 7.72 View Large
We examined the relation of BMI to consumption of restaurant foods in greater detail because BMI is such a strong risk factor for type 2 diabetes. The mean BMIs at baseline for low frequency of consumption in the past year (not at all) and high frequency of consumption in the past year (at least once per week) of each type of restaurant food are shown in Table 2. Mean BMIs were markedly higher for women in the high-frequency than in the low-frequency categories for burgers (difference in means: 2.2), fried chicken (difference in means: 2.9), and fried fish (difference in means: 1.9). The difference in mean BMI by frequency of consumption was smaller (0.8) for Chinese food but was still statistically significant. For pizza and Mexican food, however, mean BMIs were essentially the same for women in the low- and high-consumption categories.
TABLE 2 Never ≥1 time/wk Type of restaurant food n BMI n BMI Difference P value1 Burgers 5453 26.1 ± 5.42 7790 8.3 ± 7.2 2.2 <0.0001 Fried chicken 3949 25.9 ± 5.4 5811 28.8 ± 7.3 2.9 <0.0001 Fried fish 9026 26.9 ± 6.2 3277 28.8 ± 6.9 1.9 <0.0001 Chinese food 3178 27.6 ± 6.5 5076 28.4 ± 7.0 0.8 <0.0001 Pizza 2556 27.8 ± 6.2 4350 27.6 ± 6.8 0.2 0.28 Mexican food 15,428 28.1 ± 6.6 1600 27.7 ± 6.8 0.4 0.07 Never ≥1 time/wk Type of restaurant food n BMI n BMI Difference P value1 Burgers 5453 26.1 ± 5.42 7790 8.3 ± 7.2 2.2 <0.0001 Fried chicken 3949 25.9 ± 5.4 5811 28.8 ± 7.3 2.9 <0.0001 Fried fish 9026 26.9 ± 6.2 3277 28.8 ± 6.9 1.9 <0.0001 Chinese food 3178 27.6 ± 6.5 5076 28.4 ± 7.0 0.8 <0.0001 Pizza 2556 27.8 ± 6.2 4350 27.6 ± 6.8 0.2 0.28 Mexican food 15,428 28.1 ± 6.6 1600 27.7 ± 6.8 0.4 0.07 View Large
TABLE 2 Never ≥1 time/wk Type of restaurant food n BMI n BMI Difference P value1 Burgers 5453 26.1 ± 5.42 7790 8.3 ± 7.2 2.2 <0.0001 Fried chicken 3949 25.9 ± 5.4 5811 28.8 ± 7.3 2.9 <0.0001 Fried fish 9026 26.9 ± 6.2 3277 28.8 ± 6.9 1.9 <0.0001 Chinese food 3178 27.6 ± 6.5 5076 28.4 ± 7.0 0.8 <0.0001 Pizza 2556 27.8 ± 6.2 4350 27.6 ± 6.8 0.2 0.28 Mexican food 15,428 28.1 ± 6.6 1600 27.7 ± 6.8 0.4 0.07 Never ≥1 time/wk Type of restaurant food n BMI n BMI Difference P value1 Burgers 5453 26.1 ± 5.42 7790 8.3 ± 7.2 2.2 <0.0001 Fried chicken 3949 25.9 ± 5.4 5811 28.8 ± 7.3 2.9 <0.0001 Fried fish 9026 26.9 ± 6.2 3277 28.8 ± 6.9 1.9 <0.0001 Chinese food 3178 27.6 ± 6.5 5076 28.4 ± 7.0 0.8 <0.0001 Pizza 2556 27.8 ± 6.2 4350 27.6 ± 6.8 0.2 0.28 Mexican food 15,428 28.1 ± 6.6 1600 27.7 ± 6.8 0.4 0.07 View Large
During 10 y of follow-up, we identified 2873 incident cases of type 2 diabetes. A higher frequency of eating restaurant burgers was associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes (Table 3). After adjustment for age, family history of diabetes, television watching, vigorous activity, and education (model 1), the IRR for consuming burgers ≥2 times/wk week relative to never in the past year was 1.58 (95% CI: 1.29, 1.94). The association was reduced (IRR: 1.40; 95% CI: 1.14, 1.73) after adjustment for other dietary factors and energy intake (model 2). Further adjustment for BMI markedly reduced the IRR to 1.15 (95% CI: 0.93, 1.42). The IRRs for eating fried chicken from restaurants ≥2 times/wk in the past year relative to not at all were 1.84 (95% CI: 1.50, 2.27) in model 1, 1.68 (95% CI: 1.36, 2.08) after adjustment for dietary factors and energy intake, and 1.27 (95% CI: 1.02, 1.57) after control for BMI. Although there was some correlation between consumption of burgers and fried chicken, the associations of each of these types of restaurant meal with incidence of diabetes persisted after control for the other.
TABLE 3 IRR (95% CI) Type of food and frequency of intake Diabetes cases Model 12 Model 23 Model 34 Burgers Never 320 Reference Reference Reference 1–4 times/y 752 1.31 (1.15, 1.49) 1.33 (1.17, 1.52) 1.23 (1.07, 1.40) 5–11 times/y 587 1.40 (1.22, 1.61) 1.41 (1.22, 1.62) 1.27 (1.10, 1.46) 1–3 times/mo 656 1.49 (1.30, 1.70) 1.45 (1.26, 1.67) 1.26 (1.10, 1.46) 1 time/wk 321 1.60 (1.36, 1.87) 1.50 (1.28, 1.77) 1.28 (1.09, 1.52) ≥2 times/wk 145 1.58 (1.29, 1.94) 1.40 (1.14, 1.73) 1.15 (0.93, 1.42) P for trend5 <0.0001 <0.0001 0.05 Fried chicken Never 202 Reference Reference Reference 1–4 times/y 807 1.22 (1.05, 1.43) 1.23 (1.05, 1.45) 1.11 (0.95, 1.30) 5–11 times/y 724 1.35 (1.16, 1.58) 1.33 (1.14, 1.56) 1.14 (0.97, 1.34) 1–3 times/mo 631 1.27 (1.09, 1.50) 1.23 (1.04, 1.45) 1.04 (0.88, 1.22) 1 time/wk 309 1.53 (1.28, 1.83) 1.43 (1.19, 1.72) 1.16 (0.97, 1.40) ≥2 times/wk 165 1.84 (1.50, 2.27) 1.68 (1.36, 2.08) 1.27 (1.02, 1.57) P for trend5 <0.0001 <0.0001 0.23 Fried fish Never 482 Reference Reference Reference 1–4 times/y 879 1.05 (0.94, 1.17) 1.05 (0.94, 1.17) 1.01 (0.90, 1.13) 5–11 times/y 558 1.14 (1.01, 1.29) 1.11 (0.98, 1.26) 1.05 (0.92, 1.18) 1–3 times/mo 574 1.27 (1.13, 1.44) 1.21 (1.07, 1.37) 1.15 (1.01, 1.30) 1 time/wk 244 1.26 (1.08, 1.48) 1.17 (1.00, 1.37) 1.07 (0.91, 1.25) ≥2 times/wk 40 1.10 (0.79, 1.52) 0.97 (0.70, 1.35) 0.89 (0.64, 1.24) P for trend5 <0.0001 0.005 0.10 Chinese Never 252 Reference Reference Reference 1–4 times/y 742 0.94 (0.81, 1.08) 0.96 (0.83, 1.10) 0.93 (0.81, 1.08) 5–11 times/y 703 0.96 (0.83, 1.11) 0.97 (0.84, 1.13) 0.94 (0.82, 1.09) 1–3 times/mo 743 1.07 (0.92, 1.24) 1.06 (0.91, 1.22) 1.00 (0.86, 1.15) 1 time/wk 271 1.18 (0.99, 1.41) 1.14 (0.95, 1.36) 1.02 (0.86, 1.22) ≥2 times/wk 92 1.37 (1.07, 1.74) 1.29 (1.01, 1.65) 1.19 (0.94, 1.52) P for trend5 <0.0001 0.005 0.12 Pizza Never 245 Reference Reference Reference 1–4 times/y 1037 1.11 (0.97, 1.28) 1.12 (0.97, 1.29) 1.08 (0.94, 1.24) 5–11 times/y 632 1.00 (0.86, 1.16) 0.98 (0.84, 1.14) 0.97 (0.83, 1.13) 1–3 times/mo 643 1.03 (0.89, 1.21) 0.98 (0.84, 1.14) 0.95 (0.81, 1.11) 1 time/wk 202 1.02 (0.84, 1.24) 0.93 (0.76, 1.13) 0.92 (0.76, 1.12) ≥2 times/wk 29 0.90 (0.61, 1.32) 0.76 (0.51, 1.12) 0.76 (0.51, 1.13) P for trend5 0.29 0.01 0.01 Mexican Never 1191 Reference Reference Reference 1–4 times/y 829 0.94 (0.86, 1.03) 0.96 (0.88, 1.05) 0.98 (0.89, 1.07) 5–11 times/y 334 0.93 (0.82, 1.05) 0.95 (0.84, 1.08) 0.96 (0.85, 1.08) 1–3 times/mo 284 0.93 (0.82, 1.06) 0.94 (0.82, 1.07) 0.96 (0.84, 1.09) 1 time/wk 89 1.09 (0.88, 1.36) 1.06 (0.85, 1.32) 1.05 (0.84, 1.31) ≥2 times/wk 22 1.06 (0.69, 1.61) 0.98 (0.64, 1.51) 1.01 (0.66, 1.55) P for trend5 0.65 0.55 0.68 IRR (95% CI) Type of food and frequency of intake Diabetes cases Model 12 Model 23 Model 34 Burgers Never 320 Reference Reference Reference 1–4 times/y 752 1.31 (1.15, 1.49) 1.33 (1.17, 1.52) 1.23 (1.07, 1.40) 5–11 times/y 587 1.40 (1.22, 1.61) 1.41 (1.22, 1.62) 1.27 (1.10, 1.46) 1–3 times/mo 656 1.49 (1.30, 1.70) 1.45 (1.26, 1.67) 1.26 (1.10, 1.46) 1 time/wk 321 1.60 (1.36, 1.87) 1.50 (1.28, 1.77) 1.28 (1.09, 1.52) ≥2 times/wk 145 1.58 (1.29, 1.94) 1.40 (1.14, 1.73) 1.15 (0.93, 1.42) P for trend5 <0.0001 <0.0001 0.05 Fried chicken Never 202 Reference Reference Reference 1–4 times/y 807 1.22 (1.05, 1.43) 1.23 (1.05, 1.45) 1.11 (0.95, 1.30) 5–11 times/y 724 1.35 (1.16, 1.58) 1.33 (1.14, 1.56) 1.14 (0.97, 1.34) 1–3 times/mo 631 1.27 (1.09, 1.50) 1.23 (1.04, 1.45) 1.04 (0.88, 1.22) 1 time/wk 309 1.53 (1.28, 1.83) 1.43 (1.19, 1.72) 1.16 (0.97, 1.40) ≥2 times/wk 165 1.84 (1.50, 2.27) 1.68 (1.36, 2.08) 1.27 (1.02, 1.57) P for trend5 <0.0001 <0.0001 0.23 Fried fish Never 482 Reference Reference Reference 1–4 times/y 879 1.05 (0.94, 1.17) 1.05 (0.94, 1.17) 1.01 (0.90, 1.13) 5–11 times/y 558 1.14 (1.01, 1.29) 1.11 (0.98, 1.26) 1.05 (0.92, 1.18) 1–3 times/mo 574 1.27 (1.13, 1.44) 1.21 (1.07, 1.37) 1.15 (1.01, 1.30) 1 time/wk 244 1.26 (1.08, 1.48) 1.17 (1.00, 1.37) 1.07 (0.91, 1.25) ≥2 times/wk 40 1.10 (0.79, 1.52) 0.97 (0.70, 1.35) 0.89 (0.64, 1.24) P for trend5 <0.0001 0.005 0.10 Chinese Never 252 Reference Reference Reference 1–4 times/y 742 0.94 (0.81, 1.08) 0.96 (0.83, 1.10) 0.93 (0.81, 1.08) 5–11 times/y 703 0.96 (0.83, 1.11) 0.97 (0.84, 1.13) 0.94 (0.82, 1.09) 1–3 times/mo 743 1.07 (0.92, 1.24) 1.06 (0.91, 1.22) 1.00 (0.86, 1.15) 1 time/wk 271 1.18 (0 |
up and securing the ball while also getting two feet down. The touchdown cuts the Broncos' lead to 10-7 with 11:07 remaining in the third quarter.
Broncos Linebackers Find the Gaps: After the Browns' defense forced a relatively quick series for Denver, a fair catch interference penalty on Denver gave Cleveland good starting field position.
Facing a 2nd-and-3 from their own 42 yard line, the Broncos' linebackers continued to place their stamp on the game, this time with somewhat of a stunt again. With nobody lined up over LG Joel Bitonio but four defenders over there, Bitonio immediately crashes to his left at the snap. FB Malcolm Johnson goes to block No. 59 over the middle, but No. 54 fills the gap vacated by Bitonio. Additionally, No. 58 easily blows by TE Jim Dray on the outside.
Even if we complain about the vision that RB Isaiah Crowell, this play is doomed before he even has the ball in his gut. The Broncos stuff Crowell for a loss of two yards.
Not Continuing the Momentum: On the next play, the Browns are facing a 3rd-and-5 from their own 40 yard line.
WR Travis Benjamin runs a button hook wide left. Next to him with the deep crosser over the middle is WR Taylor Gabriel, and WR Andrew Hawkins is running a short crosser at the sticks. On the right are TE Gary Barnidge, running an intermediate out route, and RB Duke Johnson with a shallower out route. The Broncos are playing zone coverage on this third down play.
McCown isn't pressured too heavily, but he is set on trying to fit this in to a tight window to Barnidge. If he had looked at Hawkins over the middle, he would've been wide open for a first down.
Instead, the throw to Barnidge is a stride out in front, leading to the incomplete pass and a Cleveland punt.
Unblocked Hit Leads to Fumble: The Browns' defense forced another three-and-out, and then a 20-yard punt return by WR Travis Benjamin set the Browns' next possession up at midfield with under 6 minutes to play in the third quarter.
WR Taylor Gabriel is running a streak route wide right. FB Malcolm Johnson is running a route to the flat on the right, with TE Gary Barnidge running an out route. At the bottom of the screen are WR Andrew Hawkins running a slant and RB Duke Johnson going out to the flat.
Right at the snap, McCown is going to look to his left, making No. 48 (OLB Shaqil Barrett) his blindside. Before the snap, M. Johnson was lined up in the slot, with Barrett over him. When M. Johnson shifted over tight, Barrett followed him, so McCown probably assumed that Barrett would be taking M. Johnson in man coverage.Instead, he's going to come wide and fast on the blitz, uncontested.
Nobody was really open on the play, but it looked like McCown was going to try fitting this in to Hawkins. I think one could argue that Barrett led with his helmet to McCown's head/neck area, but it's still very much a deserved forced fumble by the Broncos.
This is just an overhead shot of Hawkins on the slant. McCown was probably waiting for the underneath defender (going toward D. Johnson) to clear before he released the ball.
Browns Holt Denver to Three: Despite the turnover, the Browns' defense held strong in the red zone again.
Facing a 3rd-and-5 from the 10 yard line, QB Peyton Manning tried a quick out to RB C.J. Anderson. Given how our linebackers have struggled in coverage against running backs this year, I'd normally say this is a good play. However, our linebackers were all over Denver's running backs on Sunday.
ILB Christian Kirksey had good pursuit and took Anderson down after a gain of 3 yards, forcing Denver to settle for a 25-yard field goal to make it a 13-7 game with 2:06 remaining in the third quarter.
Taking Notice: After the Browns went three-and-out, the Broncos had the ball in Cleveland territory at the start of the fourth quarter.
WR Emmanuel Sanders is lined up wide right, streaking to the end zone on CB Tramon Williams. SS Donte Whitner fakes a safety blitz before jumping the slot receiver in case QB Peyton Manning went there on this 3rd-and-2 pass play.
The throw is placed in a picture perfect spot for Sanders, but Williams does a good job latching on to one of Sanders' arms as the ball gets there, preventing him from being able to haul in the touchdown. Denver settles for a 39-yard field goal, but the 16-7 lead gives them a two-possession lead with 13:33 to go in the game.
Taking Advantage of the Offsides: QB Josh McCown wisely got aggressive when he saw the Broncos jump offsides on this 3rd-and-9 play from their own 21 yard line.
Usually, the officials would blow this dead, but they let the play go after Cleveland snaps the ball, and Denver's defensive line is all flat-footed because they don't know whether the play is counting or not. WR Travis Benjamin takes off and McCown is looking his way the entire time.
For some reason, the cornerback releases Benjamin to the safety. Granted, there are times in which coverages are designed to do that, but everyone else seemed to be playing man coverage.
With the safety backpedaling, Benjamin makes a nice adjustment to come back for the ball, jump up, and snag it in air. Only the twirling leg tackle by the Broncos defender prevented this from going the distance, but I'll take the 47-yard completion without complaint.
Drawing Closer With Barnidge: The new thing for QB Josh McCown is to find TE Gary Barnidge whenever possible in the end zone.
Facing a 3rd-and-6 from the 14 yard line, WR Travis Benjamin is running a quick slant at the top of the screen, with WR Andrew Hawkins running straight up into the slot. RB Duke Johnson runs out into the flat, and WR Brian Hartline kind of runs a route just to get in the way of defenders from wide right. Barnidge is lined up closest to McCown's right, faking a flag route before taking it to the post.
At the snap, S David Bruton (No. 30) is shadowing Barnidge to the inside. When he sees Barnidge go to the flag, he releases him to SS T.J. Ward, and then turns around to sit near the goal line in a bit of zone coverage.
Bruton has lost his depth over the middle and is unaware of Barnidge taking this back to the post. McCown delivers an on-target pass over the defender for the touchdown, making it a 16-14 game with 9:16 left in the game.
Dansby's OMG Moment: Three plays later, the Broncos faced a 2nd-and-11 from their own 34 yard line. That's when ILB Karlos Dansby had the play of the game that had Browns fans in joyous disbelief.
OLB Paul Kruger and DL John Hughes combine for a rare pressure on this play. Dansby sees RB Ronnie Hillman and takes him in man coverage.
The pressure forces Manning to step up a tad. In a bit of a panic, Manning looks for the closest receiver to dump a pass off to.
Manning sees Hillman and throws it out to him.
The throw is catchable, but a little behind Hillman. Dansby was getting ready to wrap up Hillman when, surprise!, the football deflects right into his midsection. He holds on for dear life, tiptoes along the sideline, and scores a touchdown to give the Browns a 20-16 lead with 8:07 left in the game.
Failed Two-Point Conversions: The decision by head coach Mike Pettine to go for two points was a much-debated one, and when you don't convert, people will talk about it in hindsight. I will tell you my reaction before the plays were run: I thought they should have kicked the extra point. While I understood that Denver could win with two field goals then, I felt that with the amount of time left in the game, if Denver scored a touchdown and then don't convert their two-point try, you open the door of a field goal winning it for Cleveland.
On the Browns' first two-point try, QB Josh McCown was looking to WR Travis Benjamin on the quick slant to the top of the screen.
The quick slant worked for the duo often during the game, but that was when the defender was in off coverage. I hate to say it, but this is where you need one of those bigger bodies like a Dwayne Bowe to shield off a defender (if they are actually trying). Because Denver was offsides, Cleveland got another crack at this, but at the 1 yard line.
I would've favored running the ball here if they were still going to go for it, but I'm not too upset about a pass. WR Travis Benjamin is running a slant again, but from a tighter spot. RB Isaiah Crowell goes shallow into the flat after the playaction, and WR Brian Hartline is running the out route. The whole key to the play is for Denver to bite for the run, which would leave a guy like Crowell open in the flat, or Hartline open on the outside.
Denver is looking for the pass all the way, though. McCown has to try to improvise. With too much traffic on the right, he waits for Benjamin to cut back to the middle.
McCown picks the right time to release a pass, but with the defense bearing down on him, he can't deliver an accurate enough of a pass to Benjamin (the ball lands where the yellow "x" is drawn.
Manning Tries it Again: Remember the play that WR Demaryius Thomas couldn't haul in a couple of series earlier in the end zone? QB Peyton Manning wanted to take a shot at it again.
The Browns did not bring much pressure on Manning throughout the game, relying on a rather safe gameplan and Denver's offensive struggles to help them minimize the damage. Pre-snap, I was a bit surprised when SS Donte Whitner ran up to the line of scrimmage and then came on the blitz. That decision, which Manning saw right away, made him commit to taking his shot at Sanders.
CB Tramon Williams has what I consider to be darn good coverage on the play, but Manning fits in a perfect pass. Instead of this being a 25-30 yard gain, FS Jordan Poyer doesn't take the right angle...
...and it costs Cleveland. Sanders' catch-and-run goes for 75 yards and a go-ahead touchdown, making it a 23-20 game with 7:53 left in the game.
Here is a shot of the Browns bringing six rushers on the play, but Manning made his mind up early and got the ball out.
Wrong Time for the Fullback Surprise: After both teams went three-and-out, the Browns got the ball back with under five minutes to play and were driving into the red zone.
Several nice runs by RB Robert Turbin set the Browns up with a 1st-and-10 from the 11 yard line with 1:53 left in the game. A field goal could extend the game to overtime, but the Browns want to go for the win in regulation, if possible. Offensive coordinator John DeFilippo thought he could catch the Broncos off-guard by having WR Brian Hartline and TE Jim Dray run pick/slant routes to the middle to the field, and then having FB Malcolm Johnson be the lone receiver on the right side of the field. In theory, I could see where a defense might get distracted and ignore the fullback, but I don't know if I'd try it with the game on the line.
Three defenders see the play developing as QB Josh McCown is releasing the pass, and they are all over it. Johnson does what he can to get back to the line of scrimmage.
Broncos' Defense Ready on 3rd Down: After running the ball on second down, Cleveland faced a 3rd-and-7 from the 8 yard line.
WR Travis Benjamin lined up wide left, running a fade to the left corner of the end zone. WR Brian Hartline lined up wide right, running a slant to the middle. WR Andrew Hawkins crosses with Hartline, and TE Gary Barnidge runs a post over the middle. I think the Browns were hoping that Denver would strictly be in man coverage here, and then McCown would hit Hartline on the slant to see if he could get in. However, the Broncos' cornerbacks communicate well and call for the switch mid-play.
Hartline is covered. The safety is kind of lingering in the end zone, so it's hard to take a chance and rip one in to Barnidge or Hawkins, knowing that a field goal could at least send the game to overtime.
When McCown sees RG John Greco falling down at his feet, he bails from the pocket and throws the ball away. Cleveland kicks a 26-yard field goal to tie the game at 23-23 with 1:30 left in the game.
Another Chance, Deflated: The Browns forced a very quick three-and-out on Denver and got the ball back with a minute to play and all three timeouts. The Broncos had burned all of their timeouts, meaning if Cleveland had gotten in range for a ~55 yard field goal, they could've tried it at the final whistle without worrying about field position.
Facing a 2nd-and-10 from the 46 yard line, the Browns ran a play that I'm not too big of a fan of. All four receivers on the route are basically headed to the same spot, as you'll see in the next screenshot.
Yikes! Talk about congestion.
The Broncos bring five rushers and Cleveland has six blockers (including RB Isaiah Crowell). The defender lined up on the right is going to run a stunt all the way to the other side, and Cleveland won't be able to account for it.
You can see the two rushers coming free. McCown steps up...but notice Crowell on the ground after he just threw a block.
Crowell got up a hair too late, otherwise, McCown might have seen him. If he had seen Crowell and been able to flip the ball to him, there were no defenders on the right side of the field, and he might have scored. At the very least, he'd have gotten into comfortable field goal range.
Instead, McCown says he was trying to throw the ball away. He didn't get enough on it, as the Denver defensive back logged the interception to send the game to overtime.
Mingo Uses Length for OT INT: The Broncos won the coin toss in overtime and were facing a 3rd-and-2 from their own 39 yard line.
WR Demaryius Thomas is running a button hook at the bottom of the screen, but Cleveland drops eight defenders into zone coverage, only rushing three.
QB Peyton Manning isn't being pressured too much and thinks he can get the ball over Mingo's head and in to Thomas.
Mingo's length helps make the interception, but ultimately, this is just an awful decision by Manning. Mingo returned the interception to the 37 yard line, but the officials marked it off at the 39 yard line instead.
The Bobbled Pitch: This is the play that probably haunts me the most from Sunday.
Facing a 1st-and-10 from the 39 yard line, the Browns might have needed about 6 yards for a legitimate chance a field goal attempt by K Travis Coons from 50 yards. On the first play, look how close Denver was at the line of scrimmage -- they basically have 9 guys in the box with no safety help. Cleveland decides to run a pitch play to RB Robert Turbin...and then he bobbles it.
FB Malcolm Johnson dives at one defender -- it's not a world class block, but it might be enough to allow a running back to get to the outside. However, the safety was coming on a blitz right from the snap. If Turbin catches the ball cleanly, he might get to the outside, or at least have a chance at stiff-arming the safety and then seeing what he can do. The bobble prevents any of that, and in a bang-bang play, it's now too late.
Turbin tries to cut back, but is dropped for a loss of 3 yards.
Running on Empty With the Playbook? At the end of the fourth quarter, I didn't understand the play design to have four Browns receivers in the same spot.
This pass play on 2nd-and-13 from the 42 yard line was almost just as puzzling to me. Cleveland is going to run both outside receivers up the field, and then have them turn straight around. If the receivers cut in or out, it'd give QB Josh McCown somewhere to throw the ball to. By turning straight around on intermediate routes, the defensive back just stays glued to them. The other three routes are very basic short routes.
Everything is well covered here -- where would you have gone if you were McCown? He takes the sack, and at that point, we pretty much know Cleveland will have to punt. The Browns have to punt, and after completing a third-down pass to TE Owen Daniels, Denver is able to run the ball the rest of the way into field goal range to kick the game-winning 34-yard attempt.
Special Teams Notes: The Browns had 7 special teams tackles with 2 each from S Don Jones and S Ibraheim Campbell, and 1 each from S Jordan Poyer, CB Johnson Bademosi, and CB Justin Gilbert. The Browns had 4 assists, with 2 from FB Malcolm Johnson and 1 each from RB Shaun Draughn and CB Johnson Bademosi. P Andy Lee averaged 46.0 yards per attempt on 7 punts, with a net average of 40.6 yards. K Travis Coons was 1-of-1 on field goals, hitting from 26 yards.
Snap Counts on Offense & Defense: If you missed them, here are the links to our snap count trackers for offense (link) and defense (link).
Brownies: The Browns converted 6-of-15 (40%) 3rd down attempts, while the Broncos converted 4-of-18 (22%) 3rd down attempts.... Denver out-gained the Browns in yardage 442 to 298.... Denver had 8 penalties for 81 yards, while Cleveland had 6 penalties for 30 yards.... The Broncos had the ball for 36:44 compared to the Browns having it for 33:20.... Cleveland's defense held the Broncos to 3 field goals in 3 trips to the red zone.... K Travis Coons again struggled on his kickoff depth.... On the Browns' final drive of regulation, before QB Josh McCown's interception, the officials seemed to miss a hands to the face penalty to WR Brian Hartline.... The Broncos muffed two plays on special teams but got back on both of them.
Up next, the Browns take on the St. Louis Rams on the road. Keep it tuned to Dawgs By Nature for our coverage leading up to the game!How to Choose the Right Joint for the Job
Photo: Mario Rodriguez Mario Rodriguez covers the essentials for choosing the best joints for your project.
By Mario Rodriguez
For a beginner, one of the most daunting aspects of building a piece of furniture is deciding what joints to use. Choosing the wrong joint can complicate construction, conflict with the design, undermine its integrity, and maybe even cause premature failure of a piece. A good place to begin when faced with the task of choosing a joint for a certain application is to identify and study the most widely used joints; there literally are hundreds of them in various configurations. Then consider the joints traditionally used in a particular type of furniture and evaluate your ability to execute them. Traditional joints all have withstood the test of time-we know they work. In this article I highlight some of the most standard joints and their common applications. They all can be executed by hand or by machine.
Butt joint
A butt joint simply is where the long-grain edges of two pieces meet to form a seam. It is used to increase the overall width of a panel. The strength of this joint relies on the straightness of the edges (not necessarily the squareness). With modern adhesives, this joint can work very well and be as strong as the
wood itself. When a butt joint is used to join the end of a board to the face of
another board, glue alone isn't sufficient; biscuits or dowels are necessary to add strength. One advantage of the butt joint is speed.
Rabbet joint
Another simple joint is the rabbet, in which boards are joined by removing a
portion of one board's thickness to accommodate another board. A rabbet
joint often is employed to set back boards onto the rear of a case piece. The back boards sit flush with the back of the case in the rabbet. Sometimes on simple cabinets the drawer sides are joined to a drawer face with a rabbet
joint and nails.
Dado joint
Another joint that is easy to make, attractive, and functional is the dado. Put simply, a dado is cut across the grain of one board to receive the end of another board. It's great for locating partitions inside cabinets or for supporting shelves on bookcase units. It can be cut across the full width or stopped.
A plow is similar to a dado, except it runs in the same direction as the grain. You
can use it in the construction of frame-and-panel doors and for setting in drawer bottoms.
Half-lap joint
If you were building a cabinet or sideboard with a face frame that intersects at various points, you might use a half-lap joint. On this joint you remove the full width of each intersecting member but only half of the thickness. Several half-lap joints on a cabinet face frame will ensure that it is rigid and long-lasting.
Tongue-and-groove joint
Tongue-and-groove joints provide a mechanical means of registering and joining the edges of narrow boards when forming a wider panel. Along one edge
of a board a tongue is cut, usually centered on the thickness of the material.
On the other board, a corresponding groove is cut. One advantage is that the edges are registered, requiring little planing or cleaning up. This is particularly helpful when gluing up long boards without the aid of cauls to keep them flat. Another advantage is the increased glue surface. Disadvantages are that the joint is visible from the end of the panel and the joint requires precise milling to ensure that all parts fit correctly.
Finger joint
The finger joint, sometimes called a box joint, interlocks two boards at a corner similar to a dovetail. However, instead of angled tails and pins like on the dovetail, the fingers are straight. This joint has a clean, utilitarian look that makes it perfect for kitchen, office, or shop containers. In my shop, I have
several small toolboxes put together with finger joints.
Miter joint
Anyone who has ogled a painting or stared into a mirror is familiar with the miter. This joint is used on small boxes and decorative frames of all kinds. The first hurdle is to cut each half of the joint to 45 degrees; then you have to figure out a way to glue them together without one half slipping past the other. The neatest way to align a miter is with a spline set into a slot cut on each side of the miter. The spline, in some cases, also provides a nice accent.
Mortise-and-tenon joint
One of the most basic and widely used joints in furniture making is the mortise-and-tenon. This joint can be used to join the rails and stiles on frame-and-panel doors, the aprons to the legs of tables, and the rails to the posts or legs of chairs. Because of the deep penetration of the tenon into the mortise, wood parts can be supported securely, even without the benefit of glue. There are many variations to the mortise-and-tenon. The tenon can be stopped or continue through a board, and it can be reinforced with pins or wedges.
Dovetail joint
Considered one of the strongest and certainly the most beautiful of joints, the dovetail exacts a stiff price in terms of skill for the strength and good looks it provides. This is probably the strongest method for joining two pieces with the
grain going in the same direction. There are baSically two types: through and halfblind. Through-dovetails are used to join carcases, blanket chests, and small boxes. Half-blind dovetails are most commonly used to join drawer sides to drawer fronts, but occasionally you'll find the joint employed in the construction of carcases. Today, there are jigs that enable a woodworker to cut dovetails by machine, but the end result looks mass-produced. The best-looking dovetails always have been cut by hand.
Sliding dovetail joint
This joint consists of a dovetail-shaped tenon that slides into a corresponding groove or plow. It can be used like a dado for supporting shelves on a bookcase while offering extra strength to keep the sides of the bookcase from bowing outward. If you were building a Shaker candle stand, the sliding dovetail would be the strongest way to attach the legs to the column. In this instance, the dovetail-shaped joint keeps the legs tightly attached to the column.
Joinery Checklist
Keep it simple-- Sometimes the simplest joint can do the job. There's no
need to complicate things, and sometimes overdoing It can be detrimental. For instance, you don't have to pin every mortise-and-tenon Joint; glue usually is sufficient to ensure a strong bond.
Stick with what has worked historically--In woodworking, there's often a good reason why things have been done a particular way for hundreds of years. Woodworkers sometimes struggle to reinvent a joint by exaggerating
a part of it. For instance, when cutting dovetails, more is not necessarily better. Crowding the joint with pins can leave too little material on the tail board to support the joint. Study well-regarded pieces to follow as examples. The surest way to build successful furniture is to copy what has worked.
Make sure it fits properly--If you've bothered to make it, then make sure it fits well. Sloppy joints will come apart prematurely when the glue fails. Take your time, test-fit your pieces, and replace anything that's loose or cracked.
Make sure the work is clean--I have one paramount rule regarding anything I build: Every piece should represent the best I was capable of building at the time. You shouldn't look at your work and think you could have done better. Sloppy work and shortcuts will haunt and trouble you forever.
Show off the joint if it's appropriate--Nothing looks better than eye-popping dovetails or a tight, pinned mortise-and-tenon. When the Joint fits the style of
the piece, show It off.
Four Criteria for Choosing a Joint
1. The joint should contribute to the strength and Integrity of the piece.
2. The joint should allow the wood to move as ambient conditions change.
3. The joint must allow for additional operations, such as grooving, rabbeting, moldings, or screws.
4. The joint should contribute to and not interfere with the appearance of the piece.
Drawings by Mario Rodriguez
This article originally appeared in the November/ December 2003 issue of Fine Woodworking.As the U.S. Trade Representative met with other delegates in the backrooms of luxury hotels around the world, lobbyists and corporate advisors were given special access to influence and see the text. Now that we have the completed text, it's obvious that U.S. trade officials have handed Hollywood its wish list of copyright-maximalist policies.
All the rules that uphold corporate interests are binding, while rules that recognize the public's rights are all non-binding.
That means that TPP countries would be obligated to enact restrictive copyright enforcement regulations and policies that enable "digital trade" of information, but not safeguards for our digital rights.
It's not too late to stop the TPP from going forward.
Since the White House signed the agreement in February, U.S. trade officials have been heavily lobbying Congress members, alongside powerful corporate representatives, to convince lawmakers to vote in favor of ratifying this anti-user deal.
The President could introduce a bill to ratify the TPP any week now. When he does, and all he needs is a simple majority. That's why we need to act now and call on our representatives to do two things:
1) Hold congressional hearings about the contents of the TPP and invite experts to testify about how it will impact people's right to free expression, privacy, and innovation online.
2) Vote no on this agreement due to the secretive, corporate-interest captured process that has led to all of TPP's provisions that expand restrictive digital regulations and threaten our digital rights.
We need all the help we can get to stop this toxic deal in Congress.I hear Canon won.
A couple of gents at LensRentals.com got bored during their move to new digs and decided to play some chess!
Canon won the game with a Fischer like performance.
I know what you’re thinking. Can you rent this chess set? The answer is yes!
For $7654.75 you can rent this chess for a 4 days, this will include the damage insurance for when you knock your king over after a terrible loss.
What about buying it? Sure can! $151,202.17 you can buy the pieces necessary to do this at home. As LensRentals.com mentions, buy now before the new Canon supertelephotos hit the market. The price will skyrocket. To entice you even more, they’ll throw in a free t-shirt!
Read More: Blog Post | Rental Post
crHe's magic, you know.
Yes, Gerard Deulofeu (bet you sang that, didn't you?) has been linked with a summer return to Goodison Park from Barcelona.
Deulofeu scored four goals in 29 games on loan at Everton last season and quickly became a fans' favourite. However, despite rumours of a second loan spell on Merseyside the 21-year-old was sent to Sevilla instead for the 2014-15 campaign.
The young winger has made 27 appearances for Sevilla this season but hasn't played since February and looks unlikely to force his way into the Barca starting line-up when he returns from his loan spell this summer,
Spain under-21 coach Albert Celades was quoted this week urging Deulofeu to leave parent club Barca at the end of the season for the sake of his career.
That inevitably led to rumours the mercurial winger would be sold as he is deemed surplus to requirements at the Nou camp.
Everton have been named as a potential destination, though reports he is "dreaming" of a move back to Goodison Park look decidedly suspect.
The whispers had gathered enough volume to prompt a journalist to a Roberto Martinez about it in his weekly press conference.
You won't be surprised to hear that Martinez described him as "phenomenal", and although he refused to outright deny the transfer rumours, he hardly encouraged them either.
The Spaniard believes Barca's current transfer embargo, a punishment from FIFA for breaking rules regarding the signing of players under 18, means the Catalan side would be reluctant to let Deulofeu go as no replacement can be brought in.
Martinez said:A new Gallup poll, released Dec. 17, reveals that 40 percent of Americans still believe that humans were created by God within the last 10,000 years. This number is slightly down from a previous high of 47 percent in 1993 and 1999.
Another 38 percent of respondents believe that humans have evolved from more basic organisms but with God playing a role in the process.
A mere 16 percent of respondents subscribed to the belief of "secular evolution": that humans have evolved with no divine guidance. However, this number has nearly doubled from nine percent of respondents in a poll from 1982.
The poll also revealed that beliefs in creationism and evolution are strongly related to levels of education attained. When results are narrowed to those with college degrees, only 37 percent of respondents maintain beliefs in creationism. Meanwhile, the belief in evolution without the aid of God rises to 21 percent.
With regards to political affiliation, a majority of Republicans (52 percent) subscribe to creationist beliefs. This is compared to only 34 percent among Democrats and Independents.Over past last year, I’ve got myself into the best shape of my life. I’m fit, healthy and have reached my natural weight. And I’ve achieved this without one trip to the gym and without any personal trainer.
In fact, I’ve achieved this using just 5 different pieces of kit that I have stored away neatly in my home. They’re simple, compact, portable and super effective.
These 5 items have become my go to fitness tools for healthy minimalist living.
And most importantly, they’ve delivered the best weight loss and body definition results I’ve ever had. Happy days.
So to help you out with your own efforts, I’d like to share with you my minimalist and gymless home workout set up.
Using these awesome fitness tools can help you on your path to minimalist living and a happier minimalist lifestyle. Here they are:
Kettlebells Dumbbells Runners Running Watch Bike
Let’s break it down and look at the benefits of each bit of kit.
Tool #1) – Kettlebells
These are the superstars of my home work out.
Why?
Because kettle bells torch the ass off calories.
Kettle bells are cast iron weights shaped like a ball with a handle on top. The amazing thing about using them is that you can combine both cardio fitness and strength training in the same awesome and fun workout.
So by using kettlebells, I not only elevate my heart rate but also build muscle and strengthen my body.
On top of this, because the majority of kettle bell exercises involve swinging the kettle bell, you get a much more explosive and functional form of fitness than if you were doing isolated exercises with dumbbells or the like.
I have 3 different sized kettlebells for different exercises – a 10kg, a 12kg and a 16kg. I’ve built these up over time (as my tolerance for heavier weights has increased) but you can start out with just one that you feel comfortable with.
Benefits Of Kettlebells
Compact, portable and easy to store. Yes, you can train in your bedroom.
Short workout time due to high intensity of exercises (prepare to sweat)
Easy to fit into a busy schedule
Combines cardio and strength, all in one short workout
Awesome cardio without leaving your home
Fun and varied. Never boring
Saves money. Give gym fees the middle finger
Tool #2) – Dumbbells
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Although I used dumbbells for years, I’ve now replaced a lot what I used them for with my new kettlebell workout. However, I haven’t eliminated them completely and still use them for certain parts of my regime.
Right now, my workout is about 80% kettlebells and 20% dumbbells.
Basically, there is a difference between the two, and it’s this; free weights are great for building strength and muscle power but kettlebells go a step further and help you to actually burn fat (while also increasing muscular and cardiovascular endurance).
I personally find that using a combination of dumbbells and kettlebells is ideal as both tools work your muscles differently, with kettlebell exercises offering more of an aerobic quality than dumbbells.
But not to fear; you don’t have to pick one option over the other. Adding both to your workout routine can give you an awesome and balanced plan.
Benefits Of Dumbbells
Great for building strength
Compact, portable and easy to store out of site
Huge range of exercises
Minimal space needed
Relatively inexpensive
Tool #3) – My Trainers
Ok, a small disclaimer here. I love to run.
I find it totally therapeutic and it’s become much more than just a form of exercise for me.
As a result, I keep one pair of runners at the office (I like to run on my lunch break) and one pair at home for running mainly at the weekend.
Running is the ultimate minimalist workout. All you need are your trainers and the ground under your feet. No monthly membership fees and you’re free to go when and for as long as you wish.
I personally run 4 times a week but like I said, I love to run. You can do however many runs suit your plan.
Benefits Of Running
Low cost
Gets you outside
Excellent form of cardio
Great for weight loss
Shorter, intense runs save you time
No commuting to and from a gym
Tool #4) – Nike Plus Running Watch
Ok, my Nike Plus GPS Running watch is the most expensive item in my gymless set up. It allows me to track my runs by their frequency, distance, duration and calories burned.
But don’t worry, if you don’t feel like shelling out the cash for something like this then don’t – it’s by no means an essential item in your minimalist set up.
The reason I invested in it is because I love to run, and since tracking my activity I’ve found myself almost competing with my previous efforts and pushing myself further each time I go for a jog.
For this reason, it helps me increase my performance and helps to keep me focused on my fitness goals.
Without this watch I never would have set myself the new goal of running 100 miles each month.
Below are my results from last month, to show you how great this bit of kit is.
Tool #5) – My Commuter Bike
Part of my minimalist living philosophy is to ditch the car as much as possible.
So instead of driving to the office everyday, I invested in this awesome commuter bike.
So now I cycle to work everyday. I don’t actually count this as ‘exercise time’ as such, I just use it as a means of transport. However, there are obvious fitness benefits to this mode of getting around – so I’m including it as part of my work out set up.
In case you’re wondering, it’s a Kona Jake commuter bike.
Benefits Of Cycling
Cycling turns your work commute into exercise, meaning you need less dedicated ‘exercise time’ in your day
Gets you outside and gets your heart rate pumping
Good for your soul
Low maintenance, cheap to run compared to a car
Over to you!
So there you have it. My 5 fave pieces of kit for healthy minimalist living. Do you have any awesome minimalist workout tools or tips you’d like to share? Please do, I’d love to hear them and you might really inspire some other readers of this blog. Hit me up in the comments!You know them, you love |
near Jane Street.
The Special Investigations Unit (SIU) said two OPP officers were called to the scene and the man was injured during the interaction. He was later diagnosed with a concussion.
The SIU said it has reasonable grounds to believe one of the officers assaulted the man.
OPP Const. Scott Hearnden is charged with assault causing bodily harm. He is scheduled to appear in court on Feb. 10.
The SIU is an arm’s length agency that investigates reports involving police where there has been death, serious injury or allegations of sexual assault.Audio: Charles Yu reads.
Once upon a time, there was a man whose therapist thought it would be a good idea for the man to work through some stuff by telling a story about that stuff. The man lived in a one-bedroom efficiency cottage all by himself, in a sort of dicey part of town. One day, the man woke up and realized that this was pretty much it for him. It wasn’t terrible. But it wasn’t great, either. And not likely to improve. The man was smart enough to realize this, yet not quite smart enough to do anything about it. He lived out the rest of his days and eventually died. The end. Happy now? The man could see that his therapist was not amused. A rather unsatisfactory ending, the therapist opined, and suggested that the man could do better. The man thought, Is she really serious about this? But he didn’t say anything out loud. The man was not convinced that he needed to be talking to the therapist at all, but he had tried so many other things (potions, spells, witches), and spent so much of his copper and silver, with absolutely nothing to show for it, that he figured why the hell not. So how do I do this? he asked. Why don’t you start again? the therapist replied. And, instead of rushing to the end, try to focus on the details. O.K., the man said. Once upon a time, there was a man who did not know how to use a sword and was also very afraid of dragons, so he took the L.S.A.T., did pretty well, and ended up getting into a decent law school. There he learned useful skills. Skills that would allow him to earn a living in the village and to court the women of that village. But what the man came to find soon after graduation was that, in this particular village, there were many people with the same skills. Many, many people. Really hard to overstate how many lawyers there were in that village. Accordingly, despite the man’s efforts the local maidens were not overly impressed. And, after all that schooling, the man was ashamed to admit the sad fact that he still did not know how to use a sword. But the man was fine with this. Totally cool with it. Did not feel inadequate whatsoever. He landed a job with a medium-sized firm. The pay was a bit below market, and the position wasn’t exactly his first choice. Top three, maybe. Top fiveish. Somewhere in there. Nevertheless, again, the man could have done worse. Competently plying his trade afforded him a very livable existence. Allowed him to enjoy the company of loved ones. His parents were both gone now, and his sister lived in another kingdom, on the other side of the sea. But it wasn’t like he didn’t have friends. He totally had friends. People he could call to get the occasional beer or catch a movie. It was just that, well, there were those nights. Nights when the moon was new and the sky was dark, and the hour before dawn stretched out before him, threatening never to end. On those endless nights, he would lie in his cottage alone, looking through the window, up at the starless sky, and wondering: Was there a life for him out there in the world? Someone who would love him? Or could learn to love him or, at least, let herself be loved by him? He thought about enchanting some young lady, but he had no talent for magic so that was not really an option. If he was going to find a fair maiden to marry him, he would have to do it the old-fashioned way: trick her into it. Kidding. No, he was going to have to find a woman with sufficiently low standards so as to give himself a fighting chance. He eventually found such a woman, the only daughter of the candlemaker, a girl whom everyone thought of as plain. Also sad. Quite sad. Not until they had been married for many years would the man come to understand how sad she truly was. “I love never finishing our dissertations together.” But the man was getting ahead of himself. For now, the point was the man knew that he had to marry the candlemaker’s daughter. Because unlike everyone else in the village, including the candlemaker himself, the man could see one thing: the young lady was not plain at all. She simply possessed a very mild form of magic, which she used for the purpose of hiding her loveliness. The man told the girl that he knew her secret. She denied it, and he told her that he knew she would deny it. Of course she had to deny that she was, in actuality, the most fetching maiden in the village—maybe in the entire realm. The girl looked confused. Her face flushed with embarrassment. She searched his eyes, trying to understand. Was the man teasing her? But the man did not smile. He seemed earnest. Told her that he knew why she used her magic to hide her beauty: it was in order to protect herself. But, for some reason, he (and only he) could see through it. Now the girl started to cry, because surely the man was trying to humiliate her, wasn’t he? But she saw that he remained earnest. And, after a while, she stopped crying and, her face slick with tears, kissed the man softly on the lips. The man asked the candlemaker for his daughter’s hand in marriage. Her father asked that the man slay a dragon to prove his devotion. Even though the man was in decent shape, totally respectable shape, especially considering that he didn’t have time to go to the gym, he still wasn’t strong enough to swing a two-handed broadsword. So, being nothing if not practical, he sought out the smallest dragon he could find. After a long search, he found one not much bigger than a wild fowl. Possibly a baby. If we’re being honest, the dragon looked sickly. It had scared, wet eyes, and as the man raised his sword above his head to slay it his betrothed said to him, Don’t. Please. That’s dumb. You don’t need to kill a baby dragon just to prove something to me. All right, the man said, barely hiding his relief. He lowered his sword, petted the young dragon on the head, and sent it back to the cave or wherever. The candlemaker was angry, or maybe not angry—he was a fairly gentle soul—but definitely miffed. Still, he wanted his daughter married off, so, grudgingly, he gave his blessing. The man had found his wife. He said to her, I will provide you with a good life. Pretty good, at least. She said, Quit talking and let’s go before my father changes his mind. And so they did. And the man loved his wife. To the extent that he knew how to love, anyway. The man had a clumsiness about him, in his hands and in his heart. He fumbled words, missed chances, and, despite his best intentions, was prone to mishandling fragile things. Together they shared a quiet existence that was defined by well-managed expectations. Perhaps not the stuff of legends. Not quite deserving of “once upon a time.” But it was comfortable and honest.
He wondered aloud, ahem, if this was really worth his and the therapist’s time. But the man was coming to understand that his therapist was not going to let him out of this exercise until he had navigated his way along (1) an emotionally honest path to (2) an unexpected (3) yet inevitable destination. Whatever that meant. The man sighed loudly and continued. Once upon a time, there was a guy who couldn’t swing a sword and nearly peed his pants whenever he saw even a toddler-size dragon, so he went to law school, where he learned a bunch of very useful skills, and when he graduated he became a lawyer, and he was pretty O.K. at that, and it allowed him to build a life, try to build a life. Great. The therapist liked where this was going. But he had dreams of more. He told his wife this, as they lay in their cold stone hut at night. Oh? she said, hopeful. A little surprised. What do you dream of? Being a hero? No, he said sheepishly. Deep down in his heart, what he dreamed of was not to be a lawyer, or a hero, but a blacksmith. A silly dream, he knew, so he had never told anyone. He waited for her to laugh, but she didn’t. She said that it was a lovely thing to dream of. But, having said this, the man was already talking himself out of it. Blacksmithing was old-fashioned and hardly anyone actually made a living at it anymore. He would, of course, keep his job as a lawyer. Would always provide for her. And the candlemaker’s daughter said, I know you will. It was cold, so they spooned. Made love under the nearly empty night sky. Through the window, the man saw a single star. It hung low, twinkling at them. This was kind of how they did things for a while. Talked at night, made love, and then the man would fall asleep and his wife would listen to him snore and worry about him. He seemed tired, overworked. She would worry well past the witching hour, and at some point drift off into her own restless half-sleep, just before dawn. She had anxiety and took potions for it, and herbs, and other things from the apothecary. All of it was prescription—it wasn’t like she was self-medicating or anything. But the potions didn’t help, or maybe helped a little—they caused her to have spells of forgetfulness, to lose an hour here or there, but nothing really could lessen her dread. It turned out that she was right to feel dread. One night, in the very short time during which both she and her husband were asleep, a sorceress from far away, whom they didn’t know, put a spell on their home, for some reason they would never understand. They would not ever be blessed with the gift of a child. That one star hung in the sky, and it would never fall to Earth for them. “Auto reply: I am dead and will have limited access to e-mail.” The couple handled this news in different ways. The candlemaker’s daughter did research, read books about it. Found a local support group that met on Tuesdays. The man, unsure of what to say, tried not to talk about it. Stopped blacksmithing for a while. Started grinding his teeth at night. A distance grew between them. The man wanted to touch his wife, to be with her, but it hurt too much. Still, they loved each other. After work one day, the man came home with two bottles of good wine and they opened both bottles and sat on the floor in the middle of the living room in their hut and drank all the wine and ate an entire loaf of hard bread and laughed at each other and at themselves, tried to see the silver lining in being cursed by a malevolent force, and, in the morning when they woke up, they felt a little better. They made a list. There was always adoption. Which took time and money and patience and luck. But they were in no rush, were they? Plus, while they waited they could enjoy each other. Take more vacations. If they could save up enough copper coins, maybe even go all the way to the seashore. Eventually. Why not? They were staying glass half full about it all. And then, out of nowhere, boom. Just like that. Just when the man had given up, you know? One day the star did fall from the sky into the belly of the man’s wife. And there it burned for six weeks until it had a heartbeat. At twelve weeks, they told family, friends. At eighteen weeks, they found out: it would be a boy. Their boy. And the lawyer-blacksmith and the candlemaker’s daughter were overjoyed. They didn’t want to question why it had happened now, or whether it had anything to do with them finally letting go. They just thanked the heavens and the earth and whatever little magic might be left in the world. It wasn’t the easiest pregnancy. There were nights when the invisible wolf, carried along by the fire wind, would come and snatch at the child with its jaws, try to take it away and carry it back into the hills. The wolf came at thirty weeks. At thirty-two weeks, it came again, and the sage elder mages were worried and had the man’s wife spend the night, just for observation. Just a precaution. Fortune was smiling, though, and they made it to thirty-five weeks. The mages still had concerns. They looked into their crystal balls or whatever. Behind closed doors, they talked in hushed tones. They nodded their sage heads sagely, stroked their beards, gave the lawyer-blacksmith grim and ponderous looks. Ugh, the mages were really kind of awful about the whole thing. So when the child was finally born the man and his wife wept with joy and relief. Two arms and two legs. Two eyes, a nose and a mouth, color in his cheeks. Head covered with wisps of soft, almost invisible hair. It was a few weeks later that the man’s wife first noticed it. Something about their baby. Difficult to see at first, because the boy looked fine. He acted fine. Nursed. Slept. For the first two months, the blacksmith and his wife would frequently stop what they were doing, pause, and look at each other. As if to say, We did it. Six months in, they didn’t look at each other anymore; instead, each of them silently studied their boy. Afraid to say anything to the other, lest they make it real by uttering out into the world what was, day by day, increasingly hard to ignore. Saying only generally positive things, vague expressions of hope. No reason to worry yet. Don’t jump to any conclusions. At twelve months, they said nothing. There was no need to say anything. The man and his wife took the boy back to the mage who had brought him into the world. At first, the old wizard refused to see them. He shook his head gently. The man’s wife begged. Fell to her knees and pleaded. The lawyer-blacksmith tried to pull her up by the arms. But she wouldn’t move. She cried there in front of the mage’s tower for three brutally hot days and three painfully cold nights, the man watching over her the whole time. On the morning of the fourth day, the mage emerged, on his way to somewhere else, and was alarmed and scared as he stumbled over the candlemaker’s daughter, still waiting there. He could not let this go on any longer. Your son, he said. He will never be of this world. Now the man’s wife broke down with fresh tears. The man stared at the mage and said, What do you mean? What does that mean? I know you’re a mage and that’s how you talk, but you can’t say something like that and then just stand there. The boy’s spirit, the mage explained, what some might call his soul—it is trapped. You can think of it as being inside a small box, and that box is inside another box, and that box in another, and so on. Is this because of the curse? Could be. Hard to say. It is possible that the child is afraid to come into the world, or that he is not fully allowed to, owing to the persistent dark energy that was attached to his creation. “Oh, no—Karen baked a cake so dense that not even light can escape.” Dark energy. At this phrase, the man’s skin turned cold. He feared. He knew. Something in him had caused all of this. He had no way of proving it, but the man knew it was his fault, could not even look at his wife, afraid that just one look and she would instantly understand. But if his wife did have any such thoughts she did not betray them. She took the man’s hand in hers and pressed the mage for options. What could they do? Tell us what to do. The answer, the mage said, may be hidden deep within him. Too deep to retrieve safely. You will never know him. But you will care for him, love him, see that he has everything a child needs. As soon as the lawyer-blacksmith heard these words, he knew that they were true. He wondered what insurance would cover; he worried about the large deductible, the high cap on out-of-pocket expenses. Ahead of him, the lawyer-blacksmith saw many years of therapists, of special schools, of helpers. No birthday parties. No playdates or friends. No playing baseball with his son. At sixteen months, the boy stood up once, clapped his hands. At twenty months, a word: Bye. Bye-bye. Bye. Then, at two years, more words, all in rapid succession: Mama, baby, Da, sorry. Why sorry? Maybe he heard it often. At three, he said, What’s that? And, Who’s that? And, Where are we going? When he was five, the lawyer-blacksmith’s son said, Dad is my best friend. He said this from very far away, from a place deep inside himself. The man could barely hear his son. The boy was sitting on the ground and looked confused, and from his mouth came a terrible sound. An old sound, a pain trapped in there. The boy looked out the window at other boys running. He wanted to run. But his legs wouldn’t work right. His father said, They do work, son. Your legs are just fine. And the son said, Then why do I feel stuck? His father said, We will get you unstuck. Those are nice legs, good legs. Don’t be mad at your legs. Look at me. Look at Mommy. We will figure this out. We gave you those legs. We are sorry. I am sorry. But it is not your fault. And you will get to run. The boy eventually did run. Sort of. It looked funny, and other boys laughed at him. So after a few tries the boy stopped running.
Was the man O.K.? Did he need a moment? The man was fine. A glass of water, perhaps? No, the man said. I’m fine. Deep breath, O.K.? In other ways, things were going pretty well. As it turned out, the man did have a talent for blacksmithing. Not a great talent. He would not make swords for knights and princes. But he had something. And people noticed. They started to bring him stuff to smith, and he could smith the heck out of that stuff. He hammered stuff and flattened other stuff and made stuff, stuck stuff in the fire, and stuff. What had started out as a thing on the side turned into a little bit of a cottage industry. He had time to do this because he had quit his job at the firm and now worked as a lawyer in local government. No bonus, but good benefits. And the hours were so much better. Now the man was home most nights for dinner. He and his wife and son moved to a slightly bigger cottage, just outside the village. The lawyer-blacksmith was still no knight or lord, of course, but he could provide for his family. They were never hungry. Things were fine, mostly, although sometimes when they went down to the village for a harvest festival, other families would look at them, and they hated the way they were looked at. Sympathy, mixed with something else. Something like, I admire you, but don’t touch me or I might catch your plague of misfortune. Sympathy, as in, I sympathize, my heart goes outward to you— outward to you, as in, You over there, stay over there, don’t come any closer. I will admire you from a distance. The man knew that look well. The man’s wife said, Don’t be so hard on people. They mean well. But the man said, Meaning well is for shit. Oh, he knew that look and how he hated that look. The presumptuousness of it. Those other families didn’t say anything. That was the worst part. Except when they did say something. And that was even worse: So inspiring. You must be so strong, selfless. Now, that was a fairy tale. The idea of selfless people. As if their lives were somehow different, as if they didn’t have flaws and urges, didn’t ever want to have a couple of drinks, or three, or ten. As if having a kid like theirs made them into some kind of charmed species, some imaginary fairy-tale type of nonhuman humans, people who never got bored or tired or horny. But the blacksmith-lawyer, as much as he resented these strangers with their heartfelt looks, couldn’t blame them. So he ignored them. “Are we maximizing our time together or minimizing our efforts?” He was up for a promotion to managing attorney of his department. By now his son was eight. No, closer to ten. Now fifteen. The years were getting away from him. The boy still had no friends, and though it hurt the man every time his son asked why not, it hurt more on the day that his son stopped asking. That was years ago now. Things were still fine. The cottage felt small, so they bought another one. Not great timing, because a month later the blacksmith-lawyer was passed over for the better job. Something about his not having the right attitude. He’d heard back-channel whispers throughout the village that the higher-ups in the department all liked him, but they wondered if he could commit to the additional responsibility. Given, well, his circumstances. They knew he had a kid at home who required extra care. That was all maybe a nice way for them to not say what the problem really was. Maybe that they found it kind of depressing to be around him. They all felt for him, though. His lovely wife, his special-needs kid or whatever. They would never fire him, he knew. He could have a job there for as long as he wanted, doing land surveys on local fiefdoms. Dividing up the realm for lesser lords and vassals, assessing taxes on men far richer than he could ever dream of being. Drawing a steady stream of copper into his accounts. A stable life, a life for his family. That was the right thing to do. So he did it. He was angry at his wife, even though she had never asked him to do it. He began staying out late, for work, at first, and then not for work. His wife made ever more frequent trips to the apothecary. Began to learn the trade. Soon she had perfected a potion of her own. An elixir for relaxation, she called it. Just to get through the day. Their son continued to grow. His body did, anyway. The rest of him, it was harder to tell. At times, he seemed like a soul trapped inside a mind trapped inside a brain trapped inside a body. A body that turned into a man’s body, while somewhere in there, flitting around like a moth, without any direction or understanding, was a child. A baby. Their baby.
Fuck, man, do I have to do this? I don’t know if I can keep doing this. Keep going. This is good. What’s good? The therapist said that this was serious progress. The man was finally getting somewhere. The man didn’t know what else to say. His armpits were sweaty, his back hurt, his ass was sore from the therapist’s lumpy couch. He had to take a piss. He was tired of narrating. O.K., then. He could have a break, drink some water, and then, whenever he was ready, start again. The man didn’t want to start again. But the therapist cast a meaningful gaze at the clock and the man understood that his time was almost up, and so he started again. Once upon a time, there was a therapist who had no idea what she was doing. The man waited for a reaction, but the therapist didn’t take the bait. She didn’t say anything. She nodded, and leaned forward, and waited for him to continue. Once upon a time, there was a therapist who wasn’t going to do any good and cost too much, and it’s not like the man was made of money. He did all right, but this was not exactly in the budget, and, anyway, they weren’t the kind of people who hired therapists. That was for rich people. It was his wife’s idea, soon to be ex-wife, maybe, and what kind of crap was this, imposing conditions on him, to save his marriage, like he deserved this, after all he had done—conditions. Conditions! Like he was the only one who was broken. Like he was the only one who had maybe got a little too angry at the kid, the man-child, never violent but just a little mean. But, God damn it, he didn’t know where the meanness came from. He couldn’t help it, really, when it started rising up in him, the blood and heat, climbing into his face, and he could feel it—he was going to say something that he couldn’t take back, he was going to say something that was the opposite of what he wanted to say, when all he wanted to do was stroke the boy’s cheek and say—
Sorry. Shit. Sorry. I’m all over the place. It’s O.K. Take a moment. Take as long as you need. I don’t know. What don’t you know? I don’t know if I can do this. Have a sip of water. The man took a sip of ice-cold water. Once upon a time, there was an angry guy, who hated the story he was in. All right? He was angry, O.K.? Once upon a time, there was a guy who wasn’t allowed to start a story with “once upon a time.” Because it wasn’t once upon a time. It was a specific time. And he wasn’t a blacksmith—he was just a regular guy who lived in the forest. He waited maybe too long to get married, but the thing was, he had his mom to take care of, never felt it was time, all those years, watching her body shrivel up. His mom, who deserved better. He worked days, and at night he looked after her, and then, when she was gone, he got married. A little later in life. Maybe too late. But he’d wanted his own story. Just a simple one. That was all he and his wife wanted, and the ob-gyn told them about the elevated risks, the witch’s curse and all that. But whatever. They had the boy anyway. The man and his wife and the boy who laughed and clapped but didn’t talk or run. It was a family. His family. His wife—she was good, she was a better person than he was. She showed him how to love the boy. He loved the hell out of the boy. “You rang?” And they moved even deeper into the forest. They wanted to be far from everything else. They didn’t want to see other people anymore. Wanted to find another forest, another village, another once upon a time, where they’d be safe from potions, and spells, and anything else. Dragons. Werewolves. Curses. A place without magic. Wherever that might be. The guy and his wife built their house to be strong, fortifying it with wood, sticks, mud, stones, whatever they could find. They lived carefully, quietly, didn’t even look at each other most days. They’d had enough of living in a half-assed fairy tale. Enough bloodshed, enough potions and elixirs, enough of that for a lifetime. They figured if they didn’t talk, didn’t try to understand it all, then the story would just go away. Would stop trying to mean something, would stop trying to break their broken hearts. So they stopped thinking. At night, they stopped dreaming. From their heads, they carved out the parts that had made dreams and fed them to wild animals. Scattered their dream-stuff on the ground, to be pecked at, gnawed at, chewed up. Waking, sleeping without dreams, working. Like this, they passed many days. Years. The boy grew. But he didn’t, really. Then one day the man looked at his wife across the breakfast table. She was putting a strawberry into their son’s mouth. Their son was smiling. Dumb, unknowing, a grown man’s face with the eyes of a child. The smile of an idiot. This was the most beautiful thing the man had ever seen. For a moment, he was happy. He went out to gather wood and, in his happiness, walked much farther from his home than he had in a long time. He came upon a stream, over which there had once been a bridge, whose wooden planks had now rotted away. And there he discovered a curious sight. On the other side of the ruined bridge, sitting there alone, was his son. What are you doing out here? the man asked. How did you get here? The boy said he didn’t know. He started to moan. A horrid sound. A grown man crying like a baby. I’m sorry, he said, I’m so sorry. O.K., the man said. O.K. Don’t cry. Tell me, sorry for what, little dude? What are you sorry for? For all the trouble. For messing up your life. Oh, God, the man said. No. The man was the one who should apologize. How could he possibly explain that he wasn’t strong enough, or good enough, to be the boy’s father? The boy said that he was trapped, wasn’t he? Trapped over here, on this side of the bridge. He started to cry again. From across the distance, the man tried to soothe his son. Hummed to him, a song from when he was a baby. The boy stopped sobbing for a moment, long enough to say, Dad, tell me a story. But what kind of story could the man tell? The man wasn’t a good enough storyteller. He’d had a kind of allegorical thing going for him once, but he’d lost the trail. No map, no legend. He no longer knew what stood for what. He looked around. He was in the darkest part of the forest. He didn’t know this area. The cottage, the clearing in the woods, it was all so small, and so far from everything. The sounds coming from the trees were frightening. The man realized now what he had done. He had tried to ignore the story. He and his wife had tried to go on with their days, not speaking or thinking too hard. But the story had never gone away. Neglect and time had done their work. While the man wasn’t looking, this place had fallen apart. He turned to see where he had come from and saw that the trail back to the cottage led nowhere. A few yards from him, it just sort of faded into the surroundings. Behind him, no way to retrace his steps. In front of him, a bridge to his son that had long since rotted. If he tried to cross, it wouldn’t hold his weight. He couldn’t get from here to there. So, instead, he turned away from both, away from home and from his son. And he just ran. He ran as fast as he could, flat out running through the unknown forest. And then his wife was running beside him. And every ghoul, every beast, every horrible thing, corporeal, immaterial, every thing that had ever hunted or haunted the man and the woman, was now right behind them, pressing. And leading them all was their son, their son, asking, Don’t you want to be my parents? Why not? Why not? Soon they couldn’t remember if they’d ever done anything but run. Their lives had been one long chase. No, the man said, this isn’t fair. And his wife said, We have no time for fair. And the man said, Why are we running? We’re in our own story. We don’t have to run. “Pushing buttons with anything other than your index finger is an affectation.” Then he looked down at his body, and he saw that he was not a hero, not a blacksmith, or anything else. He looked over at his wife and saw that she was not a damsel in distress, not a candlemaker’s daughter. He barely knew her anymore. But he knew that she was Rachel. She was whoever was inside of Rachel. She was the mother of their child. Their boy. He looked at the boy. A grownup man now. Still a boy. A lovable boy trapped inside a smelly man, and he knew that he would wipe the boy’s nose and ass and anything else for as long as he needed to, because that’s what blacksmiths do. That’s what fairy-tale heroes do. They become government lawyers. They buy groceries. They shave their son three times a week, and feed him pudding, and sing to him once in a while. This was not a dream, not a fairy tale. This was all there was, all there would be. Once upon a time, there was a fable, and maybe at one point things corresponded, one for one, or close enough, but somewhere along the way it had twisted, and now he wasn’t sure what it was.Pro Women Podium:
Pro Men Podium:
When it comes to race venues, it doesn’t get much better than Jug Mountain Ranch. Nestled just below Jughandle Mountain, outside the serene mountain town of McCall, Idaho, Jug Mountain offers just about everything a mountain biker’s heart desires. From buffed-out, flowy singletrack to hand-built technical features and table tops to berms that leave you aching for more.Jug Mountain graciously hosted the third stop of the Idaho Enduro Series last weekend. The weather was perfect, the spectators were lively, and the beer at the finish line never tasted so good. The Sport, Expert, and Pro classes climbed over 3,200 feet in elevation and pedaled twenty-one miles to complete the six stages of enduro bliss. A rider favorite seemed to be the 5th stage, “Berm N’ Ernie,” which many have dubbed the best flow trail in Idaho. Descending from the ranch’s highest post, the trail travels through the Ponderosa Forest with what seems like the perfect mix of rock gardens, large berms, and jumps that always seem to put you right where you need to be. It’s a mile of fast, flowy perfection that leaves you hootin' and hollerin' the whole way down.About 120 riders competed for a podium spot on Saturday but, between an epic day of racing and lots of sweet swag in the post race raffle (even a "Best Beard Award"), very few went home disappointed. Pro Male Taylor Reed and Pro Female Megan Carley stood on the highest point of the podium to round out the nearly perfect day at Jug Mountain Ranch. See y’all in September for the next stop at Tamarack Resort!Amber Warren carving through the racer favored Berm "N" Ernie.Miguel Sandoval and his stash were out on course at 9am.The always frantic timing chip placement.Rounding a corner before a rock drop on Stage 2.Ian Fitzpatrick launching off one of many wall rides.Style points for the day went to Christian McKenna.Lots of transitioning as riders pedaled over twenty miles.Josh Mott posing for a pan shot.Eventual, Pro Women's podium topper, Megan Carley, getting some air time.Mike Wieser hitting the log jump.Full Face Mania! Sarah Whipple getting serious.Lots and lots of climbing allowed for riders to come together and have some social time.Jake Johnson coming in hot!Montana Hughes took the top spot in the Expert Junior class.Expert Female - Nicole JorgensonJosh Mott doing his best Hide and Seek impression.Bad luck as Heather Thiry succumbed to a flat during the final stage.Taylor Reed and his last sprint to the finish for a victory on the day.3rd - Heather Thiry, 1st - Megan Carley, 2nd - Amber Warren3rd - Daniel Reed, 1st - Taylor Reed, 2nd - Jason BoeckmannAmber Warren //David MeadowsThis article is over 3 years old
At least 30 people were killed after heavy rains sent tonnes of debris crashing into flimsy houses in Santa Catarina Pinula
At least 30 people have died and hundreds were missing after a landslide struck near Guatemala City as rescue crews continued to search for survivors in homes buried by dirt and sludge.
Loosened by heavy rains, tonnes of dirt and trees tumbled onto Santa Catarina Pinula in a valley south-east of the capital late on Thursday, flattening dozens of flimsy houses when many residents had gone home for the night.
Aerial footage broadcast in Guatemala showed the tree-lined hillside laid bare above a huge mound of earth, foliage and debris that completely covered part of the town, which hugs the side of a river in a deep ravine.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Rescue workers and firemen search for survivors in Cambray near Guatemala City on Friday. Photograph: Moises Castillo/AP
Scores of rescue workers worked until dusk on Friday to recover bodies from the tangle of mangled walls, beds and furniture churned up in the landslide. A Reuters photo showed the face of one person who had apparently been buried alive.
Guatemalan president's downfall marks success for corruption investigators Read more
Alejandro Maldonado, head of Guatemalan disaster agency Conred, said on Friday that as many as 600 could still be missing after the disaster, which he said hit 125 homes.
Search efforts resumed at dawn on Saturday and fire services spokesman Julio Sanchez said another four bodies had been recovered, raising the death toll to 30.
The dead included two babies and a mother embracing her two daughters, said Carlos Turcios, a doctor who saw |
dates to fit the concert into their schedule. “That makes it a community. No need for thanks. This is a thing you have to do.”
Aidin Vaziri is The San Francisco Chronicle’s pop music critic. E-mail: avaziri@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @MusicSF
How to help
Donations to the Tipping Point Emergency Relief Fund can still be made through these options:
Donations can be made via YouTube at www.youtube.com/user/MetallicaTV or send $25 to the fund by texting TOGETHER to 20222. Google, one of the concert’s founding sponsors, will match donations made through text and the YouTube channel, up to $1 million, until Jan. 1.
Double your donation with Oath, a global media and technology company, matching up to $100,000 to Tipping Point Emergency Relief Fund: http://tinyurl.com/y9aqqwfh
Donate through Outside Lands, which will match donations to the Tipping Point Emergency Relief Fund up to $25,000: http://tinyurl.com/ybt9lp62
Tipping Point is also accepting donations through Bitcoin: https://tippingpoint.org/#bitcoin
For more information: www.bandtogetherbayarea.orgA couple in Tokyo’s Ota Ward, who were arrested last November, on suspicion of abandoning their three babies soon after their births in 2002, 2010 and 2011, went on trial Wednesday.
The Tokyo District Court heard that Hideaki Tonuma, 32, who is unemployed, and his wife Chiemi, 31, a former bar hostess, abandoned the three newborn babies, Fuji TV reported. The bizarre case came to light after the couple were arrested for abandoning a baby girl who was found alive in a public park in Ota in March 2011.
During police questioning, the couple also confessed to having disposed of the body of a son, born 12 years ago, who was reported missing shortly after his birth. The Tonumas claim the boy died and that they later disposed of his body in Saitama Prefecture.
The court heard that the pair also abandoned another baby girl in 2010. The girl was found but the son’s body was never found. Police said that DNA tests on the two baby girls led them to the parents who remained elusive until their arrest.
The Tonumas also have a 9-year-old son who was placed in a child welfare center in 2004 after being abused by his parents.
In Wednesday's opening session, the Tonumas both entered a plea of guilty, Fuji reported.
© Japan TodayMauricio Pochettino will hope for a quieter window than Spurs are usually used to, with the two main priorities being to retain his star players and trim a bloated squad
SPECIAL REPORT By Ewan Roberts Follow on Twitter By
TRANSFER TARGETS
PLAYERS WHO COULD LEAVE
THE MANAGER
HOW THEY COULD LINE UP
After countless summers of instability and huge player turnover, Tottenham will be much more focused on consolidation this window. Mauricio Pochettino has always been largely content with his squad, and will only be looking to tweak and trim during the off-season.There are unlikely to be any big-money moves – the club revealed a return to the low risk, high potential deals that have reaped rewards previously at a meeting with the Supporters’ Trust, once again targeting young players in the £10-15 million bracket.With interest from Manchester United in the sides’ two stand-out players, the biggest feat Spurs could pull off this summer is simply retaining the core of their side, but new recruits will be needed if they are to break into the top four and claim a Champions League place.Tottenham have already moved swiftly to tie up a deal for, the bruising Austrian centre-back moving to White Hart Lane from Koln, and his unheralded arrival gives a clear indication as to the new direction Spurs’ recruitment is heading.The arrival of Paul Mitchell and his “black box” will – the club hope – limit the danger of signing expensive flops, instead extensively scouting players to unearth gems; Mitchell was noted for his work at Southampton, signing the likes of Sadio Mane, Dusan Tadic and Graziano Pelle (of last summer's Premier League signings, only Alexis Sanchez and Diego Costa scored more goals than the Italian).“We need to ensure that we have a balance of experienced and home grown players, playing the attacking, entertaining football our fans love to watch. Perhaps we had lost our way a little bit in this respect, so this will be our guiding principle as we embark on the summer transfer window,” explained Daniel Levy at the end of the season.The key there is experienced players, which is something Spurs – who have the youngest squad in the league – lack. Tottenham had been keen on James Milner, who ticked that box and many others, but he opted for Liverpool. Central midfield, and specifically finding a partner for the excellent Nabil Bentaleb, remains a priority this summer.is still a target, but with numerous Champions League clubs in for the Frenchman, and a £25m price tag, Spurs are likely to look elsewhere., who has spent the last two years on loan at Borussia Monchengladbach, is a possibility, and his energetic, defensive skillset (only three Bundesliga midfielders averaged more tackles per game) would be an ideal foil for Bentaleb.The north Londoners also have a long-standing interest in who has told Everton he wants to leave Goodison Park this summer, while Marseille midfielderis being monitored. The French club need to sell a player before June 30 to balance the books and comply with DNCG accounting rules, so Levy’s trademark brinkmanship could come up trumps again.The need for more pace in attack is not lost on Pochettino, and while another Marseille star,, has been linked, it is a different Frenchman, Monaco’s that Spurs are most keen on. Talks are ongoing over a £15m move and the 19-year-old, likened to Thierry Henry, has the electric speed Tottenham have lacked.Elsewhere, fears over the form and fitness of Kyle Walker could seearrive in a £3.5m deal from Burnley, while returning loan starlet Alex Pritchard, January recruit Dele Alli and Tom Carroll will all have pre-season to prove they are deserving of a place in the first-team squad.Manchester United always posed a threat to Spurs this summer, though the major target was expected to be. The Frenchman has long been seen as the probable replacement for David De Gea at Old Trafford when the Spaniard eventually seals his big-money move to Real Madrid.Lloris is happy in London and enjoying his time at Spurs, but would seriously consider a move to United, back in the Champions League of course, should a bid materialise. Levy, though, will hold out for a figure as close as possible to the long-standing £32.6 million record fee Juventus paid for Gianluigi Buffon in 2001.It seems, however, that United now have their eye on another Tottenham star:. Louis van Gaal has made strengthening his strikeforce a priority and the England Under-21 star is his No.1 target. United are ready to test Spurs’ resolve by making an official bid of £50 million, and are willing to offer the likes of Javier Hernandez and Adnan Januzaj in part-exchange.Tottenham’s stance is clear, though: Kane is not for sale at any price. The club are confident of keeping the 21-year-old at Spurs and want to build their future around him. Unlike previous high-profile exits, Kane actually has a genuine affinity for the club and could in fact sign a new double-your-money contract this summer despite only penning new terms in February.Elsewhere, Pochettino was lauded for his use of youngsters this season – from Eric Dier in defence to the prolific Kane in attack – but there is a sense that he can’t quite blood in as many of the next generation of academy stars as he would like due to Tottenham’s hugely bloated squad, and as many as nine players could be sold for the right offer.The most prominent of those areand, still the club’s captain and vice-captain respectively. Almost overnight the duo were degraded from first-team regulars to personae non gratae as Pochettino chucked his lot in with the youthful, homegrown players who embraced his methods and philosophy.Others players who have failed to impress the manager include three of infamous Magnificent Seven. While Paulinho and Erik Lamela are likely to be granted a reprieve and afforded one more year to live up to their billing,andcan all leave the club – though Spurs will have to take a significant loss on the £43m the trio originally cost.For the right price, Mousa Dembele, Benjamin Stambouli and Andros Townsend could all be offloaded (the manager says "no one is safe"), though there is a place for them in the squad next season. If the deadweight can be shifted, it would create more opportunities for the club’s promising youth stars and leave Pochettino with a squad he can really trust, thus lightening the load on key individuals.Pochettino had a curious first season at White Hart Lane, combining the breath-taking with the woeful. For every spectacular performance, the 5-3 mauling of Chelsea for example, there were dropped points at home to bottom-half sides. Consistency evaded Spurs all season, and it was impossible to predict if the infectious, high-pressing side or their lethargic, easily-cut-open sibling would turn up.Nevertheless, a fifth-place finish, automatic qualification for the group stages of the Europa League and a League Cup final appearance at Wembley represents an encouraging maiden campaign, especially when on-field results only constituted one part of his remit.Behind the scenes Pochettino has begun overhauling the way players – transfer targets and current squad members – are assessed and analysed, bringing Mitchell with him from Southampton, while the club’s excellent academy is being developed to play the same style from schoolboys right up to the first team, with a real emphasis placed on developing the next generation.Pochettino’s bravery when it comes to fielding young players is a huge part of the reason he was appointed last year, with Spurs likely to become increasingly reliant on their youngsters as they look to fund a £400 million new stadium.The Argentine is the ideal man to nurture the next wave of Harry Kanes, and there is a real sense that Levy feels as though he has finally found his perfect manager. The chairman was effusive in his praise of the side’s spirit under Pochettino and promised to back him this summer – but, as ever, if results are not good enough then he will quickly come under threat.Pochettino will hope that his starting XI is largely unchanged next season, save for a few key positions. The defence was often chaotic and dishevelled last term, committing countless individual errors, but few sides were forced to use so many different back-line combinations. Spurs need stability, and the addition of Tripper, for example, would ensure that Dier can remain in his natural position.The introduction of an out-and-out defensive midfielder would also reduce the workload on the defence. For all his craft and enthusiasm, Ryan Mason was often culpable of leaving massive gaps – a specialist holder like Kramer, however, would instantly turn Spurs into a more solid and compact outfit.In attack, Tottenham are largely well set but need to add pace and movement in behind. Martial ticks both those boxes, and, at 19 years old, would be more receptive to rotating with the useful Nacer Chadli, who bagged 11 league goals last term. With a deeper squad, Pochettino can also afford to rest the likes of Christian Eriksen, who looked visibly exhausted in the latter stages of the season.Southern Tier Imperial Gemini Review
Dave Jensen (beer47) Blocked Unblock Follow Following Apr 26, 2011
Southern Tier is a craft brewery out of Lakewood, New York that produces 30,000 barrels of fine craft beer each year. An excellent example of their craftsmanship is one of their special limited availability beers called Imperial Gemini Blended Unfiltered Ale. This beer is not exactly what I expected from the East Coast. It has a strong citrus hop aroma with a strong bitter bite and was made from two of their other brews: Unearthly Imperial IPA and Hoppe Imperial Extra Pale Ale. This is a beer loaded with 6 varieties of hops and four different grains. Imperial Gemini, in particular, was given to me by Josh, a friend who lives in Vermont, so a special thanks goes out to him.
Date Reviewed. July 1, 2010
Where I Found It. A friend who lives in Vermont.
Serving Type. 22 oz. bottle to a glass.
Appearance. Despite its name, Imperial Gemini Blended Unfiltered Ale, this beer has a beautiful crystal clear orange-amber color. The off-white head head has tiny bubbles and a thick frothy texture and lasts quite a long time leaving a few traces on the glass. Update (April 26, 2011): This beer is “normally”not crystal clear. Most of the sediment had “filtered” to the bottom of the bottle and I didn’t bother to stir it up before serving.
Aroma. This beer has a soft but potent citrus hoppy bouquet combined with a biscuit, amber, or toasted malt aroma. The aroma also has a hint of wildflower or orange blossom honey. There is also a hint of caramel in the smell. It reminds me a bit of butterscotch candy and orange candy at the same time.
Flavor. Imperial Gemini balances the strong malty sweetness of a high gravity ale with an intense flavor and bitterness of hops. The bitterness is smooth with a bite of spiciness and alcohol in the finish. Despite being 10% alcohol by volume, this beer does not have a boozy flavor.
Mouthfeel. As would be expected by such a high alcohol beer, the mouthfeel is viscous. When accompanied with the tiny bubbles or natural carbonation, this beer ends up with a soft creamy texture. This beer nicely combines bitterness, sweetness, and hoppy flavors and aromas to produce a wonderfully crafted beer.
Overall. Since the balance of sweet and bitter was so masterfully achieved with this beer, it is dangerously easy to drink much of this beer even though it is a 10% abv beverage.
Rating. My ratings below are on a five point scale with five being the best score. Ratings are based on the BJCP score sheet. To get the BJCP score equivalent, multiply by 10. Note: I am not a BJCP judge, I just like the scoring system.
Appearance (6%): 4.5
Smell (24%): 4.5
Taste (40%): 4.0
Mouthfeel (10%): 4.5
Overall (20%): 4.5
Total: 4.3
Bottle Label
The Southern Tier website is quite nice and has all of their bottle label on their website. The label for Imperial Gemini can be found here. For posterity, the label reads as follows:
High in the winter sky, two parallel stick figures are visible & known as “the twins,” or the constellation Gemini. The astronauts of the 1960s flew as teams of two in a program named after the celestial pairing. At Southern Tier, we have our own fraternal twins, Hoppe & Unearthly. Blended together & placed in this vessel, the mission of our Gemini is to travel high & take passengers on a journey far into the heavens.
Information
Style: Double IPA
Brewery: Southern Tier Brewing Company [more info]
Alcohol by volume: 10%
Original Gravity: 1.092 specific gravity
Final Gravity: 1.012 (calculated)
Hops: Kettle: Columbus, Chinook, and Cascade. Aroma: Amarillo. Hop-back: Styrian Golding. Dry-hopped: Amarillo, Cascade, Centennial, Chinook, and Columbus.
Grains: 2-row pale malt, malted white wheat, cara-pils malt, red wheat,
Other ReviewsPresidential hopefuls from both parties have been saying throughout the primary campaign that the American middle class is in trouble. Bernie Sanders says it is in the midst of “a 40-year decline.” Jeb Bush says it is “shrinking.” Ted Cruz says it is “headed in the wrong direction.” And Hillary Clinton says the “basic bargain” that hard work could move families into the middle class “has eroded.”
A new report from the Pew Research Center says the candidates may be right. For the first time since at least the 1960s, the majority of Americans aren’t in the middle class.
The Pew report looks at middle-income households, which it defines as those earning between two-thirds and double the median household income. In 2014, that meant a three-person household would have to earn between $42,000 and $126,000 to be considered middle-income. (Pew prefers the term “middle income” to “middle class” because class implies social standing as well as income.)
In 2015, just under 50 percent of American adults lived in middle-income households. (The chart above rounds the number to 50 percent.) That’s down from 54 percent in 2001 and 61 percent in 1971, the earliest year Pew looked at. Meanwhile, the share of income going to middle-income households has also fallen, from 62 percent in 1971 to 43 percent last year.
So the middle class really is shrinking. But it’s less clear how concerned we should be about that decline.
First of all, it’s important to note that the middle class is shrinking not just because more people are poor but also because more people are rich. The share of Americans that are in high-earning households, those with more than double the median income, has grown by seven percentage points since 1971. The share of low earners, those earning less than two-thirds the median, has grown just four percentage points. In fact, what Pew calls the “hollowing of the American middle class” is even starker than that: Most of the growth has come at the extreme bottom and top of the income spectrum. In other words, the shrinking of the middle class is less about decline than polarization.
Moreover, as I wrote last year, it’s important to remember that typical American household has changed dramatically over the past three decades. The U.S. population has grown older, on average, which makes a big difference to median income because retirees often have little income and live off savings. And it has become more diverse; in particular, the rapid rise in the number of immigrants in the late 20th century pushed down median incomes because immigrants, on average, make less money. Notably, according to Pew, black, white and Asian households have all seen a net increase in their income status since 1971, while Hispanics, who make up a large share of new immigrants, have seen a net decrease.
All these trends — an aging workforce, income polarization, immigration and racial disparities — are important issues with major economic and social implications. So is the decade-and-a-half-long stagnation of middle-class incomes. But the full picture is more nuanced than the “death of the middle class” narrative so often heard on the campaign trail.The Grand Theft Auto series has come a long way since the first opus came out back in 1997. About 2 years ago, Rockstar released GTA V. The game was an instant success, selling 11 million units over the first 24 hours and instantly smashing 7 world records.
Having played it on PS3 I was quite impressed by the level of polish and the technical quality of the game.
Nothing kills immersion more than a loading screen: in GTA V you can play for hours, drive hundreds of kilometers into a huge open-world without a single interruption. Considering the heavy streaming of assets going on and the specs of the PS3 (256MB RAM and 256MB of video memory) I’m amazed the game doesn’t crash after 20 minutes, it’s a real technical prowess.
Here I will be talking about the PC version in DirectX 11 mode, which eats up several GBs of memory from both the RAM and the GPU. Even if my observations are PC-specific, I believe many can apply to the PS4 and to a certain extent the PS3.
Dissecting a Frame
So here is the frame we’ll examine: Michael, in front of his fancy Rapid GT, the beautiful city of Los Santos in the background.
GTA V uses a deferred rendering pipeline, working with many HDR buffers. These buffers can’t be displayed correctly as-is on a monitor, so I post-processed them with a simple Reinhard operator to bring them back to 8-bit per channel.
Environment Cubemap
As a first step, the game renders a cubemap of the environment. This cubemap is generated in realtime at each frame, its purpose is to help render realistic reflections later. This part is forward-rendered.
How is such cubemap rendered? For those not familiar with the technique, this is just like you would do in the real world when taking a panoramic picture: put the camera on a tripod, imagine you’re standing right in the middle of a big cube and shoot at the 6 faces of the cube, one by one, rotating by 90° each time.
This is exactly how the game does: each face is rendered into a 128x128 HDR texture. The first face is rendered like this:
The same process is repeated for the 5 remaining faces, and we finally obtain the cubemap:
Cube seen from the outside
View from inside the cube
(Drag to change view direction)
Each face is rendered with about 30 draw calls, the meshes are very low-poly only the “scenery” is drawn (terrain, sky, certain buildings), characters and cars are not rendered.
This is why in the game your car reflects the environment quite well, but other cars are not reflected, neither are characters.
Cubemap to Dual-Paraboloid Map
The environment cubemap we obtained is then converted to a dual-paraboloid map.
The cube is just projected into a different space, the projection looks similar to sphere-mapping but with 2 “hemispheres”.
Dual-Paraboloid Map
Why such a conversion? I guess it is (as always) about optimization: with a cubemap the fragment shader can potentially access 6 faces of 128x128 texels, here the dual-paraboloid map brings it down to 2 “hemispheres” of 128x128. Even better: since the camera is most of the time on the top of the car, most of the accesses will be done to the top hemisphere.
The dual-paraboloid projection preserves the details of the reflection right at the top and the bottom, at the expense of the sides. For GTA it’s fine: the car roofs and the hoods are usually facing up, they mainly need the reflection from the top to look good.
Plus, cubemaps can be problematic around their edges: if each face is mip-mapped independently some seams will be noticeable around the borders, and GPUs of older generation don’t support filtering across faces. A dual-paraboloid map does not suffer from such issues, it can be mip-mapped easily without creating seams.
Update: as pointed-out in the comments below, it seems GTA IV was also relying on dual-paraboloid map, except it was not performed as a post-process from a cubemap: the meshes were distorted directly by a vertex-shader.
Culling and Level of Detail
This step is processed by a compute shader, so I don’t have any illustration for it.
Depending on its distance from the camera, an object will be drawn with a lower or higher-poly mesh, or not drawn at all.
For example, beyond a certain distance the grass or the flowers are never rendered. So this step calculates for each object if it will be rendered and at which LOD.
This is actually where the pipeline differs between a PS3 (lacking compute shader support) and a PC or a PS4: on the PS3 all these calculations would have to be run on the Cell or the SPUs.
G-Buffer Generation
The “main” rendering is happening here. All the visible meshes are drawn one-by-one, but instead of calculating the shading immediately, the draw calls simply output some shading-related information into different buffers called G-Buffer. GTA V uses MRT so each draw call can output to 5 render targets at once.
Later, all these buffers are combined to calculate the final shading of each pixel. Hence the name “deferred” in opposition to “forward” for which each draw call calculates the final shading value of a pixel.
For this step, only the opaque objects are drawn, transparent meshes like glass need special treatment in a deferred pipeline and will be treated later.
G-Buffer Generation: 15% Diffuse Normal Specular Irradiance G-Buffer Generation: 30% Diffuse Normal Specular Irradiance G-Buffer Generation: 50% Diffuse Normal Specular Irradiance G-Buffer Generation: 75% Diffuse Normal Specular Irradiance G-Buffer Generation: 100% Diffuse Normal Specular Irradiance
All these render targets are LDR buffers (RGBA, 8 bits per channel) storing different information involved later in the calculation of the final shading value.
The buffers are:
Diffuse map : it stores the “intrinsic color” of the mesh. It represents a property of the material, it is in theory not influenced by the lighting. But do you notice the white highlights on the car’s hood? Interestingly GTA V calculates the shading resulting from the sun directional light before outputting to the diffuse map.
The alpha channel contains special “blending” information (more on that later).
: it stores the “intrinsic color” of the mesh. It represents a property of the material, it is in theory not influenced by the lighting. But do you notice the white highlights on the car’s hood? Interestingly GTA V calculates the shading resulting from the sun directional light before outputting to the diffuse map. The alpha channel contains special “blending” information (more on that later). Normal map : it stores the normal vector for each pixel (R, G, B). The alpha channel is also used although I am not certain in which way: it looks like a binary mask for certain plants close to the camera.
: it stores the normal vector for each pixel (R, G, B). The alpha channel is also used although I am not certain in which way: it looks like a binary mask for certain plants close to the camera. Specular map : it contains information related to specular/reflections: Red: specular intensity Green: glossiness (smoothness) Blue: fresnel intensity (usually constant for all the pixels belonging to the same material)
: it contains information related to specular/reflections: Irradiance map: the Red channel seems to contain the irradiance each pixel receives from the sun (based on the pixel’s normal and position, and the sun shining direction). I am not 100% sure about the Green channel, but it looks like the irradiance from a second light source. Blue is the emissive property of the pixel (non-zero for neon, light bulbs). Most of the alpha channel is not used except for marking the pixels corresponding to the character’s skin or the vegetation.
So, I was talking before about outputting simultaneously to 5 render targets, but I only presented 4 of them.
The last render target is a special depth-stencil buffer. Here is what it looks like at the end of this pass:
Depth Stencil
Depth map : it stores the distance of each pixel from the camera.
Intuitively you would expect far pixels to be white (depth of 1) and closer pixels to be darker. This is not the case here: GTA V seems to be using a logarithmic Z-buffer, reversing Z. Why do this? Due to the way they are encoded, floating point numbers have much more precision when closer to 0. Here, reversing Z leads to more precision when storing the depth of very distant objects, hence greatly reduces Z-fighting. Given the long draw distance of the game such trick was necessary. It’s nothing new though, Just Cause 2 for example was using a similar technique.
: it stores the distance of each pixel from the camera. Intuitively you would expect far pixels to be white (depth of 1) and closer pixels to be darker. This is not the case here: GTA V seems to be using a logarithmic Z-buffer, reversing Z. Why do this? Due to the way they are encoded, floating point numbers have much more precision when closer to 0. Here, reversing Z leads to more precision when storing the depth of very distant objects, hence greatly reduces Z-fighting. Given the long draw distance of the game such trick was necessary. It’s nothing new though, Just Cause 2 for example was using a similar technique. Stencil : it is used to identify the different meshes drawn, assigning the same ID to all the pixels of a certain category of meshes. For example, some stencil values are: 0x89 : the character controlled by the player 0x82 : the vehicle driven by the player 0x01 : NPCs 0x02 : vehicles like cars, bikes… 0x03 : vegetation and foliage 0x07 : sky
: it is used to identify the different meshes drawn, assigning the same ID to all the pixels of a certain category of meshes. For example, some stencil values are:
All these buffers were generated in about 1900 draw calls.
Notice that the scene is rendered “front-to-back”, this is a way to optimize the rendering thanks to “early Z rejection”: as the scene is drawn, more and more fragments fail the depth test because they are occluded by a closer pixel drawn previously. When it is known a pixel will fail the depth test, the GPU can automatically discard it without even executing the pixel shader. When you have heavy pixel shaders, “back-to-front” rendering (or Painter’s algorithm) is the worst choice performance-wise, “front-to-back” on the other hand is optimal.
Small digression now, to explain the role of the alpha channel in the diffuse map. Take a look at the screenshot below:
Zoom on the Diffuse Map
Do you notice some pixels missing? It’s especially visible for the trees, it’s like their sprites lack some texels.
I noticed such artifacts a few times on PS3 and I was puzzled at the time. Could it be aliasing when the texture sprite becomes really tiny? I can see now they’re all mip-mapped correctly so it’s not this.
This pattern is really specific, like a checkerboard, could it be that… the game skips the rendering of 1 out of 2 pixels?
To make sure, I looked into the D3D bytecode. And sure enough, it was here:
Fragment Shader Assembly 1 2 3 dp2 r1. y, v0. xyxx, l ( 0.5, 0.5, 0.0, 0.0 ) // Dot product of the pixel's (x,y) with (0.5, 0.5) frc r1. y, r1. y // Keeps only the fractional part: always 0.0 or 0.5 lt r1. y, r1. y, l ( 0.5 ) // Test if the fractional part is smaller than 0.5
Diffuse’s Alpha Channel
All these instructions are simply equivalent to the test (x + y) % 2 == 0 which 1 out of 2 pixels always pass. (with x and y being the pixel’s coordinate)
This is just one of several conditions leading to discarding a pixel (another one being having an alpha < 0.75) but it is enough to explain the dithering pattern.
To remember which meshes were drawn in such “dithered mode”, the information is stored in the alpha channel of the diffuse map, which looks like the picture on the right.
So why are some models drawn like this? Could it be to save on fillrate or shading calculation? Not really because GPUs don’t have such granularity: pixels are shaded in square of 2x2, not individually. It’s not about performance, it’s about LOD transition: this dithering pattern makes opaque meshes look a bit transparent when they transition between LODs.
This technique is actually called alpha stippling.
Shadows
The game uses CSM (cascaded shadow maps): 4 shadow maps are generated into a 1024x4096 texture. Each shadow map is created for a different camera frustum, the frustum getting bigger and encompassing a higher portion of the scene as the iteration goes. This ensures the shadows near the player are stored with higher resolutions, while shadows further away have fewer details. Here is an overview of the depth information of the 4 maps:
Shadow Maps
This step can potentially have a high cost since the scene needs to be re-rendered 4 times, but frustum-culling avoids rendering unnecessary polygons. Here the CSM generation is achieved in about 1000 draw calls.
From this depth information, we can calculate the shadow cast on each pixel. The engine stores the shadow information in a render target: shadows cast by the sun directional light are in the Red channel, the ones cast by the clouds in the atmosphere are in both the Red and the Green channels.
The shadow maps are sampled with a dithering pattern (if you look closely at the texture below, the red channel displays some checkerboard-like artifacts), this is to make the shadow borders smoother.
These artifacts are then corrected: sun shadows and cloud shadows are combined into a single buffer, some depth-aware blur is performed and the result is stored into the alpha channel of the specular map.
Sun shadows (green tint)
Cloud shadows (gray tint) Blurred Shadows
A quick note about the blur operation: it is quite expensive because it needs to do many taps from multiple textures. So to alleviate the load, just before performing the blur, an “early out” texture is created: the shadow buffer is downscaled to 1/8th, and a light-weight blur is performed by a pixel shader making 4 calls to Gather(). This can give a rough estimate of which pixels are fully lit. Then when the full depth-aware blur is performed, the first step consists in reading this “early out” buffer: if the current pixel appears to be fully lit the pixel shader immediately outputs 1 and skips all the heavy blur computation.
Planar Reflection Map
I won’t go too much into details since reflections are explained more in details in Part 2 and the effect is barely visible in this scene, but this step generates a reflection map for the ocean surface.
Basically the scene is drawn again (in 650 draw calls) into a tiny 240x120 texture, but “upside-down”, to appear like a reflection on a water surface.
Screen Space Ambient Occlusion
A linear version of the depth-buffer is computed, and then from it the SSAO map is created.
A first noisy version is generated, then a depth-aware blur is applied in 2 consecutive passes (horizontal and vertical) to smooth-out the result.
All the work is done at half the original resolution in order to increase performance. SSAO Map (Noisy) SSAO Map (Blurred)
G-Buffer Combination
Time to finally combine all these buffers which have been generated!
A pixel shader fetches the data from the different buffers and computes the final shading value of the pixel in HDR.
In the case of a night scene, lights and their irradiance would also now be added one by one on the top of the scene.
Diffuse Normal Specular + Shadow Irradiance Depth Stencil SSAO Reflection
Combination of G-Buffers
It’s starting to take shape nicely, although we’re still missing the ocean, the sky, transparent objects…
But first things first: Michael’s appearance needs to be enhanced.
Subsurface Scattering
SSS (Before) SSS (After)
The shading of Michael’s skin is a bit off: there are very dark areas on his face, like if his body was made of thick plastic instead of flesh.
This is why a pass of SSS is performed, simulating the transport of light within the skin. Look at his ears or his lips: after the SSS pass the light is now bleeding through them, giving a red tint which is exactly what you would expect to happen in the real world.
How was the SSS applied to Michael only? First only his silhouette is extracted. This is possible thanks to the stencil buffer generated before: all of Michael’s pixels have a value of 0x89. So we can get Michael’s pixels, great, but we want to apply the SSS only to the skin, not to the clothes.
Actually, when all the G-Buffers were combined, in addition to the shading data stored in the RGB, some data was being written to the alpha channel too. More precisely, the irradiance map and the specular map alpha channels were used to create a binary mask: the pixels belonging to Michael’s skins and to some plants are set to 1 in the alpha channel. Other pixels like the clothes have an alpha of 0.
So the SSS can be applied by providing as input simply the combined G-Buffer target and the depth-stencil buffer.
Now, you might think this amounts to a lot of computation for just a subtle, local improvement. And you would be right, but don’t forget that when playing the game, as humans we instinctively tend to look at the character’s face a lot – any rendering improvement made to the face can be a big win for the feeling of immersion. In the game SSS is applied to both your character and the NPCs.
Water
There is not much water in this scene but still, we have the ocean in the back, some swimming pools here and there.
The water rendering in GTA V handles both reflection and refraction.
The logarithmic Z-buffer created previously is used to generate a second version: linear this time, at half the resolution.
The ocean and pools are drawn one by one, in MRT mode, outputting to several targets at once:
Water Diffuse Water Opacity
Water Diffuse map : it is the intrinsic color of the water.
: it is the intrinsic color of the water. Water Opacity map: the red channel seems to store some opacity property of the water (for example ocean is always 0.102, pools are always 0.129). The green channel stores how deep a pixel is from the water surface (deep pixels have a more opaque water with a strong contribution from the diffuse map, whereas water for shallow pixels is almost transparent).
Note that all the pools are rendered unconditionally, even if they end up hidden behind another mesh in the scene, they all appear in the red channel. For the green channel however, only the pixels really visible are calculated, the only “water” pixels that make it into the final image.
We can now combine the previous buffers we created and generate a refraction map:
Water Refraction Map
In this refraction map, the pools are |
each comes with its own abilities and a special triggerable skill they can use in tandem with Rex (or, on occasion, when you can play another hero). You can have three equipped at a time, and the bonuses they give help decide if you're, say, more tanky or more offensively focused. There's actually quite a lot of depth to it when it gets in motion, allowing for chain attacks and specially timed abilities that keep progression tense.
Exit Theatre Mode
“ Xenoblade Chronicles 2 looks like yet another hit for Nintendo.
But this isn't cut a romp with a few good cutscenes and some complex combat. The world of Alrest often feels like a real one, complete with a multitude of cultures living on the backs of slowly dying titans. Rex can even help build the development level of these settlements by completing sidequests and thereby reduce prices or fill shops with rare items, or he can fall back on his old salvaging career and dig up treasures from the deep with the help of some QTE prompts. Shifts in night and day affect what enemies you'll see, and high and low tides will allow or bar access to certain zones respectively. A system of Quick Travel points helps keep getting around manageable in this vast world.
So far I see the great strength of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 as being the way it skillfully combines all these exploration based elements with a story I'm eager to see through to the end. I may change my mind a bit by the time I write my full review sometime later this month, but as of right now, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 looks like yet another hit for Nintendo in what's become an almost supernaturally good year for the company.
Leif Johnson is a contributing editor to IGN who writes about games from a remote ranch in South Texas. You can chat him up on Twitter at @leifjohnson.next Image 1 of 2
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Thanks for watching that YouTube video! That will be 50 cents, please.
Sound unrealistic? It's actually a distinct possibility, after a Federal appeals court on Tuesday struck down an FCC ruling meant to prevent an Internet service provider -- the company you pay for online access -- from prioritizing some website traffic over others.
And because that rule was wiped off the books, those ISPs are suddenly able to do just that. With service providers suddenly able to charge based on the type of content you watch or the sites you visit, it's easy to imagine a system like that of today's cable television market. Want HBO? It's an extra $5. Want our streaming video package, with YouTube, Hulu, TV.com, and more? That's $5 too.
Don't pay and you can't watch. Period.
The so called “net neutrality” rule, put in place by the FCC in 2010, was intended to ensure equal access to all types of content. Regulators and politicians feared a tiered access to premium content or that ISPs might unfairly fast-track access to their own content over competitors.
[pullquote]
“A broadband provider like Comcast might limit its end-user subscribers’ ability to access The New York Times website if it wanted to spike traffic to its own news website,” the ruling notes.
But because of a quirk in how the government regulates Internet service providers -- almost a technicality in how the FCC ruling was written -- the court said that the regulatory agency didn't have the legal basis for its own policy.
“Because the Commission has failed to establish that the anti-discrimination and anti-blocking rules do not impose per se common carrier obligations, we vacate those portions of the Open Internet Order,” it noted.
The ruling was the conclusion to a long-running challenge to the law by Verizon Communications. In a statement Tuesday on its public policy blog, the company stressed that it had no plans to institute any form of tiered access program.
“One thing is for sure: Today’s decision will not change consumers’ ability to access and use the Internet as they do now,” wrote Randall Milch, Verizon's general counsel and executive vice president. “Verizon has been and remains committed to the open Internet that provides consumers with competitive choices and unblocked access to lawful websites and content when, where, and how they want.”
But public policy experts and consumer advocates were hesitant to accept the ruling as a win for consumers. Sarah Morris, senior policy counsel for the think tank Open Technology Institute, said she worried it could lead to the worst-case scenario: exactly what Verizon says won’t happen.
“The FCC’s Open Internet Rules represented an important -- if imperfect -- regulatory intervention to preserve the ability of broadband consumers to access the content of their choosing," Morris said in a statement. "Without these rules, consumers are at the mercy of their providers and the business arrangements those providers have already said they would implement absent the rules – business arrangements that could severely limit access to certain content online.”
Rashad Robinson, Executive Director of ColorOfChange.org, went a step further, saying the ruling could even be a blow to civil rights.
“Black folks' ability to be heard is now in real danger,” he said in a statement. “Today's ruling … is a serious blow to the millions of Americans who count on the free and open Internet to go about the essentials of our daily lives.”
The FCC said it was weighing all of its options, including potentially appealing the ruling.
"We will consider all available options, including those for appeal, to ensure that these networks on which the Internet depends continue to provide a free and open platform for innovation and expression, and operate in the interest of all Americans,” said FCC Chairman Thomas Wheeler in a statement.
The ruling is the latest in a years-long battle by politicians and Internet watchdogs seeking to ensure equal access to content. Politicians have been fretting about it for years -- never mind that there has yet to be a single instance of an ISP doing what they fear.
"Internet service giants like Comcast and Verizon want to offer premium and privileged access to the Internet for corporations who can afford to pay for it," worried Minnesota senator back in 2010, in yet another spin on how the rulings may play out.
“We must ensure that consumers do not become casualties in our efforts to balance competing interests,” warned FCC commissioner Mignon L. Clyburn.Christian Tory “think-tank” proposes a “multi-faith House of Lords”
An influential Tory think-tank, The Conservative Christian Fellowship (CCF), was reported this week to be recommending that a reformed House of Lords should become “multi-faith”.
The CCF – which has previously been regarded extreme and fundamentalist - is now a major advisor to the Tory Party. It suggests that “faith leaders” from all religions and different denominations of Christianity be brought in to the Lords.
The CCF report says: “Christians need to enter the debate and make it clear that we value the presence of the Lords Spiritual, but this doesn’t have to mean unquestioning support for the status quo. There is a strong argument that our legislature would also benefit from the wisdom of leaders of Baptist, Catholic, Methodist and black-led congregations. A broad bench of Lords Spiritual drawn from a range of churches in Britain could provide a powerful vision of unity.”
The Prime Minister is said to favour the idea because he does not want the House of Lords to become a secular institution.
The issue is on the table because of Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg’s proposals to reform the Upper Chamber. Mr Clegg’s bill is being negotiated with senior Conservative ministers and the Labour frontbench. It had been due to be unveiled last month, but has now been postponed for a few months.
The prospect of imams sitting alongside bishops is bound to provoke mixed reactions among Tories – and will expose the glaring flaws in this plan.
The Royal Commission which looked into reforming the House of Lords ten years ago proposed that the number of Anglican bishops be reduced from 26 to 16. In response, Iain McLean, Professor of Politics, Oxford University said: “If the Church of England is assigned 16 representatives (whether by ex officio bishops or otherwise), then a total of 77 senators will be needed to represent all faith communities. Many of them will have to be female, whatever the wishes of the faith community in question, to satisfy the gender requirement.”
Keith Porteous Wood of the National Secular Society, said: “As I told the Commission then, Mr Clegg in recent months, and at every appropriate opportunity in the intervening years, a multi-faith House of Lords is worst possible solution. The Upper House is already packed with religious people and the prospect of bringing in hundreds more is a recipe for conflict and endless religious wrangling. I thought the idea was to reduce the numbers, not increase them.”
Mr Wood said that it would not be possible to have representatives from every religion, sect and denomination in the Lords without making the numbers of so-called “Lords Spiritual” unwieldy.
“Who is to decide which religions have a legitimate entitlement in the House of Lords? Why would a Moonie or a Scientology leader be less worthy of a seat than a Muslim or Jewish one? And if the Sunnis have a representative, the Shias would want one and if the Orthodox Jews have a representative, then so should the liberal Jews.”
Religious interests are already well represented in the House of Lords, partly because of the high average age of peers. As well as Protestants, there are Catholic, Muslim and Jewish peers, including the Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, and the Chairman of the Conservative Party, Baroness Warsi, who is Muslim. There are also ex-bishops who are peers.
One senior Tory was quoted in the press this week as saying: “It is inconceivable that we continue with a faith element to the Lords without Catholic bishops being represented. It is also high time black Pentecostal leaders were better represented. As such we are going to have to consider whether other faiths are represented as well.”
One possible obstacle to this plan is the fact that Canon law 285.3 forbids Catholic clerics from assuming “public offices which entail a participation in the exercise of civil power”.
For a different take on this, see Archbishop Cranmer’s blogGene editing, like CRISPR, is a scientific breakthrough that may help cure diseases, prevent aging, and change humanity. According to the US intelligence community, it’s also a potential weapon of mass destruction.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper added gene editing to a list of threats that includes North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs and chemical weapons in Iraq and Syria. “Research in genome editing conducted by countries with different regulatory or ethical standards than those of Western countries probably increases the risk of the creation of potentially harmful biological agents or products,” Clapper wrote.
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MIT Technology Review talked to policy and bioweapons experts about Clapper’s choice:
“Biotechnology, more than any other domain, has great potential for human good, but also has the possibility to be misused,” says Daniel Gerstein, a senior policy analyst at RAND and a former under secretary at the Department of Homeland Defense. “We are worried about people developing some sort of pathogen with robust capabilities, but we are also concerned about the chance of misutilization. We could have an accident occur with gene editing that is catastrophic, since the genome is the very essence of life.” Piers Millet, an expert on bioweapons at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., says Clapper’s singling out of gene editing on the WMD list was “a surprise,” since making a bioweapon—say, an extra-virulent form of anthrax—still requires mastery of a “wide raft of technologies.”
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While it’s bizarre to see gene editing grouped with nukes and missiles as a threat, this decision shows that Clapper understands the potential for misuse of CRISPR and other gene-editing techniques. Scientists already used a very simple, key building block of life to create the most powerful weapon to date. It’s not unreasonable to assess another breakthrough in meddling with a building block of life as perilous.
[Technology Review]
Image: Shutterstock/isak55BOSTON - The Massachusetts Senate will not be as quick as the House to adopt a policy that would make it easier for the MBTA to privatize state services, top senators said Thursday.
A task force examining the problems at Boston's public transit agency recommended eliminating the Pacheco Law, a law that makes it harder to privatize services, as it applies to the MBTA. Gov. Charlie Baker, at a press conference, suggested that additional flexibility could be used, for example, to contract with private bus companies that have different size buses in order to increase bus service along shorter routes.
The House Ways and Means Committee included a provision in its version of the state budget released Wednesday that would suspend the Pacheco Law for five years at the MBTA.
On Thursday, however, State Sen. Thomas McGee, D-Lynn, the chairman of the Joint Committee on Transportation and chairman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, said he wants to have a discussion with the MBTA task force before adopting all of its recommendations, including the elimination of the Pacheco Law.
"If you look at what the Pacheco Law's all about, it is about making sure services by current employees that can provided well and efficiently aren't outsourced to other areas where there wouldn't be savings," McGee said.
Senate President Stan Rosenberg, D-Amherst, said he too would like more data on whether the Pacheco Law is actually hampering reforms at the MBTA. The Pacheco Law also gets into an ideological debate about whether services can be provided more efficiently through government or the private sector. "The Pacheco Law is really a political target," Rosenberg added. "We ought to be driving policy based on outcomes and data and how things actually work and what makes sense."
Rosenberg said he would prefer to see a bill to eliminate the law filed as its own bill, so it can be debated and considered through public hearings and committee deliberations, rather than being one of hundreds of budget amendments.The peaceful part of the demonstration in Ådalen
The Ådalen shootings (Swedish: skotten i Ådalen) was a series of events in and around the sawmill district of Ådalen, Kramfors Municipality, Ångermanland, Sweden, in May 1931. During a protest on 14 May, five people were killed by bullets fired by troops called in as reinforcements by the police.
Background [ edit ]
As a response to a drawn-out industrial conflict over pay reductions at the pulp factory at Långrör, workers at other plants went on a sympathy strike.[1] The owner of the Graninge company, Gerhard Versteegh, hired around 60 strike-breakers, who arrived in the village of Lunde in Ådalen on 12 May. The workers held a protest rally in Kramfors and marched to the Sandviken plant north of the town, where they approached and attacked some of the strike-breakers.[2] Since the police had not been able to stop the attack, the County Administrative Board asked for the deployment of members of the military from Sollefteå to protect the strike-breakers. When the troops arrived in the late evening of 13 May, they were met by protesters, allegedly throwing stones.[1]
Confrontation [ edit ]
On 14 May the unions held another rally, during which the attending workers decided to stop all work in the timber and pulp industries in Ådalen—a general strike.[3] After the meeting, several thousand participants marched to the strike-breakers' quarters in Lunde, where the troops had been ordered to defend the strike-breakers. When they arrived in the village, a patrol of mounted troops tried unsuccessfully to stop them.[1] In the confusion that followed, at least one man fell off his horse and another drew his pistol and fired warning shots while the patrol withdrew. The military commander, Capt. Nils Mesterton, said later that he believed the demonstrators carried weapons since he heard shots as well as seeing some of the mounted patrol bleeding.[4] At a distance of less than 100 metres he, in accordance with orders from the present policeman in charge, ordered his troops to fire, which they did, aiming as planned at the ground halfway between the line and the demonstrators. However, ricochets hit the gathered demonstrators, who scattered, and the captain ordered the machine gun fired. Five people were shot to death: Oskar Berggren, Erik Bergström, Evert Nygren, Sture Larsson and Eira Söderberg, a 20-year-old bystander. Five people were injured. An inquiry later concluded that there was no evidence that the workers were in fact armed.[4]
On that same day the County Administrative Board had decided to prohibit the strike-breakers from working. Their decision did not reach the demonstrators until after the shooting. It is widely believed that the confrontation could have been avoided if the news had reached the marchers earlier. The Swedish Employers' Association later asked the Swedish Parliamentary Ombudsmen to review the decision.[1]
Aftermath [ edit ]
The events spawned a raging national debate, deeply divided along political lines. The political left called the shootings "murder", while the right claimed that the military had been forced to open fire to defend themselves and the "willing workers" from the rage of the demonstrators.[1][5] The publishers of several left-wing newspapers were convicted for violations against the limitations in the Freedom of the Press Act.[4] Major demonstrations took place in Stockholm.[5]
The County Governor was tried in court but acquitted. Capt. Mesterton and Capt. Beckman were initially convicted in a court martial, but were acquitted on appeal and that verdict was confirmed by the supreme court. Sgt. Rask and Sgt. Tapper, who were manning the machine gun, were also put on trial since repositioning had been performed with a loaded weapon, which was against army regulations.[6] Rask was acquitted while Tapper was found guilty and sentenced to three days' confined arrest with loss of pay. On the other hand, several demonstrators had to face severe sentences: Axel Nordström, considered to be the leader, was sentenced to two and half years' imprisonment with hard labor. No damages were awarded to the wounded demonstrators or to the families of the five dead.[5]
The government, under the liberal Prime Minister Carl Gustaf Ekman, replaced the County Governor and launched an investigation into the event.[6] The investigation, with representatives from both employers and trade unions, later concluded that the military was highly unfit to uphold public order in similar situations.[7] The use of the military against civilians was more strictly regulated, but the legislation was on the books until it was repealed by the 1969 Riksdag. However, there was broad political agreement not to use military force against civilians.[8] The Ådalen shootings were still a concern in the discussions after the 9/11 events in the US, when military support to the police was considered. Therefore, the subsequent legislation that allowed the military to take part in anti-terrorism actions contained several safeguards. The military must be under command of the police, as they were in Ådalen in 1931, and legislation specifically says that the military cannot be used against demonstrations.[7][9] There was still concern that these safeguards would not be enough.[10][11][12]
At the time of the 1931 events, it was not possible to call in police reinforcements from outside the county.[12] Thus, army assistance was the only recourse available to a county governor when the county's police force would be insufficient to deal with large-scale events. The shootings highlighted the inadequacy of this state of affairs. One effect of the Ådalen shootings was the formation of a national police force in 1933.[6]
The leadership of the Social Democratic banned members to attend the funerals of the killed protesters as they were regarded as collaborators with the revolutionary communist party.
Coverage in film [ edit ]
In 1969 well-known Swedish filmmaker Bo Widerberg told the story of the events in his film Ådalen 31 (released as Adalen Riots in the US). Partly thanks to the film and partly through the persistent use of the events in political debate, the Ådalen shootings are still well known in Sweden, and are sometimes referred to in connection with violent clashes between demonstrators and police such as the 2001 EU summit protests in Gothenburg.[6]
The incident is also mentioned several times in the 1979 Swedish comedy film Repmånad.[13]
References [ edit ]
Coordinates:The Nationals are clearly in the process of running much of their roster through waivers, as USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reports that shortstop Ian Desmond and left-hander Gio Gonzalez have both cleared revocable trade waivers. Ace Stephen Strasburg and outfielder Bryce Harper were both claimed on waivers and subsequently pulled back, Nightengale adds (Twitter links).
That both Desmond and Gonzalez would clear waivers is a bit surprising, although even in the event that they had been claimed, it’s highly unlikely that the contending Nationals would’ve dealt away either key contributor. Desmond, 28, is in the midst of a down season at the plate but has still been valuable. He’s hitting.244/.296/.422 with 19 homers and 13 stolen bases. Defensive metrics such as Ultimate Zone Rating and Defensive Runs Saved are down on his typically strong glovework in 2014, however. Still, as a shortstop with pop that is owed just $1.74MM through season’s end in addition to $11MM in 2015, it wouldn’t have been a surprise for a club to place a claim.
Gonzalez, also 28, has struggled in 2014 as well (by his standards). The lefty has pitched to a 4.00 ERA with 9.5 K/9, 3.8 BB/9 and a 44.7 percent ground-ball rate. Though his ERA is higher than normal, ERA estimators such as FIP, xFIP and SIERA all feel that he’s having one of his better years. Gonzalez is controlled through 2016 ($11MM in 2015, $12MM in 2016) with a $12MM club option for 2017 and a $12MM vesting option for 2018. As noted before, it’s nearly impossible to imagine Desmond or Gonzalez being moved this month.
It’s hardly a surprise to see Harper and Strasburg claimed, but it’s even less surprising that the Nats promptly pulled them back. Harper is controlled through the 2018 season, and while he’s having a down season, he possesses a sky-high ceiling and was excellent in 2012-13 despite playing at the ages of 19 and 20. Strasburg is under control through 2016, and while his ERA is higher than normal, he’s sporting a 10.7 K/9 rate and an even 3.00 FIP. Both are Scott Boras clients, so while an extension is unlikely for either, they’re integral part of the Nationals’ plan in the coming seasons.
Both Desmond and Gonzalez will now be added to MLBTR’s growing list of players that have reportedly cleared revocable waivers.Recent RotoWire Articles Featuring Kawhi Leonard
Past Fantasy Outlooks
While coach Gregg Popovich's constant desire to rest his players looms large, Leonard is coming off a 2016-17 campaign where he played a career-high 74 games. That translated to averages of 25.5 points, 5.8 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 1.8 steals and 2.0 three-pointers across 33.4 minutes, which secured Leonard a spot as a finalist for league MVP honors alongside James Harden and Russell Westbrook. He also added his second All-Star nomination and All-NBA First Team award, further boosting his resume as one of the top perennial talents in the league. Leonard has always been labeled an elite defensive presence, and that was further evidenced by his 1.8 steals per game (8th in the NBA), but his continued improvement on the offensive side of the ball was especially encouraging, with his 25.5 points and 3.5 assists per contest again marking new career highs for the 26-year-old forward. While his field goal percentage and three-point percentage did dip a bit, shooting 48.5 percent and 38 percent, respectively, that can partly be attributed to an increase in his overall number of shots taken, which can conversely be looked at as a plus for his overall scoring load. Looking forward to the 2017-18 season, the Spurs' roster isn't getting any younger and regular contributors like Pau Gasol, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili should again see less and less minutes as the season goes along to preserve their legs for the playoffs, allowing Leonard to remain the workhorse. Rudy Gay's addition does bring another solid scorer to the forward ranks, but the fact that he's 30 years old and coming off a torn Achilles shouldn't detract from Leonard's ability to remain a top-10 pick in Fantasy leagues. Leonard himself is coming off a severely sprained ankle that he suffered during the playoffs back in May, forcing him to miss the final three games of the Western Conference Finals against the Warriors. He's fully expected to make a return to full strength ahead of training camp, which should allow Leonard the opportunity for a strong start to what could be another MVP caliber performance.
San Antonio brought in LaMarcus Aldridge on a max deal last summer to help take the torch from the team’s trio of aging stars (Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili), but it was Leonard who stole the show and emerged as the Spurs’ alpha dog. Leonard saw his scoring average jump from 16.5 points to 21.2 points per game and shot the ball with efficiency that rivaled Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant, hitting 50.6 percent of his attempts from the field, 44.3 percent of his attempts from three-point range and 87.4 percent of his tries from the charity stripe. Those numbers alone would make Leonard a pillar for any franchise, but his game-changing impact on the defensive end made him one of the league’s best all-around talents. He averaged 6.8 rebounds, 1.8 steals and 1.0 blocks en route to claiming a second straight Defensive Player of the Year award, and for the first time in his career, a spot on the All-NBA First Team. Though he maintains a low profile off the court, Leonard has clearly arrived as a top-10 player in the NBA and should challenge for an MVP award again in 2016-17. The Spurs will have another fellow star to integrate into their system this season with Pau Gasol joining the ranks to replace the retired Duncan, but Gasol’s willingness to share the rock may only enhance Leonard’s stat lines. The 25-year-old’s dedication to developing his game has been evident throughout his career, as he’s shown improvement as a scorer in all five seasons in the league and has turned outside shooting -- one of his weaknesses coming out of San Diego State in 2010 -- into a major strength. Only coach Gregg Popovich’s tendency to rest his stars periodically over the course of the season dings Leonard’s value, but the small forward is still capable of producing enough in 65 or 70 games to delight his fantasy owners.
Leonard played in 64 games last season, hampered by a hand injury that kept him out for 10 games, along with eye problems and an ankle injury that also sidelined him. He has never played more than 66 games in a season throughout his four-year NBA career. Although nagging injuries have been a problem for Leonard, he has improved his production each season he has been in the league. Last season, he averaged 16.5 points, 7.2 rebounds, 2.5 assists, 0.8 blocks, and 2.3 steals in 32 minutes per game. Leonard produces these numbers at a consistently efficient clip, boasting career shooting averages of 50 percent from the field, 37 percent from three, and 80 percent from the free-throw line. Being the only player on the Spurs' roster that averaged more than 30 minutes per game last season, the Defensive Player of the Year has solidified himself as the face of the future for San Antonio. His greatest value comes in nine-category leagues that factor in turnovers and percentages. Leonard's efficient play makes him an elite fantasy player despite the fact that he only has one elite categrory for fantasy production, steals. LaMarcus Aldridge will likely become the focal point of a Spurs offense that doesn't really enourage a focal point, and that could lead to everyone on the Spurs seeing fewer shots this season. The team is also so deep that they could opt to rest their players even more than usualy this season. On the rosier side of maybes, there's also a possibility that Leonard takes another step in his development on offense and has even more plays run for him this season to create a true tandem attack with Aldridge.
Kawhi Leonard, the freshly anointed Finals MVP, is entering his fourth season in the NBA. He averaged 12.8 points, 6.2 rebounds, 2.0 assists, 1.7 steals, 0.8 blocks, and 1.1 three-pointers in 29 minutes per game through 66 games last season. Leonard shot 52 percent from the field on 9.8 attempts and 80 percent from the line on 1.9 attempts. As Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, and Tony Parker age, coach Gregg Popovich will begin to hand the reigns of the team over to Leonard, and Popovich has stated he will begin running offensive plays for the soft-spoken star. Leonard set career-highs in points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, and field goal percentage last season, but the real story of Leonard's season is how he played after returning from a fractured hand. In 25 games after the All-Star break, Leonard went into hyperdrive, averaging 14.7 points, 6.5 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 1.8 steals, 1.2 blocks, and 1.4 three-pointers, including shooting a remarkable 53 percent from the field and 86 percent from the line. During that time frame, Leonard was a top-10 fantasy talent in nine-category leagues. Leonard's value depends a lot on your league format, as his ability to help in all nine categories suits rotisserie leagues more than head-to-head or points formats. Regardless of your format, Leonard is an emerging superstar, and even with Pop's minute restrictions, Leonard was able to turn in a diverse, fantasy-friendly stat line. If he can avoid the injuries that have limited him the past two seasons, he has the potential to be a top-10 fantasy stud.
Like George, Leonard's hype heading into the season stems largely from his breakout performance in the postseason. Coach Gregg Popovich entrusted Leonard with 37 minutes per game in the playoffs, and Leonard responded by averaging 13.5 points, 9.0 rebounds, 1.0 assist, 1.8 steals and 1.1 three-pointers per game, while shooting 55 percent from the field and 39 percent from downtown. These are fine numbers, but we know Popovich won't give him that many minutes in the regular season, as he likes to keep his guys rested and spread out minutes when the games don't mean as much. What Leonard brings to the table in rebounding, steals and field-goal percentage, he takes away in his complete lack of assists and his modest scoring numbers. There's a good chance he takes a big step forward this season in the counting stats, but his less than ideal playing time and deficiencies in certain categories make him a clear tier below the top guys at the position.
In Leonard, the Spurs got exactly what they thought they were getting with the 15th pick in the 2011 NBA Draft--a starting small forward with a good motor and the ability to guard multiple positions. He might be a better real life player than a fantasy player, because the Spurs’ depth means that Leonard likely won’t see typical starters minutes. However, in the 24 games he started at forward last season, Leonard averaged a solid 9.4 points, 5.5 rebounds and 1.5 steals per game, while shooting 52 percent from the field, 40 percent from three and 81 percent from the line. Assuming he sees slightly more than the 25.7 minutes per game he averaged as a starting forward last season, and assuming he takes a leap in his second year, there is a lot of potential here. One possible area for regression is Leonard’s three-point shooting. He was never a 30 percent three-point shooter in college, so his 37.6 percent mark for the 2011-12 season was quite an improvement.
Leonard averaged a double-double to go along with 1.4 steals per game last season for San Diego St. He will provide the Spurs with some much needed youth, but he will open as the backup behind Richard Jefferson. He could provide fantasy value based on his defensive skills and his ability to rebound, but don’t expect a lot from him offensively.I can’t remember the last time I watched a current episode of The Simpsons but I certainly was a fan back in the day. That’s why hearing I may soon be able to stream ALL 24 SEASONS whenever I want has got me pretty excited.
The actual big “industry news” is this is the first time the Fox series will be in syndication on anywhere but network televisions. Which is crazy considering how long it’s been on the air. But the more exciting part for fans is the show will also be available to stream for the first time. According to the press release:
After a vigorous bidding war which resulted in what is believed to be the biggest off-network deal ever, FXX has secured the exclusive cable, VOD and non-linear rights to The Simpsons, the longest-running, most successful comedy series in television history, it was announced today by John Landgraf, CEO, FX Networks and FX Productions and Chuck Saftler, President, Program Strategy, and COO, FX Networks.
It continued, “FXNOW, the soon-to-be-launched mobile viewing app of FX Networks for its authenticated subscribers, will be the exclusive non-linear home for all seasons of The Simpsons, excluding seasons airing in their first run on FOX.”
The transaction, which Variety says “is valued at upwards of $750 million over the life of the deal (“Ay caramba!”),” seemingly means you won’t be seeing the animated series on Netflix, Amazon Prime, or Hulu any time soon, if not ever. It’s also not clear at this time if all 24 seasons will roll out at once on VOD or if they’ll have an excruciating wait like Adventure Time on Netflix.
And if you thought one Fox-related network getting the deal (and at such a high price) seems strange, Vulture explains:
While it might seem that FXX had the inside track on landing The Simpsons for cable and syndication, it’s not that simple because a slew of outside parties — including Matt Groening, James L. Brooks, and the show’s voice actors — all have financial stakes in the show. That doesn’t give them veto power regarding where the show ends up, but it does mean that if any of them thought FXX got a sweetheart deal, they could very easily sue 20th for not getting fair market value for the show. This is why 20th shopped The Simpsons to various cable groups, generating what a press release called “a vigorous bidding war” for the show and what Landgraf called “a very long, hard and complicated negotiation.”
Are you excited to have The Simpsons on demand?
(via Collider)
Are you following The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?TSMC, one of the world's largest manufacturers of mobile chipsets, might lose its two most important customers next year. Taiwanese media reports from earlier today state that Qualcomm and Apple are both considering a switch to Samsung as their manufacturing partner.
The two companies are growing impatient with TSMC's slow switch to 14nm manufacturing process, which allows for far better power efficiency of the mobile chipsets. Right now the best TSMC can offer is 20nm and that's not good enough in the more-competitive-than-ever mobile market.
Back in the day when Apple left Samsung for TSMC, everyone made a big deal out of it and said it was down to the fierce legal battle between the two giants. However, that war is far from over, and Apple's willingness to return to its Korean rival suggests it might have been a mere coincidence and TSMC simply offered better terms at the time.
Other major TSMC customers AMD and Nvidia are showing no signs of wanting to follow their mobile colleagues on the way out, so the manufacturer should still have no trouble surviving. However, should these reports turn correct, its explosive growth streak over the past few years is certainly coming to an abrupt end.
As expected, the market hasn't reacted kindly to the reports and TSMC shares were down nearly 7% yesterday.
Source | ViaSome of my favorite things are so simple, like ice cube shapes for example. Here’s a list of some of my favorite Ice Cube Trays and related inventions, not including the previously featured Global Warming Ice Cubes!
If you like stuff like this join us on facebook or follow us on twitter to find more cool things and automatically enter to win awesome stuff on One More Gadget.
1. Cool Shooters
Cool shooters are a great way to really keep your drinks ice cold and get frost bite at the same time. Similar to the Ice Tumblers, these can be purchased here. Or from BudgetGadgets here.
2. Bone Chillers
Drink from a stein that’s been chilled to the bone with this Skull and Cross bone Ice Cube Tray! There’s nothing more fun than talking like a pirate, unless you have these cool ice cubes in your glass.
Get them here.
3. Ice Princess
Ice Princess is made from 100% pure food grade silicone, packed in recyclable, peggable clear boxes. This unique ice tray creates magic wands fit for a fairy princess, or if your name is dale from electronics.
Get your Ice Princess Ice Cube Trays here
4. FishBone Ice Cube Tray
Make crazy fish bone shapes to float around in your glass. These are great if you are mixing Swamp Drinks for kids birthday parties, have them floating around in the punch bowl if you normally mix really horrible drinks like me.
Get your own fish bone shaped ice cube trays here
5. FOSSILICED Dinosaur Bones
Fossiliced dinosaur bones ice cube trays are pretty sweet. How about getting even more creative? Why don’t you half set some Jello and add some FLAVORED pina colada ice cubes into your Jello? This way you’ll be digging bones in your dessert, and they will taste great!
Get your own Fossil-Iced cubes here
6. AK Frozen Bullets
AK Frozen Bullets are either the most perfect way to commit a crime and leave no evidence, or a wicked way to |
at the box office, A24’s Moonlight will expand to 1,500-plus theaters following its three Oscar wins Sunday.
That’s a bigger expansion than last year’s Best Picture winner Spotlight, which jumped to 1,227 theaters, and 2015’s Birdman, which flew to 1,213. Similar to those Best Pic winners, Moonlight‘s win comes at a time when it’s already available on DVD and electronic sellthrough/rental. Currently, the movie is in play at 585 venues and grossed $591K last weekend.
Moonlight has been on a hot streak at the specialty B.O. since its October 21 debut and for a moment posted the best opening -pertheater average of 2016 ($100,5K) — until awards-season rival La La Land topped it with $176,2K. Since earning eight Oscar noms on January 24, Moonlight saw a 39% jump in its total B.O., rising from $15.9M to $22.1M. Rivals believe the Barry Jenkins-directed movie stands to gain another $4M-$6M in its domestic B.O. life cycle.By Josh “BarkSanchez” Brody
Before the first round of pools had even started, Get On My Level 2016 had already set itself apart from any other Canadian event. GOML 2016 had accumulated 83 entrants, including a modest, yet formidable group of US players, making it the largest Canadian major for Smash 64 ever. Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto all represented their regions well, shoring up strong crews of competitors eager to compete for Canada’s colorful Monopoly money. GOML would also mark the console debut of highly-touted online player, derek, as well as the return of UK player, Jam, who had not attended a North American tournament since Apex 2015. Two of the Top 3 US players, KeroKeroppi and Wizzrobe, made the trip, accompanied by Bark The Shark, Fireblaster and Shears. ENKKO’s Mr. Sir and ODS kingpin Daniels also came, looking to take a step to the next level. It was very clear from the start that Canada’s fireworks would begin well before the usual Victoria Day celebrations called for. The excitement began early with Preston scoring an impressive upset against sextc, alongside b0n’s near-upset of Bark The Shark. The later rounds of pools saw Ottawa’s young prodigy Janco score a big upset against Snorlax’s DK, paired with Fck Vwls’s stunning victory over derek. The Top 32 bracket began without notable upsets; however, there was no shortage of exciting matchups. YBOMBB took down Jam, Fireblaster defeated HandsomeTom, and Bark The Shark fought off B Link in three highly contested, close matchups. In the losers bracket, three matches featuring players upset on winners side shook up the bracket even further. sextc shocked the venue by sending UK sensation Jam packing, leaving the 9th seeded Pikachu with a 17th place finish in his long-awaited return. B Link sent Snorlax home early as well, putting an end to his “Majestic Dong”, while derek’s skilled play ran parallel to rumors of his abilities, as he dismantled Shears fairly convincingly. In losers Top 16, down 1-3 on stocks and 0-1 on games, sextc mounted a furious comeback against Janco, leaving the impressive Ottawan rookie stunned. The seasoned veteran Nintendude aimed to end derek’s hot streak with his Fox, nearly taking game one despite the unforgiving matchup, before switching to his old main Mario to noticeably less success.
Winners Quarterfinals held few surprises, although Revan came very close to a big upset over his Montreal rival, SSBMTL The Z. Back on losers side, sextc nearly took down notorious Falcon killer, Bark The Shark, only to fall victim to two late-game comebacks. HandsomeTom lost a close fight to a familiar foe, Revan, while YBOMBB sent fellow Torontonian, B Link, packing. The legend of derek continued, however, as he clutched out a close set against the fearsome Fireblaster, despite losing the first game, setting the stage for Top 8. YBOMBB’s Jigglypuff showed no resistance against Revan’s Kirby, although in Game 3, his Falcon brought the game to last stock, although he was unable to close it out.
Riding high on the momentum of his magical run through losers, derek was set to face off against Bark The Shark. These two naturally aggressive players displayed a surprisingly patient spacing game, with Bark narrowly clutching out game 1. In game 2, derek took control, gaining a two stock lead early that he would not relinquish. However, game 3 proved to be yet another close one; the two battled evenly until a pivotal moment on the final stock, as Bark threaded a flawless sweetspot under derek’s seemingly impenetrable uptilts. Bark then immediately dropped from the ledge, fastfalling to his death in heartbreaking fashion. The following momentum shift was palpable, as derek took game 4 in an incredibly convincing 4 stock, knocking Bark out early, and earning himself internet fame as he moved on to face SSBMTL The Z.
SuPeRbOoMfAn and SSBMTL The Z would face off in Winners Semifinals, and although Boom’s Kirby took the set 3-0, SSBMTL The Z’s Pikachu threatened victory in each match, proving to be one of the toughest challenge’s yet for the small yellow puffball. In a rematch of Top 8 from Genesis 3, KeroKeroppi and Wizzrobe faced off yet again. Kero began the set with a seemingly safe pick, going Kirby for the matchup advantage. However, Wizzrobe took down Kero’s Kirby on last stock in game 1, prompting Kero to revert to his Genesis 3 weapon of choice: Pikachu. Wizzrobe was unaffected by the character change, taking yet another game in last stock fashion. Kero would keep his composure under pressure, coming out of game 3 with his own last stock victory. Facing a 2 stock deficit in game 3, Kero mounted a furious comeback, clutching victory on the final stock. Carrying this momentum through the rest of the set, Kero showed flashes of his previous dominance over Wizzrobe, taking games 4 and 5 with a three and two stock respectively.
In losers, SSBMTL The Z would face a tough task in putting an end to the #yearofderek, despite being the favorite. SSBMTL The Z started off with an unusual option in Yoshi, perhaps as a nod to derek’s previous opponent, Fireblaster. Armed with the character knowledge of a Yoshi secondary, derek dismantled Z’s dirty dinosaur. This prompted Z to switch to one of his old mains: Captain Falcon. Unfazed by SSBMTL The Z’s overwhelming speed, derek also made quick work of the space racer. In game 3, SSBMTL The Z opted for derek’s specialty: the Pikachu ditto. Z managed to fight back from a late stock deficit to keep his tournament chances alive. However, game 4 was a game no one will forget, as derek fought to earn a 4-1 stock lead against one of the most talented players in North America. SSBMTL The Z would prove worthy of this accolade, picking away at each of derek’s stocks with a surgeon’s precision, not once showing any sign of concern. With SSBMTL The Z at 125% damage, on last stock for both players, derek angled his recovery slightly short of the ledge, ending in a heartbreaking SD to allow a game 5. Following suit, SSBMTL The Z mounted a 3-1 stock lead in game 5 and looked poised to move on to Losers Semifinals. However, derek was looking to continue his Cinderella story with a magical comeback of his own. Having fought his way down to a last stock game at high percentage, derek found himself milliseconds too late on the grounded footsies, as both players dashdanced into a grab. The underdog ended up in SSBMTL The Z’s arms and out of the tournament.
Wizzrobe and Revan would follow in a highly anticipated rematch from one of Pound’s unstreamed Losers Quarterfinals matches. The set kicked off with back to back 3 stocks, with Wizzrobe claiming the first and Revan responsible for the second. In contrast, Revan narrowly claimed game 3, with both players on last stock at high percentage. Revan came ready to prove a point, capping off the set with another strong 3 stock, earning his second victory over Wizzrobe in just as many months. This set the stage for the final match of the night, a rematch between Canadian rivals Revan and SSBMTL The Z. Revan gave a good fight in game 1, although he was unable to close it out as SSBMTL The Z came out on top in a last stock victory. Game 2 would be more favorable for Z, as he managed to box out Revan’s surprisingly quick Kirby in a solid 2 stock. In game 3, Revan looked poised to push the set further, building almost a full 2-1 stock lead. SSBMTL The Z was no stranger to comeback victories this night, proving to be Revan’s kryptonite yet again with a 3-0 sweep. As the night dragged on later than expected, the players would be asked to play out Top 3 the next day at noon.
Fresh off a full night’s rest, SuPeRbOoMfAn, KeroKeroppi, and SSBMTL The Z were all ready to finish what they started. Boom and Kero faced off in Winners Finals, with Boom’s Kirby taking the first two games over Kero’s Pikachu convincingly. However, Kero would fight back in game 3, two stocking the small yellow ball that had destroyaed so many before him. This prompted Boom to bring out his own Pikachu. Tied up on last stock, Kero had Boom on the run with a significant percentage advantage., Boom then took control, racking up damage and sending Kero far off stage. Kero responded with an incredible sweetspot recovery, and a strong combo of his own, sending Boom off in the opposite direction. Boom narrowly avoided Kero’s edgeguard, so close it may have brushed the hairs on Pikachu’s back. Boom quickly returned to the stage and landed a grab to send Kero to losers. Kero would face off against a foe he is no stranger to success against, SSBMTL The Z. Following his loss to Kero at Genesis 3, dropping to an 0-5 record against his US nemesis, SSBMTL The Z claimed he was done losing to Kero. They both opted for Pikachu dittos the entire set, and SSBMTL The Z started things off with two straight 2 stocks, looking to make good on his word. In game 3, tied up at 2 stocks apiece, SSBMTL The Z absolutely smothered Kero, tossing him about the stage at will, taking a nearly full stock lead. Not ready to lay down, Kero fired right back with an equally dominant stock, tying it up at one stock a piece, with the USA’s last hope on the verge of elimination. Despite an almost completely even exchange throughout the entire stock, SSBMTL The Z got the last hits needed to earn his first victory over Kero, leading the way for an all-Canadian Grand Finals at the largest Canadian Smash 64 Major ever.
The two began with Pika dittos, a continuation of Winners Semifinals, with Boom taking the first two games in fairly convincing fashion, a 4 and 2 stock respectively. The highlight of Grand Finals was SSBMTL The Z’s switch to Fox, a former main of his, which had an impressive comeback against Revan in Grand Finals of Montreal’s weekly earlier that week. SSBMTL The Z’s incredibly fast and frequently flashy style went toe-to-toe with arguably the best Pikachu in North America. Armed with incredible reads, and dangerous combos, SSBMTL The Z took Boom’s Pikachu to last stock, before seeing the tournament slip from his grasp on a slick edgeguard from the Champ.
GOML also held a side tournament for doubles, featuring 15 teams, with most of the strongest teams featuring Canadian talent. SuPeRbOoMfAn, one half of the best doubles team in the world, teamed up with Nintendude, a veteran who has maintained his status as one of the best doubles players in the USA, and created a heavy favorite for first place. The Montreal duo of SSBMTL The Z and HandsomeTom were expected runners up, with Ottawans Revan and sextc, and Torontonians YBOMBB and Fck Vwls expected to get 3rd and 4th, respectively.
Then, Baltimore happened. Bark The Shark and Shears, two players with historically terrible chemistry, opted to team together in the absence of Bark’s brother and doubles partner, Darkhorse. The suddenly dynamic duo finally found their groove, taking down heavy favorites HandsomeTom and SSBMTL The Z, followed by SexVan (sextc and Revan) in back-to-back sets, earning themselves a Top 3 spot. Team Montreal made quick work of Team Toronto, while Team Ottawa took care of the lesser Toronto team of Snorlax’s DK and B Link’s Pikachu. With Shears forced to leave early to catch his flight, Winner’s Finals was played early, as Boom and Nintendude’s Pikachu and Mario duo decimated Team Baltimore. Team Ottawa faced off against Team Montreal in Losers Semifinals, with both teams splitting 2 stock games. Montreal took game 3 with a more convincing 4-stock, earning them a rematch against Bark. However, Shears was no longer present. Montreal showed good heart, as well as good sportsmanship, allowing Bark to team with a level 9 Kirby CPU, in what may be the most amusing doubles set ever played. Kirby floated around, sat in rock form, all while Bark was getting pummeled and edgeguarded. Following a 2-0 victory, Team Montreal faced off against Boom and Nintendude, and were unfortunately unable to mount a noticeable offense against this unstoppable juggernaut of a team. Boom and Nintendude handled doubles as expected, walking home with fistfulls of the colorful Monopoly bills Canadians call “money”.
Remember to follow us on Twitter at @Smash_Writer and like us on Facebook for weekly previews, recaps, and much more.
AdvertisementsSASKATOON — Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall will not make a pit stop in Ottawa this week to speak with federal politicians about BHP Billiton’s $38.6-billion hostile takeover bid for Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc.
Wall was expected to travel to Ottawa to make his case in person to federal politicians, but he has been advised they already have enough information to make their decision.
The Prime Minister’s Office has told the province that the federal government will not receive further representations on the matter.
No one from the provincial government would speak to the matter Sunday, but a statement prepared for the media states Wall is confident the province’s position is fully understood and will receive due consideration by the federal government.
Federal Industry Minister Tony Clement is expected to decide Wednesday whether to block the Australian mining company’s bid for Potash Corp.C is like the knife you got from your mom’s kitchen and use every day, while the 5-star rated set you got on Amazon has been in a closet for the last few years.
C is like your girlfriend e-mailing her completed homework through a command-line terminal while you curse at your browser for not letting you get back to your document in the cloud.
C is like walking along the boardwalk with a creamy pistachio gelato in a waffle cone watching people trying to negotiate an oversized banana split in a cardboard cup that’s gotten all over their attire.
C is like a man wearing speedos on the beach and then seeing his head bobbing halfway across the bay a few minutes later with kids in board shorts shaking their heads.
C is like the acoustic folk guitar that you play while singing songs by the camp fire to happy children who have no idea about the 1954 Stratocaster in your basement.
C is like your wife wearing her honeymoon bikini by the river on a beautiful summer day that makes you forget you first saw it many decades ago.
C is like a bright-red 1989 Mazda Miata that makes your neighbour’s SLC 300 feel like it’s trying too hard.
C is like a gin and tonic in a plain glass among colorful cocktails with little umbrellas.
C is like your best buddy that you might have lost touch with when you left the country, but when he visits you years later you realize he is still your best buddy.An art teacher in China took his Age of Ultron obsession to a new level.
26-year-old Xing Yile, who calls himself a super fan of American science fiction films, has made a life-size model of the Hulkbuster armour used in the blockbuster film Avengers:Age of Ultron.
Working with an assistant for two months in an underground parking lot, Xing created the 3.4-metre model that weighs in at half a tonne and is made up of 100 fiberglass parts. He also built a downsized Iron Man armour as a sidekick to the Hulkbuster.
Xing, who teaches at a school in central China's Henan province, decided to work on the project after watching the movie trailer months ago. The big reveal was set for the film's release in China on May 12.
Here's where passion can get you. This guy just took a step closer to Tony Stark.
(h/t Business Insider Australia)
BONUS: Kids dubbing 'Avengers: Age of Ultron' will Hulk smash your heartSubmitted by jens on Fri, 08/27/2010 - 15:41
Helsingborg, Sweden, 27/8 – 2010
We at Frictional Games are happy to announce that Amnesia: The Dark Descent has gone gold. We are extremely pleased with our creation and cannot wait to unleash our bundle of madness on the 8th of September. We feel that we have taken a giant leap forward compared to our previous games, the Penumbra series.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent is a first person horror game with a focus on immersion. It is a game where atmosphere and story comes first. We hope that the game will be a breeze of fresh air, in a genre otherwise populated by "one-man-army action hero" sagas. In Amnesia you are almost completely defenseless, something we believe not only makes the game a lot scarier, but also gives a vastly different experience.
On the 8th of September, an interactive nightmare where reality is a fragile concept awaits.
Do you have what it takes to survive?
Details - Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Price: $20.
Available: http://store.frictionalgames.com and most major online retailers.
Platforms: Windows, Mac OS X & Linux.
Languages: English - with localized text for French, German, Italian & Spanish.
Recommended Computer Specifications:Marvel executive Louis D'Esposito has revealed via Twitter that Joe and Anthony Russo's Captain America: Civil War has wrapped principal photography.
The film did a substantial portion of its shooting in Atlanta, then moved to Germany to complete filming. There, fans spotted Ant-Man, Falcon, Winter Soldier and reports came in that Tom Holland's Spider-Man was present as well.
The film is based on a 2006 crossover story from Marvel Comics which pitted Captain America against Iron Man in a conflict where the larger question was how much freedom Marvel's superheroes should be expected to give up for national security. In the comics, the story concluded with Captain America in custody, and then his assassination on the way to trial.
Captain America: Civil War picks up where Avengers: Age of Ultron left off, as Steve Rogers leads the new team of Avengers in their continued efforts to safeguard humanity. After another international incident involving the Avengers results in collateral damage, political pressure mounts to install a system of accountability and a governing body to determine when to enlist the services of the team. The new status quo fractures the Avengers while they try to protect the world from a new and nefarious villain.CLOSE The former president is having some fun in the sun and who can blame him.
Looks like the start of a beautiful bromance. (Photo11: Jack Brockway, AP)
Life post-White House isn't so bad, if new photos and video of former President Obama living it in up in the British Virgin Islands are any indicator.
Video and photographs show Obama horsing around with businessman Richard Branson and learning to kitesurf while vacationing with Michelle in the British Virgin Islands.
Branson, the founder of Virgin Group, said in a blog post that he invited the Obamas to stay on Mosikto Island following the end of Obama's second term as president.
Branson said that Obama told him that just before he became president, the Secret Service said he wouldn’t be able to surf for eight years.
“For the next eight years he didn’t have the chance to surf, enjoy watersports or do many of the things he loved,” Branson said in a post.
According to the blog post, Branson and Obama started a friendly competition to see whether Obama could learn to kitesurf, before Branson mastered a foilboard, which is a surfboard with a hydrofoil on the bottom.
So, who won?
"As you can see in the video, Barack and I both fell many times, but we kept trying again and again and made progress over the days," Branson said in the post.
The businessman said he felt like his chances of winning were high, until the former president showed him up.
"We were neck and neck until the last run on the last day, when I got up on the foilboard and screamed along for over 50 meters, three feet above the water," Branson said in the post. "I was feeling very pleased with myself, only to look over and see Barack go 100 meters on his kiteboard! I had to doff my cap to him and celebrate his victory."
Follow Mary Bowerman on Twitter: @MaryBowerman
CLOSE Check out who won. Time
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2kJGg6b12 families lost all in a fire #Mission Today they have a home and guess what else they got? @MoveLoot @SFCity_Hall pic.twitter.com/tM9a29LGHF — Lyanne Melendez (@LyanneMelendez) March 19, 2015
ABC7 News has an update on the families who lost everything in the huge apartment fire in the Mission District in late January.All 12 families have been placed in temporary housing in the city. Most are living on Treasure Island, two are living in the Mission District and three are at Parkmerced.This week, most of them have been receiving a little extra from an online furniture company.Ana Alas was overjoyed to see her living and dining rooms full of furniture, thanks to a San Francisco company called Move Loot "We have beds, tables, living room, dining room, some decor as well, some paintings and lamps," Move Loot's Jenny Morrill said.Move Loot is an online site where people can buy and sell used furniture, but once in a while some of it doesn't sell."If it doesn't sell, we offer our sellers the option to either have it returned to them or donate to charity," Morrill said.That's how Alas and her family were able to furnish their home.Morrill worked with the Salvation Army, which then reached out to the 12 families to see what they needed.The January fire displaced these families and many small businesses were also badly damaged."Everything is under water. It's flooded inside," one neighbor said.Alas also worked at Antojitos Salvadorenos, a restaurant located in the same building.She said she lost it all but two weeks ago, she was able to move into a three-bedroom apartment in Park Merced."They were paying about $900 for a studio in the Mission District. They lost their house because of the fire and now they are moving into a three-bedroom apartment," Salvation Army's Captain Rene Carcamo said.The San Francisco Human Services Department was able to reach a deal with the owner of the apartment complex to make sure that Alas and her family pay the same amount in rent as they did before."Hay que aprovechar para dar las gracias a todos que nos ha ayudado," Alas said, which translates to her wanting to make sure to thank everyone who has helped her and her family.If you'd like to donate to help the victims of the Mission District fire, click here.The proliferation of widespread Internet access has enabled everyone and their dog to start a website, but not every one is filled with what some of us would describe as "credible" information. That's why some researchers are attempting to create software that can analyze Web content and automatically rank it to help out those who can't quite decide for themselves.
Researchers at the Austria-based Know-Center are working on a program that analyzes the language used on blogs in order to rank them as highly credible, having average credibility, or "little credible." The code looks at the distribution of words over time, and compares blog topics against articles from mainstream news, which are apparently weighted as being more credible.
"It has shown promising results, we think we are on the right path," Know-Center researcher Andreas Juffinger said at the World Wide Web conference in Madrid this week, according to the AFP. "It has to be automatic because it is not possible for customers to label and read all these blogs."
Of course, comparing the facts and opinions posted on blogs to the mainstream media may not be the best way to determine credibility. The beauty of the Internet is that people can write openly on almost any topic, and they may disagree heavily with the angle presented by certain news sources. Those people will undoubtedly be miffed at automatically being categorized as "little credible" just because their opinions may differ.
Also showcased at the conference was a system developed by the Nara Institute of Science and Technology in Japan that may offer a more balanced view to eager Internet readers. The software attempts to gather a number of different viewpoints on a particular topic and present them together to the user on a "statement map" to show how they are related. And finally, researchers at the University of Udine in Italy presented a paper outlining an algorithm that assigns quality scores to Wikipedia articles and their authors in order to help users better determine whether what they're reading is coming from a reliable source. But with apparently few differences in accuracy between Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica, such a tool may be more of a novelty for spotting obvious vandals than anything else.Police say the woman found tied to cinder blocks in a Pennsylvania pond earlier this week has been identified as Ryan Benjamin, of Pottstown. Authorities say they believe she died before she was placed in the water and that they are closing in on a suspect, according to CBS Philadelphia./ CBS Philadelphia
UPDATE: Authorities have identified the woman found tied to a cinder block in a popular swimming hole near Philadelphia as a pre-K teacher.
The Chester County District Attorney's office says 24-year-old Ryan Stevyn Benjamin, of Pottstown, was identified by her tattoos and rings.
District Attorney Tom Hogan says the investigation continues and urges anyone who had contact with Benjamin over Memorial Day weekend to contact police.
Hogan says Benjamin was dead before being dumped in the pond, but the cause of death is unclear. No water was found in her lungs and her body showed no signs of trauma.
He says she was a graduate of Juniata College and was a sociable, outgoing woman. Her body was found Monday.
Children had been swimming in the East Coventry Township pond Sunday afternoon, so her body had been deposited sometime after that.
-------------------------------
UPDATE: Police say the woman found tied to cinder blocks in a Pennsylvania pond earlier this week has been identified as Ryan Benjamin, of Pottstown.
Authorities say they believe she died before she was placed in the water and that they are closing in on a suspect, according to CBS Philadelphia.
Authorities say a woman's body has been found tied to a cinder block in a popular swimming and fishing hole near Philadelphia.
Chester County officials say someone reporting seeing a body in the pond Monday morning in East Coventry Township.
Police and fire departments, along with the coroner's office, responded to the scene. They didn't realize the body was tied to a cinder block until they tried to remove it.
The district attorney's office says children had been swimming in the pond Sunday afternoon, so the body had been deposited sometime after that.
Authorities say the woman was about 25 to 35 years old and was dead before she was placed in the water.Articles
GC Analysis of Cold Pressed Lemon Essential Oil on Equity®-5 (15 m x 0.10 mm I.D., 0.10 μm), Fast GC Analysis From our library of Articles, Sigma-Aldrich presents GC Analysis of Cold Pressed Lemon Essential Oil on Equity®-5 (15 m x 0.10 mm I.D., 0.10 μm), Fast GC Analysis
Keywords: Chromatography, Flame ionization detector, Gas chromatography, Size-exclusion chromatography
GC Analysis of Distilled Lime Essential Oil on Equity®-1 (15 m x 0.10 mm I.D., 0.10 μm), Fast GC Analysis From our library of Articles, Sigma-Aldrich presents GC Analysis of Distilled Lime Essential Oil on Equity®-1 (15 m x 0.10 mm I.D., 0.10 μm), Fast GC Analysis
Keywords: Chromatography, Flame ionization detector, Gas chromatography, Purification, Size-exclusion chromatography
GC Analysis of Distilled Lime Essential Oil on Equity®-1 and Equity®-5 From our library of Articles, Sigma-Aldrich presents GC Analysis of Distilled Lime Essential Oil on Equity®-1 and Equity®-5
Keywords: Chromatography, Flame ionization detector, Gas chromatography, Purification, Size-exclusion chromatography
GC Analysis of Lemon Essential Oil on SLB®-5ms (10 m x 0.10 mm I.D., 0.10 μm), Fast GC Analysis From our library of Articles, Sigma-Aldrich presents GC Analysis of Lemon Essential Oil on SLB®-5ms (10 m x 0.10 mm I.D., 0.10 μm), Fast GC Analysis
Keywords: Chromatography, Flame ionization detector, Gas chromatography, Purification, Size-exclusion chromatography
GC Analysis of Lemon Essential Oil on SLB®-IL59, 3 °C/min Oven Ramp From our library of Articles, Sigma-Aldrich presents GC Analysis of Lemon Essential Oil on SLB®-IL59, 3 °C/min Oven Ramp
Keywords: Chromatography, Flame ionization detector, Gas chromatography, Purification, Size-exclusion chromatography
GC Analysis of Petitgrain Essential Oil on SLB®-5ms, 50 °C Initial Oven Temp., 30 cm/s From our library of Articles, Sigma-Aldrich presents GC Analysis of Petitgrain Essential Oil on SLB®-5ms, 50 °C Initial Oven Temp., 30 cm/s
Keywords: Chromatography, Flame ionization detector, Gas chromatography, High performance liquid chromatography, Mass spectrometry, Purification, Reversed-phase chromatography
GC Analysis of Sweet Orange Essential Oil on SLB®-5ms (10 m x 0.10 mm I.D., 0.10 μm), Fast GC Analysis From our library of Articles, Sigma-Aldrich presents GC Analysis of Sweet Orange Essential Oil on SLB®-5ms (10 m x 0.10 mm I.D., 0.10 μm), Fast GC Analysis
Keywords: Chromatography, Flame ionization detector, Gas chromatography, Purification, Size-exclusion chromatography
GC Analysis of Volatiles in Cumin Powder on SPB®-HAP after Collection/Desorption using Carbotrap® 300 Tube From our library of Articles, Sigma-Aldrich presents GC Analysis of Volatiles in Cumin Powder on SPB®-HAP after Collection/Desorption using Carbotrap® 300 Tube
Keywords: Air Monitoring, Chromatography, Gas chromatography, Purification
GC Analysis of Volatiles in Limoncello on SLB®-5ms after SPME using a 100 μm PDMS Fiber From our library of Articles, Sigma-Aldrich presents GC Analysis of Volatiles in Limoncello on SLB®-5ms after SPME using a 100 μm PDMS Fiber
Keywords: Chromatography, Flame ionization detector, Gas chromatography, Mass spectrometry, Purification, Sample preparations, Solid phase microextractions
Understanding the Complexities of Kosher Ingredients Introduction What is Kosher Product Considerations for Kosher Certification Kosher's Added Benefit to the Food Industry Sigma-Aldrich's Kosher Experience and Offering
Dr. Luke Grocholl1, Rabbi Gershon Segal
1Dr. Luke Grocholl, Quality Assurance Supervisor, Sigma-Aldrich Flavors & Fragrances
Keywords: Fermentation, Food & Beverage, Safety industry
Related ContentKINGSTON – The Queen’s Golden Gaels football team will have the honour of playing the first game at the revitalized Richardson Stadium.
While Saturday’s Queen’s-versus-Western Mustangs Ontario University Athletics game will be in the spotlight at the $20-million renovated stadium — including national coverage on the City TV network — a variety of sporting and entertainment events are expected to follow.
“I think it is going to be one of those destination places for a lot of major functions. It is going to be a great, great thing for the city,” predicted Queen’s football head coach Pat Sheahan.
“The potential is here to have major sporting events here. The sightlines are good. We are going to have that potential, no question.”
For the first time in Queen’s football history, the Gaels will play home games on a turf field, one of the many features of the new stadium. A state-of-the-art Jumbotron scoreboard, improved lighting and new amenities are all part of the package.
There is six-foot elevation above the field to where the seating begins and the bowl-style seating is designed to bring fans closer to the field to enhance the spectator experience.
Queen’s has billed the renovated stadium on West Campus as a state-of-the-art multi-purpose facility destined to be the regional hub for outdoor sports.
“It is a very intimate venue, tremendously welcoming with the amenities, the seating, the press box. I could see some CFL teams wanting to do their preseason games here,” Sheahan said.
The Gaels, who have been able to practise on the turf field only for the last week or two, are obviously excited to play the first game at the new stadium.
Originally the game was to be played at night but the kickoff time has been moved up to 1 o’clock for television.
Officials are hoping the stadium, with a capacity of 8,500, will be filled.
“I think it is going to be a great event. This isn’t just a new building. It is a whole new era of football,” Sheahan said.
“There isn’t a bad seat in the house. The kids are all excited to call this their home stadium.”
The original stadium at West Campus opened in 1971. It has played host to several Queen’s football championship wins, the most recent in 2009 when the Gaels set up their Vanier Cup victory over Calgary by beating Western 43-39 in the Yates Cup followed by a 33-30 win over Laval in the Mitchell Bowl.
Two other Yates Cup wins (1977 and 1978) and two Dunsmore Cup victories (1983 and 1989) also took place at the old Richardson Stadium.
Other sporting events held at the stadium over the years include World Cup soccer qualifiers and international rugby matches.
For the record, the final Queen’s touchdown scored on the old grass surface at Richardson was by Doug Corby on an eight-yard pass from Nate Hobbs last October in Queen’s loss to the Carleton Ravens in the OUA playoffs.`One way to look at (comedy) is, `What can I do to get a laugh?' " says comic Louis C.K.
Well, that would be a logical way to entertain the audience. But Louis is respected by comics as one of the more bizarre acts around, a man who takes that simple premise a step farther.
"If you ask yourself, `Is there anything I can do to get a laugh?' you can find a lot of things," he explains. "And usually they're things that other people have found.
"But if you take something that's never going to work and you go, `Wow, I wonder if there's any way I can get somebody to laugh at this?' it's a great challenge."
Louis, a comedian for 12 years who is never content with just pushing the boundaries of comedy, came up with an idea to stretch them even farther.
The comic loves to take weird premises onstage with a hope that somebody will laugh at them. "But recently I've been trying to take the weird things and find ways to make them work for everybody," the 31-year-old says.
Here's an example that killed the audience with laughter on "The Late Show with David Letterman," which Louis used to write and occasionally perform for: The "racist farm" premise, in which the animals brayed, mooed and barked epithets. The sheep would baa
"blllaaaaack!" for instance, Louis says. He got some "weird energy" from the crowd with that.
But he found a way to expand it so that more people might be able to embrace it, by saying he met a racist who says he got that way... growing up on a farm.
What kind of farm would breed a racist? A racist farm! Edgy, yes. Logical? In a strange kind of way. Louis admits his act is "a little bit challenging for some people."
But that's Louis, whose last name is Szekely, which is pronounced "C.K." Louis, who has also written for and performed on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," is currently a writer and producer for HBO's equally edgy "The Chris Rock Show." He and Rock have written a screenplay that Rock is interested in starring in, and they're currently shopping it |
Off The Internet
from the bye-bye-fans dept
You lose your Internet. That's it, no more Internet for you. Seriously! Like you drive drunk, you lose the privilege of driving. You download illegally, you lose the privilege of having the Internet. The punishment fits the crime. Why these service providers don't stop the torrent sites and put a consequence on this, I have no idea. Everybody complains about the trillions of dollars being lost, but nobody does anything about it. Believe me, if I could do something about it, I would.
There is no argument. I'm not even going to get into that conversation. You're stealing! It's stealing, that's what it is. It's not free for us to make these records. These records are on sale in many, many places where you can pay your money to buy the product that we are selling. Anything outside of that is stealing. There is no conversation to be had. There's no, "Well, I just wanted to check it out, and then I liked it so I bought the record." I don't give a fuck. It's stealing. Everyone can say that, "I just wanted to check it out," or "There's no way for me to get music where I live." That's bullshit. It's fucking bullshit! I've been doing this for way too long. I sold records in the '80s and '90s before there was an Internet, and no one seemed to have a problem going out and buying a shit ton of records back then. The whole record industry has collapsed because people are stealing. That's the end of the story.
You would think, given the reaction to Lars Ulrich and Metallica from when he went all crazy on people who shared files, that other famous acts would be a bit more clued in. Not so with Scott Ian, the guitarist for Anthrax. In a recent interview, he spends a big chunk complaining about "theft" and how many more records the band used to sell in the past. And he keeps building up steam until it's a full on rant, complete with falsely claiming it's "theft" (over and over and over again) and comparing it to drunk driving... including claiming that if you're caught downloading unauthorized music, you should lose your internet access completely:First off, downloading a single song and losing your internet access permanently is "the punishment fits the crime"? Really? As for why service providers don't stop torrent sites, it's because (a) the law is a bit more complex than Ian seems to understand, (b) censoring the internet because some search engines might possibly be used for bad things (while they can also be used for legal things) is a dumb idea and (c) because stopping torrent sites won't do anything, since they'll just pop up elsewhere.Ian doesn't seem to have any interest in thinking through the logical fallacies of his argument. As far as he's concerned, there is nothing to discuss:Except, that's wrong. Pretty much all of it. It's not stealing. It may be infringement, but that's different than theft. And anyone who's being intellectually honest in this debate can at least admit there's a pretty big difference. And, no, no one said it was free to make the records, but that's really beside the point. It's not free for me to make Techdirt either. But does that mean that I'm being "ripped off" if no one pays me directly for it? Of course not. Because I'm using a smarter business model. Ian might want to try that, rather than blaming all of his fans. The fact that he sold records in the "pre-internet" days is kinda meaningless. I sold magazines in the pre-internet days, but times change. Business models change. Get with the program.Anyway, since Ian seems so unwilling to adapt, I thought why should we let that stop folks here from coming up with some suggestions on what hebe doing. Over at Step2, I've kicked off a discussion on how Anthrax might better deal with downloaders, while still being able to make more money. Head on over to join that discussion.
Filed Under: anthrax, copyright, fans, scott ianCan I volunteer for Bike Ride?
Absolutely! E-mail volunteer@skam.ca for more information.
Are the performers in Bike Ride any good?
SKAM curates Bike Ride. It is a festival of new short works by top local performers who have been selected through a formal submission process. Each of the short shows is different and the range of performances encompasses comedy, spoken word, dance, story telling and musical theatre. Audiences on a tour are likely to take in a dance piece, a storyteller and a comedy- or a performance poet, an opera singer and a murder mystery. The performers have all worked locally as professional artists in places like Craigdarroch Castle, Atomic Vaudeville, and Butchart Gardens. SKAMartists are paid for their work.
This event sounds big, but I’ve never heard of it.
Bike Ride is now in its sixth year. Theatre SKAM has worked to develop this project carefully over the last five years and we are confident that this year will make a bigger splash. We have been especially careful to make sure that the event functions well. We know the event works and we know we can handle large crowds.
Bike Ride sounds messy.
Like many people who regularly use the Galloping Goose, we also consider ourselves stewards of the trail. We have worked with city and regional officials, community groups, and other professionals to ensure the footprint of the event is ecologically sound.
As such, combining green concerns with critical social culture, it only seemed natural that our company blend two loves of Victoria residents: cycling and live performance.JESSE ALEXANDER
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Several years ago, the manufacturers of a posh British grand touring car got a fair amount of mileage out of the claim that their vehicle could accelerate from 0–100 mph and brake to a complete stop in less than 25 seconds.
This was indeed an impressively brief period of time during which all that change of velocity happened, but automotive development has come a long way since then and today perhaps half a dozen production cars of one kind or another can perform on that level. What's more, there are several automobiles being produced in the United States that will break through that arbitrary 25 second barrier like the Germans through the Maginot Line. One is the 427 Sting Ray; another, most certainly, is the new 427 Cobra from Shelby American.
Alright, you say, if 25 seconds from 0–100–0 isn't so hot anymore, what the hell is? Twenty seconds?
Forget twenty seconds.
How about 18 seconds?
Not too bad, but the Cobra can do better.
How much better, wise guy?
How about maybe 14.5 seconds? Get that, 14.5 seconds to accelerate to 100 miles an hour and then stop again. Until something better comes along, that may have to stand as some sort of high water mark in performance for cars that are readily available to the general public. That figure, mind you, is obtainable by the average Cobra driver with the regular 8.15 x 15 Goodyear Blue Dot street tires. Cobra test driver Ken Miles has done the job in as little as 13.8 seconds, and who knows how much improvement could be made with racing tires that would nullify some of the tremendous wheel spin?
The 427 Cobra does accelerate and decelerate at unbelievable rates, as the above figures should imply. What's more, it is a more civilized machine than the original 289 Cobra that brought the fabulous Shelby organization into being four years ago. It handles properly, thanks to a completely new all-independent suspension system that is traceable to the deft hand of Klaus Arning, the Ford Motor Company genius responsible for the impeccable handling of the Ford GT.
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Everyone at Shelby is more than candid about admitting that the handling of the original Cobra was considerably less than optimum. In fact, C/D was once informed by a Shelby lieutenant that the old tubular AC chassis had considerably less torsional rigidity than the rail frame of a Model T! Coupled with this flexible frame was an antiquated suspension system, designed in the post-war years, that utilized leaf springs and lower wishbones. One staff member recalls a particularly painful day in southern California when he was outrun down a bumpy orange grove lane by an MG 1100. "There I was, with all that Cobra horsepower, and the rear wheels were bouncing and leaping around so badly that I could barely keep the beast on the road, much less catch up to the MG. It was terrible!"Barbed wire enclosed an arbitrary spot
Where bored officials lounged (one cracked a joke)
And sentries sweated for the day was hot:
A crowd of ordinary decent folk
Watched from without and neither moved nor spoke
As three pale figures were led forth and bound
To three posts driven upright in the ground.
The mass and majesty of this world, all
That carries weight and always weighs the same
Lay in the hands of others; they were small
And could not hope for help and no help came:
What their foes like to do was done, their shame
Was all the worst could wish; they lost their pride
And died as men before their bodies died.
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—W.H. Auden, from The Shield of Achilles (1953)
Listen to W.H. Auden read The Shield of Achilles:
While working on “The Guantánamo ‘Suicides'” over the last weeks, I kept thinking back to these lines from Auden’s great poem. They seemed to describe the facts and problems I was pondering. The three men who died in Guantánamo on the night of June 9, 2006 certainly had failings and foibles as all men do; no one will portray them as angels. To its credit, the Bush Administration even seems to have determined to set two of them free; the third had only to await resolution of diplomatic problems between the United States and his homeland. These men were not warriors engaged in some vicious military campaign against the United States, nor was there a scintilla of evidence linking them to any crime. “They were small/ And could not hope for help and no help came,” Auden writes. And what was the reaction of the world to their plight? Auden describes it perfectly, and indeed it was only to be expected: “A crowd of ordinary decent folk/ Watched from without and neither moved nor spoke.” The only difference here is the sentries, who at great risk to themselves and their families have stepped forward to place on the record exactly what they saw. They know it defies the official story; they know they may suffer retribution for it; and they know that what they saw is not conclusive in any event. It is only a fragment of the truth, which needs to be put forward and made a part of the historical record. It was offered out of respect for the dignity of the dead and out of conviction that the truth should not be suppressed, no matter how unpleasant. In the corridors of power, however, a river surges past, indifferent to all these questions, viewing them as an insignificant distraction from the troubles of a war.
Auden’s poem is a work of beauty and power. It has prophetic vision, but that vision is a nightmare. It is born from the horrors of World War II. The barbed wire of concentration camps and death camps brings the Homeric epoch up to date. Auden is not portraying the tragedies of the last war as such. He is warning of a world to come in which totalitarian societies dominate and the worth and dignity of the individual human being are lost. He warns those who stand by, decent though they may seemingly be, and say nothing–perhaps because political calculus or the chimera of national glory have blinded them to the greater moral imperatives against homicide, torture and the dissemination of lies in the cause of war. Auden’s admonitions here are not necessarily those of a pacifist, though he unmistakably chides Homer for his glorification of a warrior culture. Is this, he seems to ask, where the Homeric vision of the warrior-hero has led our species?
But in the shield of Achilles, described in book 18 of the Iliad, we see Homer hammer a different tableau. Two cities are depicted on this shield. In one there is happiness, marriage, art and material plenty. The city is bound by the Rule of Law and disputes are resolved in the courts. “The other city was beleaguered by two armies, which were shown in their glittering equipment.” It is filled with strife, panic and death, and every disagreement is settled by violence, with victory going to the strongest, not the most righteous. All this potential lies in humankind, Homer tells us. Neither can be entirely stilled. But as Auden warns us, we must be ever watchful in which direction our society moves, whether it follows the dark path or the brilliant promise of the shield’s golden side.
A society that tortures and kills those placed entirely in its power and passes this fact by as a matter of indifference truly is plunging into the dark side of the world which these two poets describe–one at the dawn of man’s recorded history, the other in the crucible of modernity. On the day of these deaths in 2006, the American commander in Guantánamo violated the Homeric rules of decorum by taunting the dead and afflicting their families. The deceased prisoners “have no regard for human life,” he said. But in the end we must ask to whom those words more appropriately attach–the prisoners or those who have orchestrated the tragedy at Guantánamo? Another saying of the Achaean epoch applies to this tragedy. Long associated with the story of the Minotaur on Crete, it was recalled near the end of the nineteenth century by a philosophy professor at the University of Basel who waded deeply into the history of the era. “He who does battle with monsters,” he wrote, “needs to watch out lest he in the process become a monster himself.”
Listen to the fourth movement, allegro non troppo, from Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 in D Minor with the New York Philharmonic under the leadership of Leonard Bernstein:The Dick Cavett Show Dick Cavett in 2008 Production Running time 90 minutes Release Original release March 4, 1968 –
December 30, 1986 External links Website
The Dick Cavett Show was the title of several talk shows hosted by Dick Cavett on various television networks, including:
ABC daytime, (March 4, 1968–January 24, 1969) originally titled This Morning
ABC prime time, Tuesdays, Wednesdays & Fridays (May 26 – September 19, 1969)
ABC late night (December 29, 1969 – January 1, 1975)
CBS prime time, Saturdays (August 16 – September 6, 1975; this version was actually more of a variety show)
PBS, early evenings, weeknights (October 10, 1977 – October 8, 1982)
USA Network prime time (September 30, 1985 – September 23, 1986)
ABC late night, Tuesdays & Wednesday nights (September 22 – December 30, 1986)
CNBC (April 17, 1989 – January 26, 1996)
TCM (2006–2007)
Cavett taped his programs in New York City.
Show history [ edit ]
The Dick Cavett Show refers to television programs on the ABC, PBS, USA and CNBC networks hosted by comedian, comedy writer and author Dick Cavett between 1968 and 1995 in New York. The first daytime show featured Gore Vidal, Muhammad Ali, and Angela Lansbury. ABC pressured Cavett to "get big names," although subsequent shows without them got higher ratings and more critical acclaim.
A well received prime-time three show a week summer replacement series led to the memorable late-night talk show that ran from December 29, 1969 to January 1, 1975 opposite NBC's The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Cavett took the time slot over from The Joey Bishop Show. In addition to the usual monologue, Cavett opened each show reading selected questions written by audience members, to which he would respond with witty rejoinders. ("What makes New York so crummy these days?" "Tourists.")
While Cavett and Carson shared many of the same guests, Cavett was receptive to rock and roll artists to a degree unusual at the time, as well as authors, politicians, and other personalities outside the entertainment field. The wide variety of guests, combined with Cavett's literate and intelligent approach to comedy, appealed to a significant enough number of viewers to keep the show running for several years despite the competition from Carson's show.
The late-night show's 45-minute midpoint would always be signaled by the musical piece "Glitter and Be Gay" from Leonard Bernstein's Candide. The Candide snippet became Cavett's theme song, being used as the introduction to his later PBS series, and was played by the house band on his various talk show appearances over the last 30 years.
Typically each show had several guests, but occasionally Cavett would devote an entire show to a single guest. Among those receiving such special treatment (some more than once) were Groucho Marx,[1] Laurence Olivier, Judy Garland, Katharine Hepburn (without an audience), Bette Davis, Orson Welles, Noël Coward (who appeared on the same show along with Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, Tammy Grimes, and Brian Bedford), John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Ray Charles, Alfred Hitchcock, Fred Astaire, Woody Allen, Gloria Swanson, Jerry Lewis, Lucille Ball, Zero Mostel ("on some shows I've had just one guest, but tonight I have Zero") and David Bowie. These shows helped showcase Cavett's skills as a host who could attract guests that otherwise might not do interviews, at the expense of some of the excitement that might ensue from the multiple-guest format.
In January 1973, despite a vociferous letter campaign, ratings forced the show to be cut back to occasional status, airing one week a month under the umbrella title ABC's Wide World of Entertainment. Jack Paar, whom ABC had tried to recruit as Cavett's successor, insisted that both he and Cavett get at least one week per month as a sign of respect for Cavett. By the end of 1974, it was airing only twice a month.
The PBS series featured single guests in a half-hour format and was produced by Christopher Porterfield, a former roommate of Cavett's at Yale University who had coauthored the book Cavett published in August 1974. The show remained on the PBS lineup until affiliates voted it off the schedule in 1982.
On all three of the early ABC shows, the bandleader was Bobby Rosengarden and the announcer was Fred Foy of The Lone Ranger fame. The morning show was produced by Woody Fraser. Tony Converse was the producer of the ABC Prime Time (1969) show and the original producer of the ABC late-night show, succeeded by John Gilroy. Cavett's writer was Dave Lloyd.
The Dick Cavett Show was also the name of a short-lived radio show.
Notable moments [ edit ]
March 4, 1968: The Premiere of "This Morning" [ edit ]
In the first broadcast of his 90-minute morning show, Cavett had as his first guest, engineer/designer/futurist Buckminster Fuller. The two discussed how politicians would eventually become obsolete through technological advances, while the wide-ranging discussion also included a comment from Fuller that a woman is a baby factory and that a man's role is to simply press the right button. Later on in the program, Cavett chatted with actress Patricia Neal, who discussed her long rehabilitation from a near-fatal stroke in 1965.
March 27, 1968: Christine Jorgensen walks off the show [ edit ]
During an interview with Christine Jorgensen, the first widely known trans woman to have sex reassignment surgery (in this case a full/complete male-to-female vaginoplasty) she walked off the show when she felt offended when Cavett asked her about the status of her romantic life with her "wife"; because she was the only scheduled guest, Cavett spent the rest of that show talking about how he had not meant to offend her.
June 6, 1968: Robert F Kennedy Assassination [ edit ]
Due to continuing coverage of the Robert F. Kennedy assassination that took place earlier that morning, Cavett's show didn't begin until 11 a.m., and was interrupted at 11:20 for 30 minutes of further updates on the unfolding tragedy. At 11:50, Cavett's show returned for its final 10 minutes. The assassination was the lone topic discussed during the entire 30 minutes the show was presented. On the following two mornings, the show began at its regular time of 10:30 a.m., and was once again devoted exclusively to assassination coverage, and presented without commercial interruption.
June 13, 1969: Groucho Marx: one-man show [ edit ]
Due to conflicting network broadcasts, Dick Cavett pre-taped a one-man, 60-minute episode with Groucho Marx.[1]
July 7, 1969: Jimi Hendrix [ edit ]
In this interview, rock star Jimi Hendrix modestly downplays his abilities and displays his sense of humor. Perhaps most importantly, he reveals some of his aesthetic ideals and the purpose of his music as he viewed it then when he discussed his concept of the “Electric Church”:
[Music] is getting to be more spiritual than anything now. Pretty soon I believe that they are going to have to rely on music to get some kind of peace of mind or satisfaction—direction, actually—more so than politics, because politics is really on an ego scene…[Politics] is the art of words, which means nothing. So, therefore you have to rely on more of an earthier substance like music or the arts, theater, acting, painting, whatever…[The Electric Church] is a belief that I have. We do use electric guitars. Everything is electrified nowadays. So, therefore the belief comes through electricity to people. That’s why we play so loud. Because it doesn’t actually hit through the eardrums like most groups do nowadays. They say ‘Well, we’re going to play loud too, because they’re playing loud.’ And they’ve got this real shrill sound that’s really hard. We plan for our sound to go inside the soul of the person…and see if they can awaken some sort of thing in their minds, because there are so many sleeping people.
Jimi then performed Hear My Train A Comin' with the house band, and did the teeth trick at the end of the song.
August 19, 1969: The Woodstock Show [ edit ]
On Tuesday, August 19, 1969, Jefferson Airplane, Joni Mitchell, and David Crosby and Stephen Stills (of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young), all appeared on The Dick Cavett Show. It is now often referred to as "The Woodstock Show", as many of the performers, and Cavett's audience, came directly from the concert for the taping the afternoon before the show aired. Stills pointed out the mud from the concert venue still on his pantleg. Jefferson Airplane's performance "We Can Be Together" marked the first time the word "fuck" was uttered on television in the US (the actual line is "In order to survive we steal, cheat, lie, forge, fuck, hide and deal". "Up against the wall, Up against the wall, Motherfucker", a line uttered by cops busting hippies they knew, came after). Mitchell sang "Chelsea Morning", "Willy", and "For Free". Grace Slick kept calling Cavett "Jim" and briefly talked about her school days at Finch College. Stephen Stills performed "4 + 20". Joni Mitchell sang "The Fiddle and the Drum" a cappella. Jefferson Airplane (with Crosby) then launched into "Somebody to Love". The credits rolled as everybody, aside from Mitchell, partook in an instrumental jam as the audience danced.
Jimi Hendrix was scheduled to join the others but was unable to appear at the afternoon taping that occurred only a few hours after he'd performed at the late-running festival. Mitchell's manager, apparently fearing a similar situation that may have prevented her from appearing on The Dick Cavett Show, did not allow her to perform at Woodstock. He considered the Cavett Show too important for her career for her to risk missing the taping.[2]
Mitchell wrote the song "Woodstock" based on descriptions by Graham Nash and from the images she saw on television, as she could not be there in person. The most famous version of the song is by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, who recorded it for their Déjà Vu album (1970). It appears in the film Woodstock during the closing credits. Mitchell recorded it for Ladies of the Canyon (1970).
September 5, 1969: Groucho Marx [ edit ]
Groucho Marx remarked about the musical Hair, which had just opened and was notorious for its ground-breaking use of explicit nudity: "I was going to go, but I saw myself in the mirror one morning, and I figured, why waste five and a half dollars?"
September 9, 1969: Jimi Hendrix [ edit ]
In an interview with Jimi Hendrix, Cavett spoke about Hendrix's performance of the "Star Spangled Banner" at Woodstock, and called the style "unorthodox". Jimi commented that the song was "not unorthodox" and that what he played was beautiful. The audience clapped, and Dick blushed.
Hendrix performed "Izabella" & "Machine Gun" with his band, Billy Cox, Mitch Mitchell, and Juma Sultan.
February 4, 1970: Judy Collins [ edit ]
During an interview with singer Judy Collins, which discussed her experiences as a defense witness at the Chicago Seven trial, several of her comments were censored at the direction of the ABC legal department. Collins wrote a protest letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), claiming a violation of her free speech rights and the network license granted to ABC by the FCC. Her protest was denied, with the FCC ruling that a television network could, at its discretion, delete or edit remarks on its programs. Elton Rule, president of ABC Television, noted that in the network's judgement, "her remarks... were not within the bounds of fair comment."
February 5, 1970: Eric Clapton [ edit ]
The legendary blues guitarist Eric Clapton, arguably one of the most influential electric guitarists in history, appeared on Cavett with a new group called Delaney & Bonnie & Friends which was Clapton's first attempt to break from his superstar guitar hero status and operate as an anonymous sideman. This was also possibly the first time Clapton ever appeared on US TV with a Fender Stratocaster since up to that time, he was famous for only playing Gibson solid bodies i.e., the Les Paul, SG, Firebird etc. Cavett briefly interviewed the band but the shy Clapton did not have much to say:
February 19, 1970: Noël Coward, Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, Tammy Grimes, and Brian Bedford [ edit ]
To honor Noël Coward on the occasion of his being knighted, Cavett interviewed not only "The Master" himself, but also his close friends, The Lunts. Tammy Grimes and Brian Bedford, who were appearing on Broadway at the time in a revival of Coward's classic play, Private Lives, performed a medley of Sir Noel's most popular songs. At one point during the interview, Cavett asked Coward, "What is the word for when one has terrific, prolific qualities?" Without missing a beat, Coward answered in a deadpan manner, "Talent", which sent Cavett and the audience into convulsions of laughter.
April 6, 1970: Mark Frechette and Daria Halprin [ edit ]
Actors Mark Frechette and Daria Halprin appeared together on the show with movie producer Mel Brooks and movie critic Rex Reed. Their interview went extremely poorly from the outset with Frechette giving abrupt non-conversational answers, and Halprin staying silent. Cavett apparently believed they lived in a commune, when they in fact were followers of cult leader Mel Lyman. When Cavett asked about the "commune" they lived in, Frechette "categorically" denied that it was a commune and said that "The community is for one purpose, and that's to serve Mel Lyman, who's the leader and founder of that community." At that point, Halprin finally tried to speak, but Cavett went to commercial. When the show returned from commercial, Dr. Aaron Stern, a Beverly Hills psychiatrist and director of MPAA's code and rating administration, the next guest, was brought out, and Frechette and Halprin were not interviewed further.
July 27, 1970: Orson Welles [ edit ]
Around half way through Cavett's Orson Welles interview, Welles reversed the roles and began asking Cavett questions about his life and career. This impromptu interview was well received by the audience and, among other things, humorously acknowledged Cavett's talk show competitors such as Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin.
September 18, 1970: John Cassavetes, Peter Falk, and Ben Gazzara [ edit ]
Director John Cassavetes and actors Peter Falk and Ben Gazzara appeared on the show to promote the movie Husbands. All three guests were highly intoxicated, and "for thirty-five minutes they smoked, flopped around on the floor, and generally tormented Cavett, whose questions they’d planned to ignore".[3] Dick Cavett pronounced it “one of the most interesting evenings of my life”.[3]
December 18, 1970: Lester Maddox Walks Off the Show [ edit ]
Former Georgia governor Lester Maddox, appearing in a panel discussion along with author Truman Capote and football great Jim Brown, walked off the show in the middle of a conversation about segregation after Cavett refused to apologize to Maddox's satisfaction. Cavett had made a reference to the "bigots" who had elected Maddox. Following a give-and-take about how insulting the remark might have been and Maddox's demand for an apology, Cavett had finally apologized to those Georgians that had supported Maddox who might not be bigots. Not satisfied, Maddox left the studio. During the hastily called commercial break, Cavett tried to coax Maddox back to no avail. Cavett suspected that the behavior was mere showmanship and a calculated publicity stunt. The incident was reported on the news before it aired that night, increasing viewership. In Greenwood, Mississippi, the hometown of Cavett's wife Carrie Nye, the guests at a country club dance abandoned the dance floor to watch the show on the TV in the lounge. In Atlanta, then-ABC affiliate WQXI-TV (now WXIA) led with the story on its 11 PM newscast, but as this was a Friday night, when the station normally aired movies and delayed Cavett's Friday show to Sunday, Atlanta viewers had to wait until Sunday night to see the incident.
Capote, after watching Maddox walk offstage, paused and quipped, "I've been to his restaurant and his chicken isn't that finger lickin' good." Years later, Cavett said he got more comments about the show (including some 6,000 pieces of hate mail) than any other he had done.[4]
Maddox later returned for another appearance on the show, and this time Cavett walked off as a joke. Left alone on stage, Maddox cued the band and began singing "I Don't Know Why I Love You Like I Do" as Cavett reappeared in the wings to join in.
The walk-off incident is mentioned at the beginning of the Randy Newman song "Rednecks."
February 11, 1971: Salvador Dalí, Lillian Gish, and Satchel Paige [ edit ]
Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí appeared on the show with silent screen star Lillian Gish and baseball legend Satchel Paige. Dalí carried an anteater on a leash in with him when he came on stage, and he tossed it in Gish's lap, much to her consternation.
Cavett asked Dalí why he had once arrived to give a lecture at the Sorbonne in an open limousine filled with heads of cauliflower. Dalí responded with a barely-coherent discourse regarding the similarity of the cauliflower head to the "mathematical problem discovered by Michelangelo in the rhinoceros' horn".
Cavett interrupted him by waving his hands in Dalí's face, exclaiming "Boogie boogie boogie!" (imitating Groucho Marx in the film A Night at the Opera). The audience broke up, and Dalí appeared at a loss.
April 29, 1971: Robert Mitchum Interview [ edit ]
Actor Robert Mitchum, known for avoiding public appearances, gave a rare interview as the sole guest. Mitchum talks about his childhood, Hollywood, his disdain for politics and politicians, and his 1948 arrest. The show features film clips from Ryan's Daughter (1970) and Night of the Hunter (1955).
June 7, 1971: J. I. Rodale's Onstage Death [ edit ]
As noted in Cavett's autobiography (p. 321-323), on June 7, 1971 publisher J. I. Rodale, an advocate of organic farming, died of a heart attack during taping. Cavett was speaking with journalist Pete Hamill when Rodale began to make a snoring noise. Cavett's reaction to this is contested: he claims that both he and Hamill realized immediately that something was wrong, while other accounts have him addressing the unconscious man with "Are we boring you, Mr. Rodale?" The audience did not realize anything was seriously wrong until Cavett asked (avoiding the cliché), "Is there a doctor...in the audience?"
The program was never aired and a rerun was aired in its place.[5] On the following night's program (June 8, 1971), Cavett described his reaction at length as to what happened during the previous night's taping regarding Rodale's death and discussed the incident.
June 1971: Vietnam War Debate with John Kerry [ edit ]
During a debate about the Vietnam war, Cavett had two veterans debating on the show. The anti-war side was led by a young John Kerry and the pro-war side by John E. O'Neill, later the founder of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. It was later revealed through then-President Richard Nixon's secret White House tapes that Nixon wanted to "get rid" of Cavett because of this debate.
August 2, 1971: Ingmar Bergman [ edit ]
Director Ingmar Bergman appeared for the first time on a US talk show, in one of the few TV interviews he ever agreed to do.
November 24, 1971: Danny Kaye [ edit ]
Actor/singer Danny Kaye appeared for the entire show with film clips, performing and promoting UNICEF.
December 15, 1971: Norman Mailer vs. Gore Vidal [ edit ]
Moments before the episode with Gore Vidal, Norman Mailer, and Janet Flanner, Mailer, annoyed with a less-than-stellar review by Vidal of Prisoner of Sex, headbutted Vidal and traded insults with him backstage.[6] As the show began taping, a visibly belligerent Mailer, who admitted he had been drinking,[6] goaded Vidal and Cavett into trading insults with him on air and continually referred to his "greater intellect". He openly taunted and mocked Vidal (who responded in kind), finally earning the ire of Flanner, who announced that she had become "very, very bored" with the discussion, telling Mailer "You act as if you're the only people here." Mailer moved his chair away from the other guests and Cavett joked that "perhaps you'd like two more chairs to contain your giant intellect?"[7][8] Mailer replied "I'll take the two chairs if you'll all accept finger bowls." As Cavett professed to not understand Mailer's "finger bowl" comment and made further jokes, Mailer stated "Why don't you look at your question sheet and ask your question?", to which Cavett responded "Why don't you fold it five ways and put it where the moon don't shine?"[6][8]
A long laugh by the audience ensued, after which Mailer asked Cavett if he had "come up with that line himself". Cavett replied "I have to tell you a quote from Tolstoy?"
The headbutting and later on-air altercation was described by Mailer himself in his short book Of a Small and Modest Malignancy, Wicked and Bristling with Dots, including a description that does not jibe with the videotape and was disputed by Cavett decades later in his New York Times Online column.[9] Cavett noted that Mailer said that he received more mail about this episode than anything else in his career.[10]
1971: John Simon vs. Mort Sahl [ edit ]
Critic John Simon revealed on the air to the home audience that during the most recent commercial break, fellow guest Mort Sahl had threatened to punch him in the mouth.
1971: The Pornography Episodes [ edit ]
Cavett did a two-part show on pornography; both parts were taped the same day and shown on two nights. During the first part, he was discussing the depiction of oral sex in movies and made a parenthetical utterance: "oral-genital sex...mouth on sex organs." A flap ensued where executives demanded that the censor cut the second phrase.
An angry Cavett described the ongoing situation at the beginning of the second part, reusing the phrase. One of the guests, legal scholar Alexander Bickel, sided with Cavett. The result was that the show aired with the phrase cut the first night but left in the second night.
March 31, 1972: Chad Everett vs. Lily Tomlin [ edit ]
During the taping of this episode, actor Chad Everett had a much publicized argument with feminist actress/comedian Lily Tomlin. Tomlin became so enraged |
and stroking their beards,
there are caps stuck to their heads, they too are shaking with laughter.
They’re laughing and swinging their walking-sticks;
from the quiver of their cruel eyes, arrows speed to pierce her body, my body also.
Are these arrows not piercing your body?
*
EVE, OH EVE
Why wouldn’t Eve have eaten of the fruit?
Didn’t she have a hand to reach out with,
Fingers with which to make a fist?
Didn’t Eve have a stomach for feeling hunger,
A tongue for feeling thirst,
A heart with which to love?
Well, then, why wouldn’t Eve have eaten of the fruit?
Why would she merely have suppressed her wishes,
Regulated her steps,
Subdued her thirst?
Why would she have been so compelled
To keep Adam moving around in the Garden of Eden all their lives?
Because Eve did eat of the fruit,
There is sky and earth.
Because she has eaten,
There are moon, sun, rivers, seas,
Because she has eaten, trees, plants and vines.
because Eve has eaten of the fruit
there is joy, because she has eaten there is joy.
Eating of the fruit, Eve made a heaven of the earth.
Eve, if you get hold of the fruit
don’t ever refrain from eating.
*
YOU GO GIRL!
They said—take it easy…
Said—calm down…
Said—stop talkin’…
Said—shut up….
They said—sit down….
Said—bow your head…
Said—keep on cryin’, let the tears roll…
What should you do in response?
You should stand up now
Should stand right up
Hold your back straight
Hold your head high…
You should speak
Speak your mind
Speak it loudly
Scream!
You should scream so loud that they must run for cover.
They will say—’You are shameless!’
When you hear that, just laugh…
They will say— ‘You have a loose character!’
When you hear that, just laugh louder…
They will say—’You are rotten!’
So just laugh, laugh even louder…
Hearing you laugh, they will shout,
‘You are a whore!’
When they say that,
just put your hands on your hips,
stand firm and say,
“Yes, yes, I am a whore!”
They will be shocked.
They will stare in disbelief.
They will wait for you to say more, much more…
The men amongst them will turn red and sweat.
The women amongst them will dream to be a whore like you.The architect behind a rare four-story housing development in the Outer Sunset said he is considering using the new density bonus program in San Francisco to build more units and a taller structure than currently planned.
Architect Kodor Baalbaki designed the plans for a mixed-use building with 18 residential units at Lawton Street and 42nd Avenue, the current site of a 76 gas station. Proposed in June, the plans include two below-market-rate units under Proposition C’s inclusionary housing requirements.
The project is likely raising eyebrows in the Sunset for proposing a building taller than the two-story houses that fill the neighborhood. The Outer Sunset has one of the highest numbers of single-family homes in San Francisco and has largely been untouched by new development as cranes tower elsewhere.
The project would be one of the first known developments to add more units and height through the new Home-SF density bonus program from Supervisor Katy Tang, who represents the Sunset District.
Home-SF, which went into effect last Thursday, allows certain developers to build two stories above height-limits and add more density in exchange for 30 percent on-site affordable housing.
While Baalbaki said using the density bonus is under consideration, there are still issues that need to be pencilled out, such as pricing, height and the number of affordable units on-site.
“I actually had a phone call from the office of Supervisor Katy Tang and we talked about it and I asked them for more information,” Baalbaki said. “I believe more information could clarify this issue and we are willing to technically find out if there is a way of making this happen.”
Under the plans submitted last month, the building would rise to the four-story height limit for the site with 14 three-bedroom units, three one-bedroom units and one two-bedroom.
“We do not think that any price of a unit above $900,000 could be sold in the Sunset area,” Baalbaki later said in an email. “Our objective is to bring these units to a rate that would be less than cost of any existing house in the neighborhood.”
Baalbaki said using the density bonus would likely make the market-rate units more expensive.
“We need to fully understand the situation and need also to have the support of the community and The City for the new height because we are now at the limit of height,” Baalbaki said. “If we add more floors, that will actually trigger expensive units right away and that’s something we don’t want to do.”
Tang declined to comment on the project in particular in case it is appealed to the Board of Supervisors, but said she supports taller buildings along transit and commercial corridors in the Sunset that “maximize for what the zoning allows.”
“I support providing more housing opportunities for people of all different income levels,” Tang said. “I’m trying to solve for middle, moderate-income households in neighborhoods that haven’t seen development like the Sunset.”
Tang said she did not ask Baalbaki to use Home-SF.
In August 2014, Tang’s Sunset District Blueprint identified the 76 gas station as an underdeveloped site. According to the plan, the Sunset could add 1,300 units of housing if developers maximized zoning.
Still, the development at the 76 gas station appears to be one of a few in the Sunset.
The largest is the construction of a five-story building with 56 condos and retail on a block of Sloat Boulevard at 47th Avenue near Ocean Beach. Last Friday, the San Francisco Business Times reported that a 460-unit development near UC San Francisco’s Parnassus campus in the Inner Sunset fell through.
Wisfe Aish, the CEO of a fuel distribution company called Double AA Corp. based in South San Francisco, is the owner of the 76 gas station.
Aish has also filed plans to turn two other 76 gas stations in San Francisco into residential housing, according to a review of city and state records. The others are at 301 25th Ave. in the Richmond and 1298 Valencia St. in the Mission.
Aish referred the San Francisco Examiner to Baalbaki for comment.
Click here or scroll down to commentA nurse at a Michigan urgent care center recently berated parents in front of other patients for not vaccinating their baby, arguably violating a federal law that guarantees patients’ right to privacy. Her unprofessional behavior committed a great disservice to nurses everywhere, her employer, and especially the parents who visited the Detroit Medical Center Surgery Hospital in Madison Heights with their son.
According to the parents, who were seeking medical attention for their eight month-old baby, “Oliver,” the nurse who was stationed at the admitting desk diagnosed their son with chicken pox and announced fabricated details about their son’s medical condition to the other patients who were awaiting care.
While Oliver’s parents were waiting for their turn to visit with a doctor, the nurse pointed at their baby and announced to other patients in the waiting room, “This child is unvaccinated!” She then directed the other patients to move to an adjacent waiting room.
Her negligence reached a dangerous level when she urged the parents to vaccinate their son, who was ill at the time.
According to Oliver’s parents, hospital personnel at the Detroit Medical Center Surgery Hospital have failed to respond to repeated attempts to discuss this nurse’s willful misconduct. Oliver’s parents have spoken with a lawyer.
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What Good Parents Do
On November 23, 2013, Baby Oliver awoke with cold symptoms and a low fever, the same symptoms his mom was also exhibiting. During that day, Oliver also developed a rash on his face that “resembled acne.” His mom spoke with an after-hours nurse for their pediatrician’s office, who recommended that Oliver see a healthcare provider at an urgent care clinic.
They decided to follow her advice. You might not believe what happened next in the waiting room. Before I tell you about that disturbing story, I would like you to tell you about Oliver’s parents.
Oliver’s parents are first time parents. Their son had been extremely healthy in his eight happy months of life. In fact, he had never been sick. For the first time, his parents were facing the decision that many parents must make when their child isn’t feeling well: Should we take him to the doctor? Oliver’s mom shared:
“We are first time parents, so we wanted to get him checked out for our own peace of mind. We had, at that time, been letting his fever burn and comforting him, nursing him, keeping him hydrated and rested. He had a cold. He was congested and had a mild fever. I was not really concerned about him and wanted to wait until our doctor opened to take him to see our pediatrician, but my husband was nervous and so I agreed to take him in and have him looked at. I thought, what could be the harm?”
Oliver’s parents believe he has enjoyed such good health because of their decision not to vaccinate. It was a decision they did not make lightly. In fact, prior to her pregnancy, Oliver’s mother believed that vaccines were mandatory and didn’t expect she would have a choice about vaccination.
Her midwife and doula were instrumental in the transformation she experienced, as they told her she had a choice about vaccination. She began studying vaccines and their ingredients. She engaged in detailed research that may indeed surpass the heights of professionals who are paid to practice medicine.
Her efforts weren’t motivated by medical school requirements, but rather, great love for her child and a desire to keep him healthy and safe. You can sense wisdom and kindness in the words that she shared with VacTruth about her informed decision not to vaccinate:
“I never realized that vaccines were not mandatory until I became pregnant. I sought a natural birth, and birthed with midwives at a birth center. I took natural birthing classes and hired a doula. I wanted a gentle birth and I knew that at the time of birth I did not want any interruptions or traumatizations immediately, or days following his birth.
My doula and birth educator were the first to discuss vaccine options with me. Neither one of them vaccinated any of their children. I started doing my research and decided the best choice for us was to delay vaccines and wait until our baby was older. So, after he was born he received none of the vaccines, or the vitamin K shot, or the eye antibiotics, and we did not circumcise, either.
I continued doing my research. And then I did more research and am still researching. I probably never will stop.
My husband and I came to the obvious conclusion that the risks of vaccines outweighed any potential benefit. I read scholarly articles, research papers, the CDC [‘s website], package inserts, spoke to health professionals, studied the immune system, studied each disease individually, and the treatments for such diseases.
I still research and read all of these things, and more. I am active in anti-vaccine groups and I encourage others to do their research as well. And I mean research, not reading blogs and anecdotal stories about others’ experiences. I have an arsenal of data bookmarked that I am willing to share with anyone who asks or challenges me.
I believe that vaccines should be a choice, and that this “war” needs to stop. It’s fruitless. I pray that people will educate themselves with both sides of the vaccine agenda and make the choice for themselves. I support anyone who makes an educated decision no matter what side they are on. Parenting is hard enough; we should be supporting each other.”
What Bad Nurses Do
So, armed with vast knowledge about vaccination and good health, Mom and Dad took their baby boy to DMC Surgery Hospital, expecting competent medical attention from a facility that offers a 29-minute guarantee for patients visiting their urgent care clinic.
Mom and Dad did everything right. They made their decision to vaccinate in a careful, educated manner. They comforted their baby when he wasn’t feeling well. They decided to seek medical care when they weren’t sure what was causing their son’s symptoms of illness.
In a 41-minute time period, their hopes of seeking reassurance for Oliver’s symptoms turned into a story you will read with disbelief and shock, as a nurse named Lauren ridiculed them and embarrassed them in front of other patients.
The harassment began at the admitting desk, when Lauren asked Oliver’s parents if he was vaccinated. When they told her no, she asked them, “Why?” in an exasperated tone. They opted to answer her question, explaining politely that they chose not to vaccinate their son.
Lauren responded sarcastically, “Well, you are are going to have a lot of fun with measles and mumps, too!”
With her bold words and actions, Lauren disregarded the right to privacy for Oliver and his family, as well as the right of other patients to keep their personal medical information confidential. She told Oliver’s family that another woman in the waiting area was pregnant, then told the pregnant woman:
“Ma’am, you have to go to the to the other lobby. This child is unvaccinated! We need everyone to move out of this lobby and get away from him. He has chicken pox.”
The Health Insurance Portability and Privacy Act, established in 1996 and commonly known as HIPAA, prevents health care workers and others from sharing personal medical information. Lauren may have violated this federal law in favor of pushing her vaccine agenda. [1]
Many doctors pledge to follow the Hippocratic Oath to “do no harm.” In a similar manner, nurses honor the Florence Nightingale pledge, named after a nurse who is known as the founder of modern nursing and famous for her compassionate care. Lauren’s words and actions were unacceptable and traumatizing to Oliver’s parents, and more than that, they violated health care oaths, common sense, patient confidentiality rules, and moral guidelines.
This Nurse’s Most Dangerous Mistake
Amazingly, I have not yet told you one of the most troubling parts of this family’s story. Lauren, in her haste to push her pro-vaccine beliefs on Oliver and his family, was extremely negligent in her repeated desire for his parents to vaccinate him, especially against chicken pox.
Oliver was too young for the chicken pox vaccine.
According to the guidelines established by vaccine manufacturers and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the varicella vaccine against chicken pox is indicated for children ages 12 months and older. [2] At the time of his visit to DMC Surgery Hospital, Oliver was only eight months old.
Furthermore, according to the US government, as well as the thirteen-page package insert from a varicella vaccine, vaccination against chicken pox is not recommended for children who are exhibiting signs of illness or fever.[3, 4]
Oliver’s cold symptoms, fever, and skin rash, as well as his young age, clearly indicated that he should not receive a vaccine against chicken pox, or any other vaccine, until he returned to good health.
The Rest of the Story
Fortunately, Oliver’s mom was armed with the confidence she had developed during the countless hours she spent researching vaccines, as well as the strong support of her husband. Together, they decided to leave the urgent care facility when Nurse Lauren admonished them:
“This woman here is pregnant and I can’t risk her being near your son. It is irresponsible of you to have him around other people.”
When Oliver’s parents told Lauren they were leaving the hospital and seeking care for their son elsewhere, she told them, “Good!” but not before she tried to give them printed information she had highlighted by hand about the dangers of chicken pox and the importance of the vaccine their son was too young to receive, in front of a second waiting room of people, which may have explained why Oliver’s wait had surpassed the 29-minute guarantee.
The parents left the urgent care facility in Madison Heights, driving forty minutes to West Bloomfield with their son, whose fever had subsided, to visit another urgent care facility. At Henry Ford Hospital, their son was immediately cleared of his false chicken pox diagnosis, and he also tested negative for influenza. He was properly diagnosed with a “slight cold” and minor “skin irritation.”
Conclusion
First of all, let me say, I believe that the majority of nurses are highly skilled, compassionate, hard-working health care professionals. For their long hours and their special touches, there is no adequate way to convey sufficient gratitude and respect.
However, for nurses like Lauren, there is no excuse for such inappropriate behavior. You can’t blame it on a bad day, or a long shift, or a lack of judgement. She violated moral guidelines. She violated principles of common sense. She failed to respect patient confidentiality. She may have even violated federal law. She negligently recommended a vaccine that was contraindicated for a child who was too young to receive that vaccine.
Would you also agree that she failed to adhere the standards her employer, DMC Surgery Hospital, and her colleagues in the nursing field, likely expect her to meet?
This is not the first time in recent months that parents have been harassed and ridiculed by health care “professionals” because of their child’s vaccination status. Perhaps you remember the story of the nurse who wrote “LOSER” on a note directed at a mother who brought her unvaccinated nine month-old to the hospital after he hurt his ankle. [5]
If you are reading this article and you are a parent, perhaps for the first time like Oliver’s parents, you might be wondering, what can I do? How can I protect my child from unnecessary and dangerous vaccines? What should I do if I ever encounter a nurse like Lauren?
You are not helpless in this situation. Oliver’s mom shared very powerful words of advice in the hopes that her family’s unfortunate experience might help other parents. She told me:
“Honestly, if my husband weren’t right there next to me reminding me to be calm, I would have clawed that nurse’s eyes out. I was ANGRY! I still am. I am so grateful he was there because me reacting any differently … this would end up being a very different story.
Keeping calm in times like these is very important. People who don’t vaccinate are labeled as crazy. I would hate to behave in a way that would lend any credibility to that belief. I constantly feel I need to bring my big guns with me when I go out in case I come in contact with someone who believes differently than I do. I don’t want to feel this way.
I’m not an idiot. I think for myself and do my research. Our choices are what is right for our family, and if your choices are different than mine and work for you, then by all means, carry on! I want to live in a society where people support one another, not tear each other down for being different.”
If you want to empower yourself with knowledge, as Oliver’s mom has done, she recommends reading How To Raise a Healthy Child In Spite of Your Doctor by Dr. Mendelsohn. You can also download a list of vaccine ingredients to educate yourself and others about the dangerous chemicals contained in vaccines, so you have knowledge and power when faced with the decision to vaccinate, or when faced with an ignorant nurse.
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1. http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/understanding…
2. http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/parents/downloads/parent-ver-sch-0-6yrs.pdf
3. http://www.vaccines.gov/basics/safety/should/
4. http://www.merck.com/product/usa/pi_circulars/v/varivax/varivax_pi.pdf
5. http://vactruth.com/2013/11/06/nurse-calls-parent-loser/
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Photo CreditPondering a manageable slice of Triboro RX By Benjamin Kabak By· Published in 2014
When the MTA unveils its next five-year capital plan later this fall, the biggest ticket item will likely be a significant investment in Phase 2 of the Second Ave. Subway. It likely won’t, as I’ll discuss later this week, include funding for Staten Island projects that have been on various planners’ and advocates’ wishlists for years, and it won’t include any money for Triboro RX, that circumferential line proposed nearly 20 years ago by the RPA and talked up extensively by Elliot Sander six years back. These are projects without the right champions, but what if we took the Second Ave. approach?
For better or worse, the Second Ave. Subway is a multi-phase project, broken into bite sized pieces due to the whims of politicians who couldn’t stomach a $20 billion price tag for the full line. Instead, we have four phases — only two of which are useful together. Phases 3 and 4, the southern extensions south of the connection to the 63rd St. Tunnel, wouldn’t work independently whereas Phase 1 on its own would be successful and Phase 2 an added and much needed northern bonus. The multi-phased approach leads to higher costs and redundant work, but it also means parts of the subway line will come into service much sooner than otherwise expected.
As New York City struggles to expand its high speed, high capacity transit network, I wonder if the phased approach could work elsewhere, and I’m not alone. Cap’n Transit has picked up in this thread, in a way, in some posts on the Triboro RX line. What, he asked in a recent post, could be done now with a minimum amount of newbuild? The answer is plenty.
Reviving a 1969 plan the MTA put out during its infancy, the good Cap’n advocates for an O train that would use some of the Triboro RX right of way but would be a more feasible route. He writes:
Under this proposal, the L train would be split into two routes. At Broadway Junction (or maybe Halsey Street) they would diverge, with one continuing to the L current terminus in Canarsie. The other branch, which I’ll call the O train, would travel parallel to the L within the right-of-way of the Bay Ridge Branch, skipping a few stops but connecting to the 3 train at Junius Street. It would then follow the Bay Ridge Branch west through past Brooklyn College (with a transfer to the 2 train), terminating at the Brighton Line with a transfer to the Avenue H station. This is only one possibility. Another way to handle it would be to run the B trains 24/7, turning them east on the Bay Ridge Branch to Broadway Junction – although riders in Brighton Beach and Sheepshead Bay would probably complain about losing express service. A third would be to have the O and B trains overlap, providing more frequent service. That seems to be all that can reasonably be done with the existing trackage without sharing tracks with freight trains or pouring lots of concrete. There is a four-track section between Broadway Junction and Fresh Pond Yard, but there’s not much reason to send L (or J or C) trains up there. If you’ve ever taken the M to the end of the line you’ll understand why – it’s not much of a destination. Running trains on this section would bring train service to a large section of Brooklyn that currently has none, and provide access to potential sites for new housing in these areas. There is no need to wait for a full build of the “TriboroRx” line – that was just somebody’s idea. It should be explored now.
Building out new stations and retrofitting existing ones for a parallel train service wouldn’t come cheap; you can take a look at the state of the ROW in an old Forgotten NY post. But then again, neither will building out the entire Triboro RX, and the political and economic barriers currently preventing any real planning work will exist into the foreseeable future.
But by chopping this project up into pieces, it’s easier for local champions to carry the torch, and it’s easier to find the money to make it one step closer to a reality. As Cap’n Transit noted, there’s no need to wait until some faraway time when Triboro RX becomes a priority (because that time is, more likely than not, never). Let’s start working on smaller pieces today.Joining the workforce in the age of pizza-delivering drones and self-driving cars is easier said than done, especially for millennials. Available jobs are increasingly going to equally qualified applicants, the types that were once just a thing of Hollywood movies — robots.
Consider the irony: Millennials are coming of age in a world where the one thing they understand better than any other generation — technology — may well be the thing that hurts them most of all.
Related: Good Jobs Report Leaves Many Millennials Out
It’s all part of what leading tech gurus say is an urgent need for society to transform the way it views jobs.
Google co-founder Larry Page, for example, said one antidote for high unemployment is to view employment differently; if people prefer not to work 24/7, “just reduce work time,” but don’t consider part time a negative.
The Google CEO’s work-less, do-better mentality was laid out in a Thursday interview with fellow Google pioneer Sergey Brin conducted by billionaire venture capitalist Vinod Khosla.
His take may seem counterintuitive, especially at a time when young people are still struggling to find work in the wake of the recession.
Related: The Rise of Robots and the Decline of Jobs is Here
The June jobs report, boasting an unemployment rate of 6.1 percent, shows positive signs of economic growth. But the snapshot is not as sunny for young adults. Those between the ages of 18 and 34 have an unemployment rate of 9 percent (higher if you count those who have given up looking) — which leaves many sitting around twiddling their thumbs.
Page acknowledged that people aren’t happy if they have too much idle time, saying that most want to “feel like they are needed” and “have something productive to do.”
But he doesn’t believe the answer to that need is necessarily a job. At least not a full-time one. Recalling a recent discussion with Richard Branson, Page discussed the English business magnate’s solution to companies’ unwillingness to bring on new employees: Hire two part-time workers instead of one full-time worker. Recognizing that it would come at slightly higher costs to employers, Page argued that it would be beneficial for younger people just starting their careers. “At least the young people can have a half-time job rather than no job,” Page said.
As he sees it, it’s what people want — a healthy work-life balance. “Most people like working,” Page said, “but they would also like to have more time with their family or [time to pursue] their own interests.”
No surprise: Most people would like an extra week of vacation. “100 percent of people,” Page said. He challenges the idea that people need to work as much as they do, calling it a “societal problem,” and one that many don’t recognize as a problem.
Related: The New Playbook That Taps a $200 Billion Millennial Market
If you think making such a strong argument that part-time work could be the equal to full time is out-of-the-box thinking, think again. Or think about the coming robot revolution.
“Eventually no human will have to work at all,” said Marshall Brain, founder of How Stuff Works and author of Robotic Nation. “Therefore, we should redesign our society so that everyone is on perpetual vacation.”
From parking lot attendees to toll booth collectors to drugstore cashiers, robotic automated machines are already freeing up more of people’s time.
They get the job done — and usually they don’t talk back.
The question many fear, particularly millennials, is whether these robots will make the already-challenging job search even more of a challenge. Brain says yes — absolutely, yes.
Related: We’re One Step Closer to Robots on the Battlefield
“Eventually, robots will equal and then surpass human capabilities,” Brain said in an interview, “and they will take a lot of jobs much sooner than we might expect.”
Brain, who admits he’s on the extreme side of the spectrum, maked a controversial and bold prediction: “Within a couple of decades, there won’t be a single job that robots can’t do better than humans.”
Robots haven’t just moved in on low-wage and entry-level jobs, but all the way up the chain to the likes of law clerks and doctors.
Robots are already helping the best and brightest do what they do even better. A surgical technology called Firefly elevates doctors’ ability to remove kidney tumors more safely and more efficiently at Georgetown University Hospital. An unmanned ground vehicle called MAARS (Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System) has been used to drag injured soldiers out of combat zones and monitor security in remote areas. A humanoid robot called Robonaut 2 aboard the International Space Station can perform simple tasks such as flipping switches and grabbing objects, relieving some of the challenging spacewalks required of astronauts.Syria strike may hinge on Nancy Pelosi
The House Democratic leader, a critic of the war in Iraq, must persuade her colleagues that Syria is a different situation.
Pelosi is expected to intensify her efforts next week when Congress returns from its summer recess, pressing her 199 fellow Democrats in sessions in her Capitol office and on the House floor and meetings of the full caucus. Congressional aides expect the Senate to vote next week, with the House to follow perhaps the week after.
"I do think that it would be easier if there was a stronger case being made to the American people," she said by phone from San Francisco. "People have to really know more about why the president has made this decision."
With a nod to the historical irony, she is arguing to her Democratic colleagues that Syria is different from the earlier conflict. She spoke passionately in an interview about the "human rights catastrophe" in Syria, saying a "limited, targeted" attack "that will be over fast" could prevent the future use of weapons of mass destruction. And she called on Obama to make a more forceful argument for military action.
WASHINGTON — President Obama's hopes of winning congressional approval for a U.S. military strike on Syria could come down to the persuasion skills of House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, a San Francisco liberal who was a leading critic of the war in Iraq.
Pelosi says she is not using high-pressure tactics such as those that helped her eke out a victory for the president's healthcare plan.
"I haven't asked one person for a vote," she said in the Thursday interview. "I've asked them to consider the intelligence and to give us their views on what they might be willing to vote for.
"This is not one of those things where you can talk people into something. All you can do is supply them the information and hope they draw the conclusion that you wish."
With a number of her longtime liberal allies against a strike — or leaning that way — the coming days could be some of the toughest for Pelosi since she assumed control of her famously fractious party a decade ago. In effect, she is caught between the president's wishes, a fractured Democratic caucus and the traditionally antiwar sentiments of her San Francisco base.
"She's now squarely at the center of the emerging congressional debate," said Don Kettl, dean of the University of Maryland School of Public Policy. "She has to round up votes for her caucus, on an issue where public opinion polls make clear that Americans don't support what the president has in mind."
Pelosi, a 26-year House veteran who became the first female speaker in 2007 before losing the gavel to Republican John A. Boehner in 2011, has delivered before for Obama, most notably pushing his cherished healthcare overhaul through the House in 2010.
But her present task could be more difficult.
During the healthcare debate, Pelosi exercised the political leverage that comes with the speakership, using her intimate knowledge of her fellow Democrats and their needs in order to win votes. She marched two California holdouts off the House floor into her private office, helping secure their votes by promising to give more attention to water issues important in their Central Valley districts.
Pelosi, 73, is one of the nation's most polarizing political figures — Republicans highlight her in fundraising pitches and campaign ads against Democrats throughout the country — but she is highly regarded among her own caucus members, who are especially thankful for the gobs of money she has raised for their campaigns.
"She may be the best I ever saw at persuading individuals to come to her point of view," said Dennis Cardoza, a former Democratic congressman from California.
Her challenge is apparent from the number of Democrats, including fellow Californians, who have already come out against a strike on Syria. While Boehner backs military action — a rare point of agreement with Pelosi in the hyper-partisan House — it's unclear how many votes he will deliver from his party members. Passage may well rely on strong support by the president's own party.My bags santa is amazing!
I got 4 pretty bags of the sort I had asked for in my profile - the grocery bag style with built in pocket to fold it into. I needed these since my others had grown legs and run away. So 10 out of 10 my santa got me exactly what I wanted. Also, they're large and perfect for my grocery shopping.
BUT!
There were two more bags in the package.
My santa asked about hand/homemade items so I pretty sure they made these absolutely awesome (and sturdy) bags.
There's a small tote with an adorable fabric in a baking theme which is perfect because I love to bake. The other is a larger bag with a wonderful DC Heroines print - I love me some comic book movies and tv shows including Birds of Prey and Supergirl, but I don't think I mentioned that which means my santa is psychic.
I think my santa did a great job on getting my want I wanted/needed/asked for and hit up my interests for a total of 6 new reusable bags that I'm excited to use.
Thank you santa!!The U.S. Supreme Court has turned down a case involving application of a school district’s zero-tolerance policy regarding weapons to a student who shot spit wads in class. With its decision, the six-month school expulsion stands since the student has no further recourse.
In 2010, Andrew Mikel was a freshman at Spotsylvania High School in Pennsylvania. During lunch one day, he made the unfortunate choice to shoot small plastic pellets from the broken tube of a ball point pen at three students during the break. While the victims in the incident did report that the pellets left red marks, no one was injured by Andrew’s actions.
At first, Andrew was given a 10-day suspension, but the school board later voted to extend the suspension citing the district’s zero-tolerance policy for weapons policy which states that students who use a weapon to threaten, intimidate, or injure another student are subject to expulsion for a 365 period absent extenuating circumstances. Their actions did not stop even there though. The district referred the incident to the criminal courts where the honor student was accused of assault. Andrew was required by the court to attend a diversion program and took anger management classes and substance abuse classes.
In all this, the fact that the student was an honor student who wrote letters of apology to each of the victims and also offered restitution to the families in the form of raking leaves at their homes seems to have never been taken into consideration.
The lower court, despite upholding the school board’s decision, noted in its holding the absurdity that Andrew could be expelled for shooting spit wads, but if he had instead simply walked up and punched a student in the face, the maximum punishment would be a 10-day suspension.
It is a shame that the court declined to take up the case. This is another example of how zero-tolerance policies are being used in ways that make zero sense and children’s lives are being harmed in the process.
In this case, Andrew, an honor student, was preparing himself to gain entrance into the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. Now, due to the criminal charges and his expulsion, that dream is shattered. He has been informed that based on this incident and the ensuing disciplinary actions, it is virtually impossible for him to pursue his dream. Due to this, he has now decided to try to get into the Virginia Military Institute instead.
If schools are going to continue to attempt school expulsions for disciplinary infractions of this sort, more court cases are sure to follow. While everyone wants schools to be safe, expelling this student in this case does nothing to advance that goal. The students were never in danger, nor was it even argued that the student intended to cause bodily injury to the other students.
While this student is out-of-luck, it can be hoped that the Court will take up such a case in the future and give guidance on the appropriate uses of zero-tolerance in school.
Mikel family discusses case (click to go to YouTube video)Melania Trump on Thursday threatened People magazine with a lawsuit over a story that alleges Donald Trump Donald John TrumpHouse committee believes it has evidence Trump requested putting ally in charge of Cohen probe: report Vietnamese airline takes steps to open flights to US on sidelines of Trump-Kim summit Manafort's attorneys say he should get less than 10 years in prison MORE sexually harassed a People writer in 2005.
In a letter from her lawyer that she tweeted Thursday, Melania Trump takes issue with the writer's claims that the two ran into each other some time after Donald Trump allegedly shoved the woman, Natasha Stoynoff, against a wall and tried to kiss her. Stoynoff wrote that a pregnant Melania was in another room of the Mar-a-Lago resort at the time.
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Her lawyer demands that several lines be removed from the first-person account, published in People Wednesday.
The quotes in question describe an interaction between Stoynoff and Melania Trump outside of the Trump Tower in New York City that Stoynoff said occurred some time after the alleged incident with Donald Trump.
According to the letter, Melania Trump never met with Stoynoff outside of the tower, and would not have recognized the reporter.
"That winter, I actually bumped into Melania on Fifth Avenue, in front of Trump Tower as she walked into the building, carrying baby Barron. 'Natasha, why don’t we see you anymore?' she asked, giving me a hug,'" Stoynoff wrote. "I was quiet and smiled, telling her I’d missed her, and I squeezed little Barron’s foot. I couldn’t discern what she knew. Did she really not guess why I hadn’t been around?"
"Mrs. Trump did not encounter Ms. Stoynoff on the street, nor have any conversation with her. The two are not friends and were never friends or even friendly," the letter states.
The lawyers asked for People magazine to remove the lines within 24 hours or face a possible lawsuit.When I was growing up in Edmonton, Alberta, a |
framed on all four sides by the words "Sons of Confederate Veterans 1896." The plate would also have a faint image of the Confederate flag in the background and an outline of the state of Texas in the top right corner.
"By rejecting the plate because it was offensive, the board discriminated against Texas SCV's view that the Confederate flag is a symbol of sacrifice, independence, and Southern heritage," Judges Edward Prado and Jennifer Elrod said.The Pride have an opportunity to clinch NWSL playoff qualification Thursday night against the Seattle Reign. Three points would guarantee Orlando a spot in the top-four and, with three more regular season matches to be played, the Pride could be vying for a one or two seed entering the postseason.
NWSL playoff format: The top four teams in the standings at the end of the regular season qualify for the 2017 NWSL Playoffs with the semifinal winners advancing to the Championship game.
“Kind of strange because it’s the third-to-last game [of the regular season], but it is kind of like a playoff game. Definitely for them and it is for us too because we can clinch a playoff spot, which would be huge,” said Pride defender Steph Catley ahead tomorrow’s match. “So we’re attacking it with a strong mindset, and, it is any other game, but there’s a bit of an extra edge because at the end of it there’s a big reward.”
No top-tier professional team from Orlando has appeared in postseason play since 2012. Possibly even more intriguing is the fact that the Pride’s playoff journey could run entirely through Orlando City Stadium. The NWSL Championship is set to be played at Orlando City Stadium on Saturday, Oct. 14, with the top two seeds each hosting Semi-final matches.
The Pride have been in scintillating form as of late and are carrying serious momentum heading into the final matches of the regular season. If Orlando continues its winning ways, finishing as a one or two seed is definitely in the cards.
Orlando (T-3rd place, 35 points) could crack the top two with upcoming matches against Portland (2nd place, 40 points) and North Carolina (1st place, 40 points). The Pride are tied on points with Chicago as of right now with Chicago holding the tie-breaker of head-to-head matches.
The Pride have outscored opponents 16-4 over their current five-match win streak and have not lost a match in well over a month. The team is undoubtedly playing its best soccer of the season, and at just the right time, too.
For a closer look at the NWSL Playoff bracket and current standings, click here."I felt so much more comfortable": Jeremy Beach became the only boy in his Catholic girls' school. Credit:Jason South It's a situation many single-sex schools – whose entire existence has relied on rigid concepts of gender – are grappling with. For the first time, the region's peak body for girls schools, the Alliance of Girls Schools Australasia, is urging its members to support transgender students. This includes males who transition to females and want to enrol in girls' schools, and females who transition to males and want to remain in girls' schools. Earlier this week, the organisation, which predominantly represents private girls' schools, held a conference which focused on gender and transgender issues.
"It's an emerging issue, everyone is still learning what to do and that includes the doctors, the psychologists, the support services," the Alliance's president and Mentone Girls' Grammar principal Fran Reddan said. "It's critical that we provide a safe environment where all students can express their gender identity." Jeremy Beach was the only male student at his Catholic girls school and is calling for more support for transgender students. Micah Scott, the chief executive of LGBTI youth group Minus 18, said single-sex schools faced a unique challenge. "Their existence is based on the concept that the sex you are assigned at birth will match your gender identity," he said.
He said teachers needed to avoid gendered language like "good morning girls" and should provide more flexible uniform options. Jeremy agreed, and said he felt very uncomfortable wearing his school uniform. "A teacher told me that I could wear the trousers but said everyone would look at me funnily," he said. He claimed another teacher picked on him. But despite these challenges, he also received a lot of support from the Catholic school. A teacher who suspected Jeremy was struggling with his gender identity emailed him a link to a documentary about Lieutenant-Colonel Cate McGregor, who came out as a woman in 2012.
"She said I think this would be really helpful. That's when I realised I was transgender," he said. He slowly began to gain more confidence, and in 2014 he confessed to his friends that he identified as male. While "Jeremy" was emblazoned on the back of his year 12 hoodie, teachers and students still referred to him as a "she". Jeremy's Year 12 hoodie. Credit:Henrietta Cook And he wore a suit to his Year 12 formal.
"I was the first person in my year level to wear a suit. I felt so much more comfortable," he said. Avila College acting principal Christine Kralj said she was pleased that Jeremy was able to speak about the issues associated with being a young transgender person. Human Rights Law Centre director of advocacy Anna Brown said there did not seem to be a clear protection for transgender students in single-sex schools under federal discrimination law. But she said it was a grey area and yet to be tested in court. She welcomed the leadership shown by the Alliance of Girls Schools Australasia and said it was consistent with good practice and international human rights standards. "These support the affirmation of gender identity and accommodate the needs of a vulnerable cohort of young people."The Netflix original series 'Jessica Jones,' which Symphony Advance Media suggests drew an average of 4.8 million 18-to-49-year-old viewers in a 35-day window. Netflix called Symphony's numbers'remarkably inaccurate,' but doesn't release any of its own. Credit: Myles Aronowitz/Netflix
The entire TV industry is aching for any glimmer of insight into viewership for Netflix, which has promised never to reveal audience data for its shows. And one company is claiming it can provide it without Netflix's cooperation.
The company is Symphony Advanced Media, a four-year-old tech firm backed by Romesh Wadhwani and his private equity firm Symphony Technology Group. Led by president and CEO Charles Buchwalter, who spent 13 years at Nielsen, Symphony uses audio recognition to measure traditional and streaming programming viewership across devices.
NBC's research president, Alan Wurtzel, caused an uproar at the Television Critics Association Winter press tour last week when he revealed Symphony data estimating that Netflix's "Jessica Jones" averaged 4.8 million viewers among 18-to-49-year-olds over a 35-day period, "Master of None" averaged 3.9 million in the demographic and "Narcos" averaged 3.2 million.
Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos fired back, saying the data is "remarkably inaccurate." But at least several big TV groups are testing Symphony's measurement product.
When Symphony debuted in 2012 its focus was on providing custom research to marketers and ad agencies on cross-media advertising effectiveness, Mr. Buchwalter said.
Then in 2014, identifying a need in the industry to track and understand cross-platform viewing, the San Francisco-based company moved away from custom research and spent the past year and a half creating a subscription measurement service.
"Nielsen has tremendous depth in TV and ComScore has tremendous depth in digital," Mr. Buchwalter said. Symphony is working to seamlessly blend the two, he said.
The result, VideoPulse, debuted in September, with NBC, Viacom, Warner Bros. and AMC among participants in a pilot program. It extrapolates audience figures from panelists who download an app that runs in the background of their mobile devices or PCs, listening to identify the content they watch. A GPS component can track where people are accessing content, whether at home or on the go.
To recognize shows, Symphony partnered with Tribune Media's Gracenote, which compiles audio fingerprints on vide programming that lets VideoPulse to identify a particular series, episode and network. Gracenote ingests programming content from 210 TV channels along with original programming content from Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and Crackle as their shows come out.
While VideoPulse can track viewing that happens in the seven-day viewing window on which a growing number of ad deals are based, its focus is on viewership over a longer period, which Mr. Buchwalter said represents as much as 35% of viewership.
To come up with its rating, Symphony tracks the viewing of any episode of a series over 35 days, then averages that total to determine a per-episode rating. It provides breakdowns by demographic and by viewership within seven days and beyond.
Because it can identify both linear and streaming video, VideoPulse can measure how many people are watching previous seasons of Fox's "Gotham" on Netflix, for example, and then decipher how many of those viewers go and watch the current season live, Mr. Buchwalter said.
Symphony currently has a sample size of about 15,000. Mr. Buchwalter said he expects that to grow to 20,000 by the end of the quarter. The focus right now is ensuring that the panel is representative of the U.S. population, he said.
The passive nature of VideoPulse and its ability to measure across devices has made it attractive to media companies like Viacom, owner of cable networks including MTV, Nickelodeon, BET and Comedy Central.
Viacom is beta-testing Symphony as it searches for ways to account for viewing taking place on platforms and devices that Nielsen currently doesn't measure, said Colleen Fahey Rush, exec VP-chief research officer, Viacom Media Networks.
VideoPulse doesn't require any backend work on the part of TV networks or other distributors, a requirement that has been one of the biggest complaints among TV executives about getting Nielsen's Total Audience Measurement up and running.
Of course, Symphony's VideoPulse product is still very new, and as such has plenty of kinks to work out.
"The methodology is not perfect," NBC's Mr. Wurtzel said. "They have only been providing data for six months. They have hardly been around long. There are plenty of growing pains."
FX Networks CEO John Landgraf expressed doubts over the data at TCA, saying "it doesn't feel rigorous enough."
The biggest hiccup is Symphony's ability to measure time-shifted viewing. While it can recognize whether a person is watching a show on a delayed basis, it cannot identify how the show is being watched -- via video on demand, a DVR or the internet.
When it sees that a program is being viewed out of the live window, it prompts the viewer and asks them how they are watching, Ms. Fahey Rush said. The reliance on panelist responses can lead to inaccuracies.
Mr. Wurtzel said some of the data he has received from Symphony just didn't look right, and he had to go back to the company to reevaluate its accuracy.
While in no way is Symphony anywhere close to overtaking Nielsen as the TV currency of choice, Ms. Fahey Rush and Mr. Wurtzel both said it shows potential, and at the very least provides some picture of the viewership that Nielsen isn't measuring.
"Nielsen isn't going away," Mr. Wurtzel said. "But I am not seeing from Nielsen what Symphony is showing me. They actually have cross-platform consumption data from September."
And as is the case for any budding TV measurement product that even shows an iota of ability to take on Nielsen, the hope is Symphony will encourage Nielsen to raise its game.
As Symphony works to perfect VideoPulse, it is also planning to expand its measurement to commercial viewing. VideoPulse currently only measures shows, but Mr. Buchwalter said he is confident Symphony can replicate the product to encompass advertising as well.
To this end the company has partnered with iSpot, a database of national TV commercials, and will begin testing commercial measurement this spring with clients.
Mr. Buchwalter also sees an opportunity for Symphony to bring its TV data to the world of programmatic advertising. He expects to partner with a data management platform to help power programmatic advertising later this year.For the first time, a field test has demonstrated that elevated levels of carbon dioxide inhibit plants' assimilation of nitrate into proteins, indicating that the nutritional quality of food crops is at risk as climate change intensifies.
Findings from this wheat field-test study, led by a UC Davis plant scientist, will be reported online April 6 in the journal Nature Climate Change.
"Food quality is declining under the rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide that we are experiencing," said lead author Arnold Bloom, a professor in the Department of Plant Sciences.
"Several explanations for this decline have been put forward, but this is the first study to demonstrate that elevated carbon dioxide inhibits the conversion of nitrate into protein in a field-grown crop," he said.
The assimilation, or processing, of nitrogen plays a key role in the plant's growth and productivity. In food crops, it is especially important because plants use nitrogen to produce the proteins that are vital for human nutrition. Wheat, in particular, provides nearly one-fourth of all protein in the global human diet.
Many previous laboratory studies had demonstrated that elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide inhibited nitrate assimilation in the leaves of grain and non-legume plants; however there had been no verification of this relationship in field-grown plants.
Wheat field study
To observe the response of wheat to different levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, the researchers examined samples of wheat that had been grown in 1996 and 1997 in the Maricopa Agricultural Center near Phoenix, Ariz.
At that time, carbon dioxide-enriched air was released in the fields, creating an elevated level of atmospheric carbon at the test plots, similar to what is now expected to be present in the next few decades. Control plantings of wheat were also grown in the ambient, untreated level of carbon dioxide.
Leaf material harvested from the various wheat tests plots was immediately placed on ice, and then was oven dried and stored in vacuum-sealed containers to minimize changes over time in various nitrogen compounds.
A fast-forward through more than a decade found Bloom and the current research team able to conduct chemical analyses that were not available at the time the experimental wheat plants were harvested.
In the recent study, the researchers documented that three different measures of nitrate assimilation affirmed that the elevated level of atmospheric carbon dioxide had inhibited nitrate assimilation into protein in the field-grown wheat.
"These field results are consistent with findings from previous laboratory studies, which showed that there are several physiological mechanisms responsible for carbon dioxide's inhibition of nitrate assimilation in leaves," Bloom said.
3 percent protein decline expected
Bloom noted that other studies also have shown that protein concentrations in the grain of wheat, rice and barley -- as well as in potato tubers -- decline, on average, by approximately 8 percent under elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
"When this decline is factored into the respective portion of dietary protein that humans derive from these various crops, it becomes clear that the overall amount of protein available for human consumption may drop by about 3 percent as atmospheric carbon dioxide reaches the levels anticipated to occur during the next few decades," Bloom said.
While heavy nitrogen fertilization could partially compensate for this decline in food quality, it would also have negative consequences including higher costs, more nitrate leaching into groundwater and increased emissions of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide, he said.Folks, editing this into real English!
Steve McIntyre, a retired business man from Canada who is well versed in statistical methods, has been uncovering a number of serious and fatal flaws in the science of global warming. One of his most famous is where he showed how warmists (and Al Gore) were splicing two data  sets onto a graph to create the mirage of rampant global warming (the infamous Hockey Stick). This is scientific fraud my friends – plain and simple.
Today McIntyre treats us to a detailed and technically rich forensic report on how Mann, Jones and others were pressured by the IPCC to make current climate look much more dramatic than it was (or is). They needed to show unprecedented warming, and they data was not giving them what they needed.
Steve is a very detailed oriented fellow, and his methods are complete and extremely well documented. Which means they don’t translate well into the sound bite thinking of the news media (who can barely grasp what this is all about anyway). So while I was reading his post I wanted to show a synopsis of his findings, and I found something extremely disturbing and what I see as the end of the global warming myth as we know it. Scientifically it is dead due to the rampant fraud we now see in these newly disclosed efforts to hide the decline.
Let be begin with the first graph produced by the alarmists in 1999 for a meeting in Tanzania, where the IPCC complained the climate change being shown was not dramatic enough.
One thing to note here is how the modern day spike is not much warmer than previous warm periods (the blue region, not the line!). The graph clearly shows the world coming out of the Little Ice Age which ended around 1800-1850. And while this is not very dramatic warming, it does already include an early version of Michael Mann’s “Nature Trick” highlighted in the CRU emails made public.
I have blown the last bit of the graph up to illustrate how these alarmists were already splicing raw data onto statistical data (which, being averaged will have much less variability and therefore lower peaks and shallower valleys than the raw data).
This is a con, a lie, Â a deliberate effort to make the current temperatures look dramatic. I call this “Hide The Decline 1” – for Mann’s first effort to appease the IPCC. Â We can clearly see the instrument record (red) being used to create a false temperature peak beyond Mann’s statistical model (blue).
Let me illustrate this using a CRU graph of monthly temperature indices verses a trend line (the statistical model of the values – click to enlarge):
See how the black and purple trend lines reside well inside the black and purple ‘raw’ data they represent? This is why you don’t mix the two to create a hybrid (and deceitful) line. You can distort the statistical model (trend) anyway you like by adding in the raw data it is meant to model. That is cheating.
From McIntyre’s investigation the IPCC was not happy with this first attempt to hide the decline with Mike’s Nature Trick. So the ‘scientists’ went back and created a better fiction. Here is their later chart, with the new numbers and a more dramatic rise in modern temperatures.
I wanted to highlight the changes so I laid the charts side by side with the intent of running horizontal lines for comparison. First thing I noticed is the “y” scale in the later graph is 0.5°C higher than the original! They had to raise the scale to absorb their data manipulations and do a better job of making modern climate look unique. That in itself is very telling.
Here is what I finally came up with:
Sort of stunning, isn’t it.
Mann and Jones did something to that original temperature record to push its peak a good deal more beyond the end of the statistical record than in their first try. This is much more than just adding the temperature record to the statistical model as in Hide The Decline 1 – that is shady and fraudulent enough. This is further ‘adjusting’ the temperature record to make it look even more dramatic – a good 0.4°C more dramatic.
What is settled is this is not science, this is a charade. And it would be very difficult to have proven this without the CRU emails and documents dumped late last month.
Through much of this Keith Briffa appears in many of these emails to want to let the data speak for itself. He is constantly badgered to make adjustments, but in the end Mann and Jones simply stop using his data past 1960. I think this is why Briffa may have went searching for the magic larch in Yamal, Russia. The tree that could put his tree ring research back into the IPCC fold (and funding).
If I had to guess who could be a candidate for the whistle blower, right now my money is on Briffa and a band of CRU employees whose conscience finally got the better of them (or the FOIA efforts were going to tip his hand anyway).
I think it is safe to speculate that Mann and Jones were at the center of running the con with a tight group of useful idiots willing to help out (and become famous for their efforts). Then you had a sea of scientists who just wanted to believe the AGW myth and never even attempted to challenge it. Add in gullible journalists and pols without any skill or education to know better one way or the other and you have the current AGW fad.
A fad now being forensically dissected scientifically, possibly exposing a fraud.Push The Bar Back to the Hips… But Not Too Far: Snatch & Clean
In the snatch and clean pull from the floor, the bar must move back slightly from its starting point on the platform. This is minimal horizontal movement, but very important to re-establish balance once the barbell and lifter become a single unit following the bar’s separation from the platform. Because the barbell will start over approximately the balls of the feet, and eventually needs to move closer to over the middle of the foot, this backward movement will cover the distance between the barbell’s starting point and the plane over the middle of the foot. How close the bar must be to over the middle of the foot will depend on how heavy it is relative to the lifter—the heavier the bar, the larger the percentage of the combined mass it represents, and as a consequence, the closer to above the middle of the foot it will need to be for the combined mass to be balanced over the foot.
There's another issue with regard to the idea of pushing the bar back, and that's the forward movement of the shoulders during the first pull. In the initial pull from the floor, the angle of the back will shift to some extent while the bar is moving backward, and the shoulders will move forward of the bar rather than being approximately above the bar where they start. How significantly the back angle shifts will depend on a few things.
First, it will depend on the lifter’s proportions and how they influence the starting position. That is, a longer-legged lifter will likely start the bar slightly farther forward over the foot compared to a shorter-legged lifter. This will typically mean a more significant shift in back angle naturally in the first pull. Next, the closer the angle of the lifter’s back in the starting position to the ultimate angle it will need to be as the bar is passing the knees, the less it will shift. Finally, the stronger the lifters legs are, the less the back angle will shift; conversely, longer-legged lifters who tend to have weaker legs comparatively and worse mechanics in the starting position for the knees will tend to shift more in the first pull.
If the bar is allowed to move where it wants, it will continue hanging straight down from the shoulders—meaning that as the shoulders move forward with the shifting back angle, it will move forward away from the lifter, and the actual distance will be greater than the distance the shoulders move, because the legs will simultaneously be moving backward as the knees extend.
This is the reason for the instruction to push the bar back toward the hips during the pull. However, it can be overdone. A lifter can bring the bar too far back relative to the feet, which can create at least two basic problems.
First, it shifts the combined lifter-barbell center of mass too far back, directing the lifter and barbell backward too much relative to vertical. Depending on the degree, this can mean a backward jump, which if small can be acceptable, but on a bigger scale, will cause a miss.
Second, with the bar contacting the body with the hips so far back relative to the feet, it gains excessive forward momentum as the hips extend in the second pull and push the bar with them, causing the bar to swing forward away from the lifter.
The key is to maintain immediate proximity of the bar and body throughout the pull until contact is made at the hip (snatch) or upper thigh (clean) by the bar and body coming together and meeting in the proper position over feet—not one traveling exclusively to the other. In other words, the body must move properly while the barbell shifts backward slightly from its starting position and then moves into an essentially vertical path once it reaches the middle of the foot. While the bar can’t be left too far forward and the hips allowed to reach for it, the barbell can’t be pushed all the way back to the hips before they have moved forward over the feet during the double knee bend.
Keep this in mind while doing your snatch and clean pulls in particular, as it’s easier to focus on this detail in a pull than during an actual lift. The proper movement trained in the pulls will carry over to the snatch and clean. As it gets better, more focus can be applied in the lifts themselves for the final minor adjustments. Always remember that pushing the bar back to the hips is a cue to be applied properly—not a description of a dramatic movement of the bar.Tamaulipas: 'Failed state' in Mexico's war on drugs
Forensic experts say the number of dead could rise further as they continue to excavate the area
The discovery of at least 116 bodies in mass graves in the north-eastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas has become the most gruesome incident in the country's four-year war against drug cartels.
The city of San Fernando, about 150km (93 miles) from the border with Texas, has previously been hit by drug-related violence on a massive scale and efforts to control the situation there appear futile.
Last August the bodies of 72 Central and South American migrants were found on the outskirts of the city.
The migrants, making their way to the border, were killed by drug gang members after they refused to work for them.
'Haven for traffickers'
The federal government deployed hundreds more troops in the area and promised to improve the security situation.
But less than eight months later an even deadlier massacre has taken place in the same spot, allegedly after passengers on long distance buses were kidnapped by the Zetas, one of Mexico's most violent drug cartels.
Continue reading the main story “ Start Quote Criminal groups are more effective at collecting 'taxes' than Tamaulipas' own government” End Quote Alberto Islas Security analyst, Mexico City
These tragedies, along with the targeted killings of top officials and members of the security forces, are fuelling thoughts of Tamaulipas as a possible "failed state" within Mexico - a haven for drug traffickers, people smugglers and criminals of all kinds.
The federal government strongly rejects this view.
But state governor Egidio Torre Cantu recently said the violence was not only a threat to the people of Tamaulipas, but also "a situation that affects Mexico's internal security."
'Bad Smell'
The people of San Fernando do not always hide their sense of hopelessness about the chaotic security situation.
The residents only found out about the massacres by chance, one inhabitant told the BBC via telephone.
"It starts to smell bad because there is a funeral house close to where we walk every day," the woman - who asks to remain anonymous - says.
They live in fear. "Nobody goes out into the street after 7pm," she says.
At the San Fernando City Hall they do not accept interview requests because of "security concerns".
This town is not the only area of Tamaulipas, a state of the size of the Czech Republic, virtually paralysed by violence.
Ciudad Mier, a town further north, was the scene of the first "mass exodus" from the conflict last November.
After rival drug gangs started fighting over the border town, 400 inhabitants fled to a nearby, safer city.
The find of the latest graves followed a tip-off by a suspect detained on Saturday 9 April
To the south, near the state's capital, Ciudad Victoria, Rodolfo Torre Cantu, a candidate for governor for the Institutional Revolutionary Party and the brother of the current governor, was shot in an ambush in June 2010.
He was considered favourite to win the election and had made fighting crime one of his main campaign promises.
Tamaulipas has been caught in a bloody fight between two of Mexico's most powerful cartels - the Zetas formed by army deserters in the late 1990s and the Gulf Cartel, which used to have a stronghold in the area.
The number of drug-related killings in the state has jumped to more than 1,200 in 2010, from 90 in 2009.
'No control'
Some people in Mexico go as far as saying the federal government has lost Tamaulipas.
"Neither the regional nor federal government have control over the territory of Tamaulipas," says Alberto Islas, a security analyst in Mexico City.
"For example criminal groups are more effective at collecting 'taxes' than Tamaulipas' own government," he adds, explaining that cartels have become organised crime groups, which as well as trafficking narcotics, also extort and kidnap.
The federal government disputes this view, saying the violence in the state is confined to a few municipalities and that it has made advances in the fight against cartels.
It also says that in a country gearing up for presidential elections next year, criticism of their security strategy is politically motivated. The conflict will be a major campaign issue.
But everyone seems to agree that the situation is serious.
"It is a critical situation of national emergency," says former head of the Mexican government's organised crime unit Samuel Gonzalez Ruiz.
"This is a war between drug dealers that has gotten out of hand," he says.
"The weakness of the region's government allowed them to fight and these are the results we are seeing."cumberbum:
Benedict Cumberbatch to feature “in some shape or form” in Sherlock Holmes exhibition
A Museum of London exhibition is to place Sherlock Holmes under the microscope, examining the traits that define Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 125-year-old creation as well as his intimate relationship with his native city of London.
Visitors will see the literary beginnings of the great detective brought to life by exhibits including original issues of The Strand Magazine, in which the stories were first published, and artwork by Sidney Paget, the man who gave Sherlock Holmes not only his famous aquiline profile but also his trademark deerstalker hat.
But the exhibition will also bring the detective up to date by referencing BBC1’s hugely popular series Sherlock, currently in the midst of its third season. A spokesperson told RadioTimes.com “I can promise that Benedict Cumberbatch will feature, in some shape or form”.
As to exactly what form that will take, fans will have to wait and see, with organisers adding “This is just the tip of the iceberg – there will be big announcements later in the year”.
And after all, what would Sherlock Holmes be without a bit of mystery…?
The Museum of London Sherlock Holmes exhibition opens on Friday 17 October 2014 and runs until Sunday 12 April 2015. It is billed as the first major temporary exhibition ofSherlock Holmes in London for over 60 years, since the 1951 Festival of Britain.
[x] [Photo in High res]The measure requires another vote by the board next week, which is expected to pass. After that it will move on to Mayor Ed Lee, who says he'll sign it. The law would take effect in April 2018.
"This legislation is about saying enough is enough."
Malia Cohen, San Francisco Board of Supervisors
Cohen, who represents the historically black Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood, said tobacco companies advertise 10 times more in black neighborhoods and market candy and fruit flavored products to young people, the LGBTQ community and other minorities.
"For too many years, the tobacco industry has selectively targeted our young adults with products that are deceptively associated with fruits and mint and candy," said Cohen, whose grandmother smoked menthol cigarettes for years and died of emphysema.
"Menthol cools the throat so you don't feel the smoke and the irritants and it masks the flavors. This legislation is about saying enough is enough," she added.
Businesses that violate the law could have their city tobacco sales permits suspended.
Small business owners have said they will lose business because people can still buy the flavored "e-liquid" and tobacco products in neighboring cities or online and have them delivered to their San Francisco homes.
"Those tobacco products aren't 100 percent of our revenue, but they are an anchor product," Miriam Zouzounis, a board member of the Arab American Grocers Association whose father owns a small corner store, told the San Francisco Chronicle.
She added: "Even at 15 percent of our stock, it's what brings people through the door. We can't compete with Safeway or Walgreens for food and milk items, let alone the online retailers filling the gap for everything else."
The San Francisco ban is the latest restriction on tobacco products approved in California. The state's cigarette tax increased in April by $2 per pack, more than doubling the previous tax of 87 cents a pack. This ban includes any product with flavoring: e-cigarettes, chewing tobacco and hookahs. Using or possessing the products, though, will still be legal.
Last year, Gov. Jerry Brown approved tougher tobacco regulations as part of a special legislative session on health care. The state's legal age to buy tobacco was boosted from 18 to 21 and existing regulations governing tobacco were extended to electronic cigarettes.
"I think it’s a very important step that the city’s taking and I think that it will stimulate similar actions elsewhere in California and around the country," said Doctor Stanton Glantz, UCSF, about the trend in tobacco product bans.LONDON (Reuters) - Where in the United States, fruit farmers pay to have bees trucked thousands of miles to pollinate their crops and in parts of China, humans with feather dusters have taken on the task, in Britain most bees go nature’s way.
Honeybees are seen on a honeycomb at The National Beekeeping Centre in Stoneleigh, central England, November 21, 2008. Where in the United States, fruit farmers pay to have bees trucked thousands of miles to pollinate their crops and in parts of China, humans with feather dusters have taken on the task, in Britain most bees go nature's way. Britons have a deep nostalgia for home-grown honey and its associations with an ordered rural lifestyle. But here, too, the honey bee population is dwindling. REUTERS/Darren Staples
Britons have a deep nostalgia for home-grown honey and its associations with an ordered rural lifestyle. But here, too, the honey bee population is dwindling, and with winter under way faces a tough fight for survival.
Besides warnings the country will run out of English honey by Christmas, there is a threat to growers of fruits such as apples and pears.
A wet summer on top of changed sowings and increasingly intensive agriculture have limited opportunities to forage for nectar, risking starvation for bees. Most colonies are also infested with a dangerous parasitic mite.
“We are extremely aware of the enormous threat there is to honey bees and the huge reduction in population,” said Adrian Barlow, chief executive of trade group English Apples and Pears. “It is something we are very concerned about.”
To collect a pound of honey, a bee might have to fly a distance equivalent to twice around the world. This is likely to involve 10,000 flower visits or perhaps 500 foraging trips, according to the British Beekeepers’ Association (BBKA).
Honey bees pollinate about 90 percent of apples in Britain and also have an important role for many other crops including runner beans, pears and raspberries.
Britain has about 250,000 hives, about 80 percent of them looked after by small-scale beekeepers who sell most of their honey to friends, colleagues and at farm shops.
The other 20 percent are kept by larger bee farmers who produce honey on a more commercial scale.
Richard Steel in the Cambridgeshire countryside has been keeping bees for 27 years. He had about three dozen colonies but lost about two thirds of them, blaming heavy rains during the spring/summer mating season as a key factor.
“What was happening... with a lot of the colonies that failed was that the queens were running out of sperm and not being able to lay fertile eggs,” he told Reuters by telephone.
“I put this down to the fact that they possibly mated with fewer drones (due to the wet weather).”
The United States, France, Greece and many other countries have also suffered heavy losses in the bee population and researchers are still searching for answers.
British beekeepers have been demanding the annual state budget for bee health research be raised to 1.6 million pounds ($2.37 million) from 200,000 pounds now. Hundreds of them delivered a petition to the prime minister in London earlier this month calling for more research spending.
“The increased funding we are asking for is a drop in the ocean compared to the billions of pounds the government has found for bank bail-outs,” BBKA President Tim Lovett said, referring to moves prompted by the global financial crisis.
MORE WHEAT, FEWER FLOWERS
The term Colony Collapse Disorder was first used in North America in 2006, initially applied to a sharp rise in colony losses in that region. But European beekeepers have also seen similar phenomena.
“Collapse is a jargonistic term,” said Francis Ratnieks, professor of apiculture at the University of Sussex in southern England. “The hive doesn’t actually collapse. The bees just go away. It is basically hives dying in the winter.”
Long-term changes in agriculture have not helped the honey bee. A jump in wheat prices last year led to a 13 percent rise in plantings in Britain. Wheat does not provide any nectar.
Sowings of oilseed rape — a bees’ favorite which does flower — fell by 12 percent for this year’s harvest, according to figures issued by Britain’s farm ministry.
“Oilseed rape is a magnet for honey bees,” said Stuart Bailey, chairman of leading British brand Rowse Honey which has committed 100,000 pounds ($157,000) to support research into bee health at the University of Sussex.
Sussex University’s Ratnieks also pointed out that agriculture has become more intensive: “In the old days a field of wheat would have more weeds in it, but farmers are not in the business of growing weeds.”
Wet summers have also made it hard for bees to store up enough food to survive the long winter from end-October to mid-March when flowers are scarce.
“We’ve had a couple of years of very wet, cold windy summers that have caused a significant shortfall in terms of the food that the honey bee can stack up |
, toward which the prophets have been looking from the beginning of time, and those earlier brethren are over there still cheering us on! In a very real way, their chance to consider themselves fully successful depends on our faithfulness and our victory. I love the idea of going into the battle of the last days representing Alma and Abinadi and what they pled for and representing Peter and Paul and the sacrifices they made. If you can’t get excited about that kind of assignment in the drama of history, you can’t get excited! Illustration by Jerry Thompson; photo illustration by Mark Weinberg © IRI
Preparing Christ’s Church for His Coming Let me add another element to this view of the dispensation that I think follows automatically. Because ours is the last and greatest of all dispensations, because all things will eventually culminate and be fulfilled in our era, there is, therefore, one particular, very specific responsibility that falls to those of us in the Church now that did not rest quite the same way on the shoulders of Church members in any earlier time. Unlike the Church in the days of Abraham or Moses, Isaiah or Ezekiel, or even in the New Testament days of James and John, we have a responsibility to prepare the Church of the Lamb of God to receive the Lamb of God—in person, in triumphant glory, in His millennial role as Lord of lords and King of kings. No other dispensation ever had that duty. In the language of the scriptures, we are the ones designated in all of history who must prepare the bride for the advent of the Bridegroom and be worthy of an invitation to the wedding feast (see Matthew 25:1–12; 22:2–14; D&C 88:92, 96). Collectively speaking—whether it is in our lifetime or our children’s or our grandchildren’s or whenever—we nevertheless have the responsibility as a Church and as individual members of that Church to be worthy to have Christ come to us, to be worthy to have Him greet us, and to have Him accept and receive and embrace us. The lives we present to Him in that sacred hour must be worthy of Him!Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonREAD: Cohen testimony alleges Trump knew Stone talked with WikiLeaks about DNC emails County GOP in Minnesota shares image comparing Sanders to Hitler Holder: 'Time to make the Electoral College a vestige of the past' MORE’s chances of winning the presidency have fallen sharply over the past week, though she still is the favorite, according to a Reuters/Ipsos Electoral College analysis released Saturday.
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The analysis estimates that if the election were held today, Clinton would have a 60 percent chance of winning. Last week, it found that she had an 83 percent chance.
The analysis is based on a weekly tracking poll of 15,000 Americans and breaks down the candidates’ standing in every state.
The new numbers have shifted the odds in several battleground states. Pennsylvania has gone from a likely win for Clinton to a toss-up, while Ohio has gone the other way, from a toss-up to a likely Clinton win.
Florida is considered a likely win for Donald Trump Donald John TrumpREAD: Cohen testimony alleges Trump knew Stone talked with WikiLeaks about DNC emails Trump urges North Korea to denuclearize ahead of summit Venezuela's Maduro says he fears 'bad' people around Trump MORE, who leads Clinton in the state 50 to 46 percent.
The poll shows that Clinton leads Trump by four points nationally, 42 to 38 percent. Her average lead, according to RealClearPolitics's polling average, is 1.5 points.
The poll surveyed 1,579 likely voters from September 9-15. It has a credibility interval of 3 percentage points.The Michelin Star Guide is without question the definitive bible of all things foodie. It has been cranking out yearly updates to its ever-expanding list of restaurant musts for over a century now, constantly on the prowl for the next great dish. This year however, the guide made a landmark entry with the inclusion of Singapore’s Hong Kong Soya Sauce Chicken Rice and Noodle, the first-ever street food hawker to get a star rating.
This unorthodox food milestone is documented in the above video created by Michelin Guide Singapore, which follows the chef responsible for the food-joint, Chan Hon Meng, on his journey from his tiny kitchen to the Michelin Guide Singapore Gala Dinner’s award ceremony. Meng has been involved with the food industry for his entire adult life, first getting into the family business at the age of 15. And after a life hawking street food, Meng may have been more surprised than anyone upon being approached by Michelin for such an honor.
Although it’s got the words “Hong Kong” in its name, the stall itself is actually located in Singapore. Find the address below and make sure to drop by should you find yourself in the Lion City.
Hong Kong Soya Sauce Chicken Rice and Noodle
Blk 335
Smith Street #02-166, Chinatown Food Complex
Singapore 050335
We’ve also done a little exploring of Hong Kong’s foodie scene on our own. Check out our visit to the multi-purpose restaurant Potato Head.
SubscribeCLOSE USA TODAY’s Yamiche Alcindor heads to one of Manhattan's most popular Scottish bars - St. Andrews - to see what patrons are saying about this historic vote.
Two young girls join the crowds outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh Thursday as Scotland voted on whether to remain part of the United Kingdom or become an independent country. (Photo11: Christopher Furlong Getty Images)
EDINBURGH, Scotland — Opponents of declaring Scotland's independence from the United Kingdom held a lead in incomplete returns.
Glasgow, Scotland's largest city, voted for independence by better than 53%. The oil city of Aberdeen, the nation's third largest city, voted decisively to stay with the U.K., 59-41%.
The other big city, Edinburgh, was yet to report.
With 23 of 32 districts reporting, the No vote was ahead with 54% of the vote.
The British pound was up slightly on news of the early results, as traders favored stability in keeping Great Britain united over the economic and political uncertainty that independence would bring.
Dundee was the first district to show support for independence, voting 57% in favor. In Clackman, where support for independence had been expected to be strong, the vote was 54% against independence. In Orkney, another smaller region, the No forces won decisively with 67%.
With Scotland's 307-year-old marriage with England hanging in the balance, polls showed a tight race between unionists and nationalists, who argue Scotland would be better off with a divorce.
A survey released late Thursday of people who said they voted found 54% against independence and 46% favoring severing ties with the United Kingdom. The survey by YouGov, an Internet-based market research firm, was of 1,800 people who said they voted at the polls, plus 800 who mailed in ballots.
Turnout was expected to be massive. More than 4.2 million people had registered to vote - 97 percent of those eligible - including residents as young as 16.
Those arguing for a continued union say Scotland would be better off economically and better protected militarily, while those for independence say traditionally left-leaning Scotland would benefit from breaking away from the conservative economic policies of the parliament in London.
On the streets of Scotland's capital city, supporters of both campaigns were knocking on doors, making calls and offering whatever assistance they could to get voters to the polls.
Outside a polling center just off of Edinburgh's Royal Mile — the cluster of cobbled and twisting streets that form the heart of the city's Old Town — visible signs of Yes voters (flags, lapel pins and balloons) far outnumbered campaigners brandishing ornaments indicating support for the no vote.
Conor Matchett, 19, a philosophy student at the University of Edinburgh, said he was both nervous and optimistic about the outcome after voting Yes.
"I want change. It's as simple as that," he said. "I believe a Yes vote is the only way to do that."
Matchett, originally from York, in Northern England, but granted a vote in Scotland's referendum on the grounds of his residency here, said he was voting to counter what he felt was the continuing politics of austerity from British politicians down south in Westminster.
"They are attacking the welfare state and many other things that people in Scotland hold really dear," he said.
Standing next to Matchett was Alex Luetchford, also 19, a Yes voter and a student at Edinburgh University.
"Scotland is ruled by a government it didn't vote for and that it doesn't want," Luetchford said. "Power needs to be spread closer to local people affected by it and that is what this referendum is about."
In Edinburgh, Aberdeen-raised Emma Hodcroft, a researcher studying the evolution of HIV, said she is voting No. One of her major concerns is the research money she receives from organizations south of the border.
"All of our money comes from London," she said. "Scotland gets more money than it puts in for research funding and that allows it to punch above its weight."
"The SNP has not answered this question of where this money will come from if we leave the U.K.," Hodcroft added.
Money, in general, is a big concern if Scots opt for independence, Hodcroft said.
"We have so many things that we would need to set up: new tax system, new passport system, new defense system, a new system for drivers' licenses — all these things that no one even thinks about and that we rely on every single day."
If Scotland breaks away from England, Wales and Northern Ireland, hundreds of international treaties including with the European Union and NATO may need to be renegotiated and there is likely to be major political fallout for Prime Minister David Cameron.
Late Wednesday, politicians on both sides of the vote issued their final pleas. At a rally in Perth, Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond described Scotland's referendum on independence as a "precious chance to leave our mark in the pages of history."
At a separate rally in Glasgow, former British prime minister Gordon Brown urged anti-independence voters and those still wavering in their allegiances to "say to your friends, for reasons of solidarity, sharing, pride in Scotland, the only answer is vote No."
In recent days Brown has come to play a central role in galvanizing support for the "Better Together" campaign that has struggled to match the levels of vibrancy and enthusiasm displayed by the Yes campaign.
"Scotland belongs to all of us," Brown said.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1s7NEXzWhat is with Motorola and the itchy Twitter fingers this week? On Wednesday, the gadget maker posted a release date for the Moto X Style, but then deleted it, along with a similar Google+ post. Today, we have another revealing tweet-and-delete.
This time around, it's for the second-generation Moto 360, which we've seen a couple leaks about over the last few months. We were surprised to see last month's reveal event with only the Moto X Style, Moto X Play, and Moto G (3rd Gen) - no revision of the company's stellar Android Wear smartwatch.
But it may still be on the horizon, as the tweet suggests. It contained a brief video showing a mockup of the watch, with the wearer using Android Wear's speak-to-search functionality to find a costume for a dog. The tweet wasn't meant as an announcement - it just seemed like any other promotional tweet that'd go up after everyone knew about the device. However, that announcement hasn't been made.I write a lot about how to learn things better. In doing so, I get a lot of emails from readers attempting to learn anything from biology to basketball. I also see a lot of common mistakes people make which make it harder to learn.
In this article I wanted to share some of the most common mistakes I’ve seen and how you can avoid them.
Mistake #1: Memorizing What Needs to be Understood
I die a little inside whenever I get an email asking how to memorize formulas for a math or physics class. Memory is important, and you do need to be able to remember formulas and facts for exams. But trying to memorize undermines your success in many subjects.
Consider the classic physics formula F = ma. As a student, you might see this formula on a sheet along with a dozen other similar looking strings of letters and numbers. At first glance, it might seem that the only way to learn it is to memorize.
In reality, F=ma is just the skin of a much deeper insight. Here the idea is about how objects move. You should be able to look at this formula and see immediately that a ten pound rock requires twice as much force as a five pound rock to get the same acceleration. You should be able to combine this formula with others—W=Fd to figure out how much energy it takes to get those rocks moving at 100 miles per hour.
The problem with memorizing these facts is that what you really need to learn are the connections between the facts and the deeper insights they represent. The added benefit is when you approach many subjects from this perspective, the need to memorize goes away. Formulas are automatically remembered because they’re the only logically consistent option with the mental framework you’ve created.
Mistake #2: Not Enough Practice
Going to class isn’t practice. Highlighting a textbook isn’t practice. Rereading notes isn’t practice. These activities may be useful, to a point, but your learning generally suffers when you spend most of your time on them instead of practicing.
Practice means trying to answer a question without looking at the answer first. It means performing a skill not just learning about it. It means getting feedback on whether your attempt was correct or not.
It’s almost impossible to practice too much, especially if the practice activity you’re using is highly similar to the conditions you want to perform in. For highly conceptual subjects like math or physics, I found spending at least 50% of my time on practice to be ideal. For less conceptual subjects, like languages, that number may be over 90%.
You can practice by self-testing even if you don’t have a lot of material. The next time you’re reading a book you want to remember deeply, write questions instead of statements in your notebook. For example, if your book explains the difference between breadth-first and depth-first searches, don’t jot down the differences, write a question such as “Which type of search is guaranteed to halt?”
Later, you can use this notebook to ask yourself questions about the subject matter. If you remember, great. If you don’t, go back to the page and check it again. Not only will this clue you in on the things you’re forgetting, but the act of rechecking a mistake imprints that fact more deeply into your head.
Mistake #3: Not Choosing the Right Environment
Making one big change is often easier than making many small ones. Your learning environment is often that big change that can have a dramatic impact on how much you learn for the same amount of effort and intelligence.
Consider learning a language. You could buy self-study courses, sign up for a university class and force yourself through endless grammar exercises. Or you could commit to immersing yourself for a certain amount of your time. I’m doing this right now by living abroad, but other learners have gotten similar results without leaving home.
Another example might be writing. You could read a ton of books on writing and type drafts in your spare time, or you could start a blog and start getting feedback on your writing immediately. If you’re a blogger looking to improve further, writing under an editor for another publication or for a book forces you to reach a higher level of quality than your readers insist on.
Sometimes the problem isn’t you, or the specific habits you’ve created, but your environment that’s purposefully impeding your success. Look for people who have growth much faster than you and ask yourself if they have a different environment which facilitates that speed.
Mistake #4: Being a Short-Term Perfectionist
Nobody wants to be found out. Nobody wants the people around them to realize that they are the only one who doesn’t understand the lecture, who can’t solve the problem on the blackboard or who speaks with an accent.
The solution many people take is to wait until they are ‘ready’. Wait until you’ve fully mastered something before trying to use it or get feedback on it. Unfortunately, with this attitude you’ll never be ‘ready’.
Fail early and fail often is a better motto. Make mistakes so you can learn why they are mistakes. Many misunderstandings are like landmines—hidden until you walk over them accidentally. Only by walking that terrain thoroughly can you expose them all. Your ego may be bruised a little, but the benefits exceed the cost.
Mistake #5: Not Being a Long-Term Perfectionist
Short-term perfectionism is bad. This is the kind of “wait until I’m ready” approach that keeps you from learning quickly.
Long-term perfectionism is good. This is the kind of perfectionism that doesn’t wait to attempt, but doesn’t settle on your current level being good enough. There’s always room for improvement, and the long-term perfectionist isn’t happy with adequacy.
Language learning perfectly demonstrates the contrast. On the one hand, you have short-term perfectionists who refuse to attempt a conversation, out of fear that they’ll make a mistake or look dumb. On the other hand, you have people who aren’t long-term perfectionists, who are happy saying an expression incorrectly repeatedly as long as the other person understands them.
The key to cultivating the good kind of perfectionism without the bad kind is to (a) never hold back but, (b) remember to learn something from every attempt.
Mistake #6: Learning Without Constraints
I frequently get emails from someone who says they want to “master programming” or “learn Chinese”. These aspirations are great, but most people will never do anything with them. It isn’t enough to want to learn something, you need to actually have a system for learning it.
The problem with most systems is that they try to do too much. Mastering programming, for example, isn’t an actionable goal. Picking out a specific Ruby course and learning it deeply over the next month is. You need to convert your learning aspirations into projects that make choices about what you plan to learn and what you won’t (or under what constraints you’ll follow).
Both my current language-learning experiment and the MIT Challenge benefited from this approach. With the MIT Challenge, I knew I wanted to learn more about computer science. There were many different approaches I could have taken, but I settled on working through MIT’s computer science curriculum. This had certain advantages, such as strong fundamentals in mathematics I might not have put the effort into learning otherwise (even though they are critical for advanced topics like artificial intelligence). But it also had disadvantages—web programming wasn’t a course I took, even though it’s a skill I’d still like to develop.
In my current language learning project, restricting the learning efforts to not speaking English also constrained the project. I could have easily put the constraint on taking a certain number of hours of classes, or preparing for a CEFR exam. Each would have then dictated somewhat different learning focuses.
Designing constraints is an important step that can take some research, especially if you plan on learning something for more than a few months. Interview other past learners and see what constraints (formal and informal) they used.
Mistake #7: Not Being Interested in What You Learn
Many people have convinced themselves that boringness is intrinsic to a subject. If you dislike accounting, math or French, it’s because those subjects are dull, and the best you can do is grind through those classes.
This is false. Subjects are interesting both for their natural appeal and how you choose to learn them. Meaning you can choose to learn something in an interesting way or in a boring way, irrespective of how inspiring your book or teacher is.
You can make a subject more interesting by deliberately connecting it to things you care about. Accounting may be boring, but perhaps your own money isn’t. Math may be boring, but the patterns in nature it describes are fascinating. Connections breathe life into subjects boxed into esoteric compartments.
The second way you can make a subject more interesting is to hunt for questions. Ask yourself why things are the way they are. Curiosity is the antidote to boredom, but if you don’t cultivate curiosity about a subject you can’t blame it later for being boring.
Not all topics will inspire you. Others you might hate for reasons completely aside from their inherent boredom. Even if you use this method, you’ll still like some subjects more than others. But that doesn’t negate the potential to make a class more interesting by making connections and developing a curiosity about it.
Making a subject more interesting also makes it easier to learn. Believing a subject is dull is a sure way to make it needlessly more difficult. Believing a subject has the potential to be interesting helps you avoid all of the previous mistakes I’ve written about above.German maker Ulrich Pech has spliced a Raspberry Pi into a vintage rotary phone so it will ring whenever one of his servers goes down.
To do this Pech used several services which check the servers connected to his Amazon Web Services Account. It’s explained in this diagram, but it all hinges on a CloudWatch alert which creates a Simple Notification Service message which the Raspberry Pi Zero W inside of the phone can pick up.
When it does, it sets off the phone. Picking up the handset will relay a machine-read text message explaining what the error is.
The software behind that process is a bit more complex than our explanation, so make sure you check out the full code on GitHub.
Looking back at the hardware and it’s also more complicated than it seems. Due to problems making the phone from 1983 ring properly, it was bypassed entirely and the original ringing mechanism was removed.
Instead the two bells inside are activated by solenoids bought off of Ebay, which are controlled by a circuit connected to the Pi Zero W.
That circuit diagram, links to the aforementioned code as well as more information on how this build was created is available on Hackster.io.The Apple Watch may suffer from a generation gap.
Social media conversations around the Apple Watch’s launch revealed that millennials — those age 18 to 34 — were far more excited about the HBO Now streaming service and the Apple TV price cut than the Apple Watch, according to an analysis of nearly one million tweets about the event.
“This is a generation that loves their TV but they don’t want to consume it in traditional ways,” said Ben Carlson, president of social media research company Fizziology that conducted the study. “I think the announcement by Apple really spoke to them — the lower price point on Apple TV, the near immediate availability of HBO Now.”
Fizziology used statistical sampling to measure the sentiment expressed in some 706,280 tweets immediately before, during and after Apple’s launch event in San Francisco.
The conversation revealed a generational split, with those age 35 and over twice as likely to discuss the Apple Watch than those under 35. Carlson said this may suggest that consumers in the 35-to-49-year-old range are more likely to be in the market for a potentially pricey timepiece — prices range from $349 to as much as $17,000 for the gold-bling Apple Watch Edition. Younger professionals and college students, alternatively, were looking for new ways to watch HBO shows like “Game of Thrones.”
About one out of six tweets were negative, Fizziology found, with many of these comments criticizing the price or expressing the desire not to associate with anyone who would wear a gadget that so conspicuously conveys wealth.
https://twitter.com/AnnaKendrick47/status/575019466804719617
More than a third of the Apple Watch Twitter posts reflected a strong positive reaction to Apple’s first foray into wearable devices, with people singling out specific features that appealed to them, such as the keyless entry into a hotel room, or simply indicating they were smitten.
Fizziology found almost universal positive reception to Apple’s news about the price of the Apple TV dropping to $69 from $99, and its introduction of the new, super-svelte MacBook.
Carlson notes that social media conversation around the iPad debut in 2010 generated more negative reaction than the Apple Watch, with Twitter commenters poking fun at the name (equating it with a feminine hygiene product) and questioning its usefulness. Of course, Apple has gone on to sell some 258 million tablets.Section 4. Readings The Ethical Considerations of Medical Experimentation on
Human Subjects
by Manny Bekier, M.S.
November 18, 2010
A critical examination of the ethics of medical experimentation on human subjects, focusing on the medical experiments conducted on human subjects by the doctors in Nazi Germany, as well as, in post-war U.S. may contribute to a greater effort to curb potential abuse. In this endeavor, it is necessary to understand the prevailing principles that guided the medical profession in Nazi Germany in pursuing their heinous actions.
Why is this so relevant today? After all, this happened in the past, and not even in the U.S., an aberrant culture created by a totalitarian regime over 65 years ago that no longer exists. Will such an examination help in confronting biomedical issues today?
In 2010 United States Secretary of State Hilary Clinton apologized for syphilis and gonorrhea experiments conducted on Guatemalans between 1946-1948 without their knowledge or permission. These experiments involved 696 subjects, male prisoners and female patients in the National Mental Health Hospital of Guatemala. What is especially shocking is the fact that 60 years later the public learned about these unethical experiments co-sponsored by the U.S. Public Health Service, the NIH, the Pan American Health Organization and the Guatemalan government: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/10/01-6. The fact that these experiments were considered, approved and initiated only a year after the trial of the Nazi doctors and their dreadful experiments on human subjects, makes this subject especially relevant.
Dr. Arthur Caplan, a noted medical ethicist stated at a biomedical ethic conference,” The whole discipline of biomedical ethics rises from the ashes of the Holocaust”. (Robert Leiter, Tainted Science, Jewish World, July 14-20,1989). When we examine these past events, do we have the right to sit in judgment and make moral pronouncements?
The relevance for today cannot be overstated. In looking over the many documents available today, we might want to consider first whether we can make the argument that we are in a position to make retrospective moral judgments. Can we retroactively sit in judgment of the doctors who performed medical experiments on prisoners in the concentration camps? These crimes were so enormous and so grossly immoral that they should not be so casually dismissed by citing some principle reflecting cultural ethical relativism (i.e. “you can’t judge people of that time, in that place, by our standards today”; - “there was a war going on and a suspension of normal rules are to be expected”). Can we simply state that since there was a war putting Germany in danger, extraordinary means were justified? Many people today might agree that extraordinary danger excuses extraordinary means to serve the common good. Despite the fact that such a belief totally rejects human rights, one is prevented from offering any judgment of these actions according to the principles of cultural ethical relativism. The position one takes on retrospective moral judgment has serious implications on what one should be doing today. If one cannot judge that human rights were seriously violated in Nazi Germany, one cannot argue that human rights are being violated today. If morality is to have any validity today, clearly the arguments of cultural ethical relativism should be totally rejected. Alan Buchanan states that there can be no moral progress unless we are able to apply the same moral yardstick to the past and the present. The passage of time does not affect the validity of moral judgment (Ronald Munson, Intervention and Reflection, p. 525). The fact that 65 years have passed does not diminish the evil manner in which the Nazi medical experiments were conducted. The American Nuremberg Military Tribunal judged some of the key doctors. (The Nuremberg Trials). Some may wonder what is one to gain by issuing judgments of culpability? Shouldn’t this energy be focused on the future? Shouldn’t efforts be made to ensure that these wrong doings do not occur again? As Allan Buchanan stated, it would be a serious mistake to assume the choice must be to either make judgments of culpability or to focus on future prevention. (Munson,
p.530).
The Nuremberg Code of 1947 came into being as a result of the heinous human experimentation performed by the Nazi doctors in the many concentration camps throughout the German Third Reich. The judgment by the war crimes tribunal, as a result of the “Doctors Trial” at Nuremberg, established 10 principles to guide physicians in all human experimentation: http://www.cirp.org/library/ethics/nuremberg/. Prior to the Nazi war crimes tribunal, there was no written international code for doctors. Lawyers defending the Nazi doctors pointed to events in the U.S., attempting to argue, for example, that similar wartime experiments were conducted with prisoners at the Illinois State Penitentiary, who allegedly, deliberately infected prisoners with malaria http://www.whale.to/a/cantwell9.html.
The experience of the Nazi medical experiments performed in the concentration camps has made it painfully aware that medical experiments on human beings need to conform to well-defined ethical standards and should supersede the justification that such experiments may yield results for the “greater good of society” that might not be obtained by other methods or means of study. The first principle of the Nuremberg Code clearly states, “The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential”. This is followed by an explicit clarification of all the associated requirements, making it extremely difficult for research principle investigators to twist it’s meaning: http://www.ushmm.org/research/doctors/Nuremberg_Code.htm
For an informed consent to be considered ethically valid, there must be full disclosure. This entails that the potential participant must be thoroughly informed as to the purpose of the research, the procedures to be used, the benefits to the participant, if any, and the potential risks and discomforts of participating in the research. Any deception jeopardizes the integrity of the informed consent process. There should also be assurances of confidentiality or anonymity of the participant. The participant's consent to participate in the research must also be voluntary and free of any coercion. It is vital that the participant understand what has been explained and be given the opportunity to ask questions. It is also necessary that the participant be competent to give consent. In the absence of competency, a legally approved advocate may provide consent. Participation in the research study should be authorized, preferably in writing. Everything should be clearly stated in an informed consent document, written in an easily understood format that avoids or explains technical terms, and whom to contact with further questions: http://depts.washington.edu/bioethx/topics/resrch.html#ques1. The principles established by the Nuremberg Code for medical practice were modified and somewhat weakened in less than a year by the Declaration of Geneva, by modifying consent from "absolutely essential” to "if at all possible." Now doctors were given the latitude to obtain consent “if at all possible” and research was allowed without consent where proxy consent was given (Article II.1) Over the years the regulation of medical research continued to evolve. The World Medical Association adopted the Declaration of Helsinki in June 1964. Since then it has undergone various revisions, the last one, sixth revision, in October 2008. No doubt there will be a further evolution of ethical guidelines as new issues in research develop:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Helsinki.
Looking at the medical experimentation performed on human beings under the Nazi regime, one will begin to understand why the effort was made to develop the Nuremberg Code, and the rationale for holding the participating doctors accountable for their actions. In reality the medical experiments conducted by the Nazi doctors were only a small part of the grand scale of systematic medical killing of the Third Reich. (Robert J. Lifton, The Nazi Doctors, New York: Basic Books, 1986, p. 269).
The Subjects
All records indicate that the subjects (prisoners) did not consent to any of the experiments. In many cases, experiments were performed by unqualified persons and under the most horrendous physical conditions. All of the experiments were conducted with no thought or precautions to the wellbeing of the subject from the possibilities of injury, disability, or death. In virtually all the experiments the subjects experienced extreme pain, resulting in permanent injury, mutilation, or death: http://www.ushmm.org/research/doctors/Nuremberg_Code.htm.
The Doctors
The Medical Case, the first of twelve Nuremberg proceedings, began on October 25, 1946. Twenty-three physicians, scientists, and other senior officials in the Nazi medical administration were put on trial. Seven of the accused were sentenced to death and executed; nine were given prison sentences; and seven were acquitted. Several major perpetrators were able to evade prosecution:
http://www.ushmm.org/research/library/bibliography/?lang=en&content=medical_experiments.
These twenty-three physicians hardly reflect the many medical participants conducting unethical medical experiments during the Third Reich. The majorities of the doctors were able to evade punishment and simply vanished, or, as in most cases, were reabsorbed into the medical community to continue their practice. The trial documents and evidence related to this case amount to approximately 2800 documents and 13,000 pages of material:
http://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/php/docs_swi.php?DI=1&text=medical.
The prosecuting attorney at the Nuremberg Trials, General Telford Taylor expressed it succinctly, “This policy of mass extermination could not have been so effectively carried out without the active participation of German medical scientists.”
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/nuremberg/doctoropen.html.
Who were these doctors, what influenced their thinking and how did they justify their actions in which they turned themselves from healers into murderers? When one considers Nazi medical experimentation, the name of Dr. Mengele is the name that most often comes up. Although he performed ghastly experiments on nearly 1,500 sets of imprisoned twins at Auschwitz and is considered by many, the most notorious of the Nazi doctors, he was hardly alone. He was not even the highest-ranking physician at Aushwitz (SS captain Dr. Eduard Wirths was the physician in charge at Auschwitz): http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007060. Dr. Mengele M.D., PhD was hardly the crazed mad scientist portrayed in the motion picture The Boys From Brazil.
The medical profession in Germany, until several decades ago, attempted to cover-up the role played by the Nazi doctors rather than trying to understand what had happened and how it was allowed to happen, and the subject has remained taboo.
Attempts were made in the post war years to characterize these doctors, as a lunatic fringe, on the fringe of the medical profession. We were presented with myths of incompetence, madness on the part of a few, and coercion. William Shirer (author of The Rise & Fall of the Third Reich) described the Nazi doctors as “irrational psychopathic butchers” on the fringes of professional medicine (W.L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Greenwich, Conn: Fawcett, 1962). In reality, these doctors were not madmen, nor insane and this is why it requires critical examination of the medical profession to understand their behavior. It would be irresponsible to simply caricaturize the Nazis doctors and scientists as mad, irrational or devoid of conscience. These doctors, many of whom, were the leading professionals in their fields, were highly regarded by their peers throughout the world. It was some of these internationally recognized doctors who were in the forefront of giving credibility to Nazi racist theories.
The Thinking
How does one explain the attraction to National Socialism? 45% of the physicians in Germany became members of the Nazi Party. This was the highest ratio of Nazi party membership of any profession. By 1942, more than 38,000 doctors joined Nazi Party (almost 50%). The attraction was the biomedical vision with its emphasis on biology, research support, as well as, career opportunities.
The Nazi biomedical vision included the belief that certain “races” are superior to others; that scientific management could solve social problems (preventing the propagation of the “unfit”); the conviction that mental illness justified compulsory sterilization, and the measure of individual worth be in economic terms (reduce the cost of the defective or non-productive population). The overall vision was a lofty one: to improve the genetic composition of their citizenry in hope of creating a society in which individuals would be economically useful. These beliefs reflected basic utilitarian moral principles.
The rationale of these utilitarian principles can best be illustrated by examining the text of a speech by Dr. Walter Groß, the head of the Nazi Party’s Office of Racial Policy (October 13, 1934). “A single mentally ill Negro of English citizenship lived for 16 years in an institution in Berlin, costing 26,000 Marks. 26,000 Marks were thrown away on a life that had no meaning. 26,000 Marks that could have been used to prepare a dozen strong, healthy, and gifted children for life and a job. We went so far as to put the sick and the dying before the young, strong, healthy and promising. That is against nature and life. A nation going this way is heading for the abyss.” http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/gross.htm. With these utilitarian principles, the Nazi government was able, through their T4 program, to euthanize (a euphemistic term meaning “good death”) at least 5,000 physically and mentally disabled German children. These children were categorized as “life unworthy of life” (one of many Nazi euphemisms justifying murder): http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005200. The Office of Racial Policy was also prepared to rebut any arguments postulating divine law or natural law. In the same speech Dr. Groß, delivered the Nazi perverted perspective of natural law,“It is true that we are subject to a higher power. We humans may never interfere with the great laws of the Creator. But you are wrong. See the laws the Creator has established for his world and your life. The great law is that life must be able to preserve itself, and that if it cannot, it will collapse. It is the hard, brutal law of the struggle for existence and of selection and extinction.” http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/gross.htm.
To gain insight into the ethical issues that prevailed, it is necessary to understand the evolutionary ethics |
them into a simple command to press one specific key once or a few times in a row without any rush to do so.The game's graphics are exactly like the television series, making you feel like you're playing one long interactive episode of the series.The same goes for the sound: the character's voice actors are the same people who voice the series, and the music and sound effects are typical South Park score.The biggest letdown and the reason for most of the negative reviews on Steam is the fact thatrequires Uplay, Ubisoft's DRM platform, to be installed on the computer in addition to Steam. But to be fair to Ubisoft, they've made Uplay a lot less intrusive over the years. And linking Uplay to Steam is finally actually possible, at least for this game. I installed and ran the game from my Steam library and I never even noticed Uplay being fired up. The first time I started the game, a message popped up advising me that Uplay was indeed running in the background and that I could collect points by completing certain tasks in the game, which I could then trade in for small rewards like wallpapers or in-game items (mostly cosmetic items), which was a nice optional feature that Uplay offered.Another thing I feel I should mention is that the PC version of the game is a pretty sloppy port. Especially the game's menu screens scream 'tailored to console'. There's always a large pointer present in addition to your mouse pointer. This can lead to unwanted actions taking place because when you click, the game sometimes registers the click for whatever button the console pointer is on, instead of registering it for the button you were pointing to with your mouse pointer. Also, in some inventory submenus, the scroll wheel doesn't work.When I finished the game, I'd had my South Park 'fix' and I felt no need for DLC that most people describe as very short and therefore expensive for what you get. Also, the DLC is generally described as average or decent at best, resulting in a'mixed' rating on Steam.has 11 Steam Trading Cards. You'll get 6 while running the game.Of the 35 Steam Achievements, 8 are story-related and unmissable. The remaining achievements are varied and overall fairly challenging. One achievement requires you to play the whole game as a black character and on 'hard' difficulty (but not thedifficulty mode!), so if you jump into the game before checking out the achievements, you may already have forfeited that one. Another achievement requires you to defeat an optional boss, which can be a very challenging fight on hard mode. The remainder are achievements that are awarded for completing optional tasks or sets of collectibles.Dozens of cyclists who have suffered broken bones and ligament damage after slipping on tram tracks are set to sue the council.
Up to 60 bikers left with breaks, sprains and fractures after accidents are being represented by Thompsons Solicitors, with the first test case due to be heard at the Court of Session by November.
Lawyers believe that the design of tram lines and warning signs amount to negligence by city transport authorities.
Individual payouts of up to £10,000 are possible if claims are successful, leading to a potential bill for the council of more than £500,000.
One cyclist has told the Evening News how he was nearly crushed by a bus when he came off his bike crossing tram tracks at Haymarket.
Another described how he had to have a metal plate inserted into his wrist on Christmas Eve after it was smashed in a fall on Princes Street.
Thompsons said a third escaped with a fractured foot after being run over by a bus following a tumble.
Stewart White, an associate dealing with accident claims at the law firm, said several new injuries were occurring every month, with two new clients making claims in the past week.
He said: “We’re hopeful that we will get a successful judgement. We’re confident of proceeding and that a successful judgement will pave the way for settling the remainder.
“The council have repudiated liability in every case. The position has been that the tram tracks are there to be seen, and that’s it. That’s simply not good enough.
“The bottom line is that they have removed cycling provision and they have replaced it with the tram system, which is essentially a railway through the city centre. What’s a cyclist supposed to do in that environment?
“Quite astonishingly, they have painted a bicycle between the tram tracks in the West End. That more or less guides cyclists between the tram tracks. They then can’t get to the acute angle they need to safely cross the line.”
Keen cyclist Duncan Wallace, 43, is considering lodging a claim after smashing his wrist in December, requiring surgery on Christmas Eve to insert a metal plate.
He said: “It was a wet day and my tram wheels slipped into the tram track. When that happens, you have no choice, your bike just collapses. As I fell, my wrist was jammed into the raised central reservation in the middle of Princes Street and was smashed really badly.”
Mr Wallace was taken to hospital by a taxi driver, who stopped traffic and also took the cyclist’s bike home.
Mr Wallace added: “I don’t think caution signs are good enough because I’m already cautious. I was going cautiously at five miles per hour.” Transport convener Councillor Lesley Hinds said the council could not comment on pending legal cases. But she added: “In terms of cycling, the council advises anyone cycling near to and around the tram tracks should take care while they get used to them, especially in wet weather conditions as the tracks will be slippery.
“Though the trams are now a familiar sight on the city’s streets after more than six months of service, this is no grounds for complacency, and we must continue to promote safety messages to the public, especially at this time of year when the nights are darker.”
‘I was almost crushed by bus’
David Steel, 55, says his head was nearly crushed when he fell off his bike while crossing tram tracks at Haymarket.
“I got my front wheel across the first tram track and the next thing I know, I’m lying on my back looking up at a bus which is just over the top of my head,” he said. “If it hadn’t stopped, I was crushed.
“My jacket was ruined and when I took it off there was blood all down my elbow. My trousers were ruined as well, and all the skin was taken off my hip. I didn’t feel well, so I sat down and started shaking uncontrollably.”
Mr Steel said the tram lines were a “death trap”.
BAD BREAKS
Between 50 and 60 cyclists are set to make claims against the council for negligence.
A third of them sustained fractures or breaks in falls, including three with broken collarbones and three with broken wrists.
One suffered broken toes after being run over by a bus. The rest sustained cuts and bruises, sprains or ligament damage.Image caption The teenagers sent the reel-to-reel tape to The Beatles on their tour in December 1963
Two women from Essex have received a reply from Sir Paul McCartney, half a century after trying to contact him.
Barbara Bezant and Lyn Jeffries recorded a message to the then Beatle in 1963 and sent a tape to the London theatre where the band was playing.
Decades later it turned up at a car boot sale and the women were reunited with the recording by The One Show.
Sir Paul wrote to them to thank them for their "lovely tape" and said "better late than never".
At the time of the recording, Barbara Bezant and Lyn Jeffries were 17 and 19 respectively and both lived in Eltham, south London.
They saw The Beatles at the Lewisham Odeon in December 1963 and recorded their message on a reel-to-reel tape recorder before posting it to the Finsbury Park Astoria, where the band were due to play.
Image caption Barbara Bezant and Lyn Jeffries were reunited in Liverpool to listen to the tape
'Live in hope'
Among other things, the message said: "This dream is just to come round the back and see you, but I don't suppose that'll ever happen.
"But we can always live in hope, can't we?"
The tape was bought at a car boot sale in Great Yarmouth by local historian David McDermott who listened to it.
He said: "It was like sitting in a bubble and being there when these two girls were making this tape.
"The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and it made me wonder if these two were still with us."
The One Show reunited the pair at The Beatles Story exhibition in Liverpool and presented them with the letter from Sir Paul.
Image caption Paul McCartney was a fresh-faced 21-year-old in 1963
'Amazed'
It read: "Hi Linda and Barbara, thanks very much for you lovely tape. It finally got through, better late than never.
"Great to hear that you found each other after all these years.
"Keep enjoying the music, love Paul."
The women had not seen each other for 40 years, although both were living in Essex - Barbara in Dovercourt and Lyn in Leigh on Sea.
They said they were "amazed" to be reunited and to finally get a reply from a Beatle.More than a dozen witnesses watched as Pasco police shot and killed a man Tuesday night near a crowded intersection by Fiesta Foods, a popular grocery store.
A cellphone video of the shooting posted to YouTube showed officers shooting the man outside Vinny’s Bakery and Cafe on Lewis Street as he ran away.
Police did not release the man’s identity Tuesday night. It’s unclear in the video if he was armed and police say they are unsure if a weapon was found at the scene.
Witnesses say the man picked up a rock and appeared like he wanted to fight officers who responded to a disturbance call about 5 p.m. near Fiesta Foods. One witness told the Herald the man threw a large rock at a passing vehicle shortly before police arrived.
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Police tried to shock him with a Taser, but it had little effect on him, said Ben Patrick, who was just yards away in the grocery store parking lot with his family when the shooting happened.
“The guy was trying to pull the Taser (prongs) out of his arm,” he said.
The man was carrying a rock and may have tried to throw it at police, witnesses said. The grainy video shows him coming at officers on 10th Avenue, then turning and running as police fired several shots. He crossed the intersection onto Lewis Street while three officers chased him.
The man ran about a half block down Lewis Street before officers fired several more shots. The exact moment when he is shot is blocked by a vehicle in the video, so it’s unclear if he turned around to face officers. They appeared to handcuff him as he lay on the pavement after he was shot.
Tuesday’s incident was the fourth fatal shooting involving a Tri-City police officer in Pasco in the last six months. Officers have been cleared of any wrongdoing in all three of the previous cases.
Patrick told the Herald police fired at the man as his back was turned and it looked like he was facing away from officers when he was killed.
“I really thought they were just going walk up and tackle or tase him,” he said. “But they opened fire. His back was turned.”
Patrick’s wife, Shannon, also saw the shooting. It was clear the man was running away from police when he was shot, she said. It happened in front of her young children.
“He turned around to take off running and the cops just shot him,” she said. “All he was trying to do was walk away.”
Another man, Carlos Sanchez, also witnessed the shooting from the grocery story parking lot. It looked like the man turned slightly after getting shot on Lewis Street, but that he was running away from officers when he was killed, he said.
“They started shooting and they kept on shooting him,” he said.
Police spokesman Capt. Ken Roske released few details after the shooting. He confirmed three officers were involved, though he declined to release their names or talk about who fired.
There was a confrontation in the intersection and the officers fired after the man refused to listen to their commands, Roske said.
“He (didn’t) comply with their commands as far as we know right now,” he said.
Other witnesses at the scene heard officers give the man orders to stop and drop the rock. They said the man refused to listen.
The investigation was immediately handed over the Tri-City Special Investigative Unit, a team led by a Kennewick police commander and made up of local law enforcement officials who look into fatal shootings involving police officers. All Pasco police were removed from the investigation.
The three officers involved in the shooting were taken to the police station and will be interviewed separately by investigators, Roske said. They will be placed on paid administrative leave, which is standard procedure when an officer is involved in a fatal shooting.
Police say there are several YouTube clips of the shooting and investigators will review them.
The special investigative unit looked into a total of four cases — three in Pasco and one in Kennewick — of deadly shootings involving police officers last year. The shootings occurred within months of each other and left Aaron T. Wright, 32, Rick R. Howard, 49, Brad D. Jensen, 34, and Matthew L. Stoddard, 25, dead.
The men were armed with guns, a knife or Airsoft guns in all of the cases.
The shooting Tuesday was the second in the neighborhood in less than a week.
Last Wednesday, Juan Carlos Melgoza, 42, was gunned down as he stood in the grocery store’s parking lot. Police are still searching for two suspects caught on camera at the scene.To small island nations where the land juts just above the rising seas, the U.S. pulling out of the Paris global warming pact makes the future seem as fragile and built on hope as a sand castle.
Top scientists say it was already likely that Earth's temperatures and the world's seas will keep rising to a point where some island states may not survive through the next 100 years.
That likelihood increases, they say, if the United States doesn't follow through on promised cuts in heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions.
A small uninhabited island that has slipped beneath the water line only showing a small pile of rocks at low tide on Majuro Atoll in the Marshall Islands. To small island nations where the land juts just above the rising seas, the U.S. pulling out of the Paris global warming pact makes the future seem as fragile and built on hope as a sand castle, experts say
President Donald Trump this month said he'd withdraw the United States from the climate deal, prompting leaders of vulnerable islands to talk about their future with a mixture of defiance, hope and resignation.
'If we really push into action, we can save some (small islands) but we may not be able save all of them,' said Hans-Otto Poertner, a German scientist who chairs the climate impacts study group for the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
'The chances are even less with the U.S. pulling out of the climate agreement in Paris.'
While calling Trump's announcement 'deeply disappointing,' Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine told The Associated Press
'I cannot give up on my people and my country and my culture. It's very important for us to be optimistic.'
THE MARSHALL ISLAND TESTS Between 1946 and 1958, the United States conducted 67 nuclear explosive tests at the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean. Now, researchers from Columbia University have tested the area for harmful radiation to determine that the islands can now be considered habitable – all but Bikini Atoll. Bikini Atoll was the site of twenty-three tests during the twelve year period, including the devastating detonation of a hydrogen bomb on March 1, 1954. Bikini Atoll was the site of twenty-three tests during the twelve year period, including the devastating detonation of a hydrogen bomb on March 1, 1954. At the time of the tests, inhabitants of the islands were moved to other locations. Though many of the displaced residents and their descendants wish to return to their homes, there have been no surveys of gamma radiation over the past several decades, leaving it unclear if the islands are safe to live upon. In new efforts to update this information, researchers flew to Marshall Islands and conducted gamma ray emission surveys on three of the most severely impacted atolls – Enewetak, Rongelap, and Bikini. An 11 megaton shot, partof Operation Castle, was fired from a barge near Bikini Atoll on March 26, 1954. Between 1946 and 1958, the United States conducted 67 nuclear explosive tests at the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean. They compared the findings with readings from Majuro Atoll, an island far enough away to be usefd as a control. This location showed 13 millirems of radiation per year (mrem/y). The readings were further compared with readings from Central Park in New York, which showed just 9 mrem/y. For both Enewetak Atoll and Rongelap, the researchers found readings that fall within the safe zone, with 7.6 mrem/y and 19.8 mrem/y, respectively. But for Bikini Atoll, the radiation was much higher; the atoll showed a reading of 184 mrem/y. Though not considered to be terribly dangerous, this is higher than the minimum accepted levels agreed upon by the U.S. and Marshall Islands governments.
Heine and other island leaders are putting their hope in strong pollution curbs by China, other nations, individual American states and cities, as well as improved technology.
While visiting Europe, she said 'it's all the more important that Europe takes the lead on climate change.'
Palau's environment minister F. Umiich Sengebau said he has no choice but to cling to hope.
'Right now some of the islands have disappeared,' he said. 'And so if we continue this trend our very existence as small islands could very well disappear in many instances.'
The U.S. State Department said it considers engagement with other counties on climate change important and it will continue, including with small island states. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said after Trump pulled out of the agreement that the U.S. has cut its carbon dioxide emissions 'dramatically' even before the Paris pact was reached.
When the Paris pact was being negotiated in 2015, small island nations successfully campaigned for a stricter but secondary target for limiting global heat-trapping emissions.
In 2009, world leaders adopted a goal to prevent 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming since the industrial era started, saying 2 degrees is a dangerous level of warming.
The islands' tougher goal would try to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial time.
A boat lies wrecked and stuck on a sea wall after it crashed into the back of Foreign Minister Tony de Brum's house on Majuro Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Top scientists say it was already likely that Earth's temperatures and the world's seas will keep rising to a point where some island states won't survive through the end of the next century.
The world has already warmed about 1 degree Celsius, so the islands are really trying to prevent another half degree of warming Celsius (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit).
When Trump announced he would pull the U.S. out of the Paris treaty, scientists said that made the 2 degree goal close to unachievable and the 1.5 degree goal even more out of reach.
Promised American pollution cuts were about one-fifth of the pledged global reductions hoped for in the accord.
And even if all the pact's pledges were fully realized, it wouldn't stop warming from hitting 2 degrees without even stricter actions in the future, according to computer simulations.
'We are pushing the 1.5 (as a goal) but realistically I think we have passed the point that it can be achieved,' said Kenrick Leslie, executive director of the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre.
Trump's Paris pull-out, he said, has 'thrown it right out the window.'
Small islands 'are the most vulnerable parts of the world,' said scientist Jim Skea of the Imperial College in London, who chairs another UN climate panel.
Exceeding 1.5 degrees'really makes the vulnerability threat for them more acute. It's kind of existential.'
Scientists and carbon emissions computer modelers at Climate Analytics helped the small islands in their campaign called '1.5 to stay alive', and they say it is still possible, though unlikely, to limit the warming to that much.
A large pile of rubbish made up of wrecked cars, washing machines and old fridges are stacked high to form a make-shift sea wall on Majuro Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
That scenario involves overshooting the 1.5 degree goal and then eventually allowing no new carbon dioxide emissions into the air.
But even that isn't enough so the world would have to somehow pull huge amounts of carbon dioxide out of the air, which is technically feasible but not practical at the moment, said Climate Analytics scientific adviser Carl-Friedrich Schleussner.
Recent studies have shown that the sea level rise in the past decade or so has accelerated compared to previous decades, said University of Colorado sea level expert Steve Nerem. He estimates a meter of sea level rise by the end of this century and emphasizes it could be worse with ice sheet melts in Greenland and Antarctica.
'Anything over a meter (a yard) is catastrophic for these small islands,' Nerem said.
And the islands don't have to be underwater to become uninhabitable, he said, because sea level rise will make them more vulnerable to high tides and extreme storms.
Hilda Heine, President of Marshall Islands, speaks during the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters.
Warming over 1.5 degrees also is likely to be devastating for coral reefs - which many of these small islands rely on for their fishing and tourism economies, Schleussner said.
Between rising seas that could swamp population centers and infrastructure like airports and seaports all over the Caribbean, the damage to reefs and fishing with increased warming will hurt Caribbean people in the pocketbooks and in their stomachs, several Caribbean climate officials said.
Ahmed Sareer, the Maldives ambassador to the United Nations and chairman of the Alliance of Small Island States, said the 1.5 goal is harder to achieve without the United States but not yet impossible.
'The island spirit is to never give up,' Sareer said.
'We are always a resilient people.'Last week Ubisoft’s Steep opened the slopes of its majestic mountains to extreme winter sports fans around the world. We’ve spent a bit of time with the game, and we have much to discuss.
While I’ve currently reached level 17 (of 25) to Stephen Totilo’s 7 or 8, both of us played Steep in both beta and release, enough to get a feel for what we loved, what we didn’t love and a couple of things that make us scratch our heads.
Mike Fahey: If it feels like it’s been ages since we’ve gotten a big budget winter sports sim, that’s only because it has been. Ubisoft, maker of fine open world action adventure games, fills that gaping void with Steep, an open world skiing, snowboarding, paragliding and wingsuit sim. Stephen Totilo and I have spent a bit of time on the virtual slopes, and now we’re sitting in front of a virtual fireplace, discussing the experience.
Stephen Totilo: What is this rug made out of, Mike?
Fahey: The hopes of SSX fans.
Stephen: Ooof. Does this mean you’re not a Steep fan?
Fahey: Oh no, I’ve been enjoying the game. I’ve just had a lot of people asking me how it holds up to more outrageous snowboarding games of the past like SSX and the Coolboarders series. It’s not that kind of party.
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Stephen: Nope. Not really. And when it tries to be goofy, I think it mostly fails. There’s a mission involving having to snowboard through evil snowmen. And there’s something about a singing tree.
Oh, and when they try to be serious, I guess that’s not so great either. There was a “mountain story” where I had to follow a computer-controlled snowboarder while the mountain told me a bunch of new age stuff. Like, someone actually voice-acts the mountain. It was nonsense.
But the actual snowboarding and skiing feels quite nice!
Fahey:
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Stephen: Hmm. Questionable.
Fahey: I’ve progressed a bit farther than you have, so I’ve unlocked the special snow Rabbids stage. Very questionable.
Stephen: (That said, if there WAS an in-game ski lodge and if it did have rugs and those rugs were made from pelts you collected in Far Cry Primal, that’d be cool.)
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Fahey: The “mountain story” thing is very odd. Each mountain has a distinct voice, and I don’t mean feel or character. It has a voice, and it talks to you. I’ve played through a couple where you’re trekking through the snow while voices talk about how they thought they were dead and never got to say goodbye to their family. Cheery!
Stephen: Are we in agreement, though, that the skiing and snowboarding feels good? It’s a pretty difficult game, but it seems like a fair one.
Fahey: The skiing and snowboarding are pretty exceptional. The sense of speed and relative friction is exquisite. They certainly feel good enough to keep me wandering around the various mountains for hours on end with no real goal in mind.
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I was playing last night, and I kept going back to this one point on top of a mountain. I think it was this one here:
Stephen: Very pretty!
Fahey: Obnoxious event signs aside, after my fourth or fifth run down the mountain I realized the moment I liked the best was standing at the start, taking in all the possibilities.
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Stephen: Yeah, so I tend to like open-world games. Ubisoft almost exclusively makes open-world games. And I was intrigued by how they’d do open-world extreme winter sports. There’s good and bad in the execution.
On the good side: the world is vast and full of things to do; it all loads really fast so you can zoom out and then get to a new spot on the mountains in the snap of your fingers; and carving through the snow feels great.
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Stephen: On the bad side: the wingsuit should be fun but I find it too unforgiving, and the paragliding is boring; they’ve also loaded the game up with licensed gear and jokey costumes but the normal Ubisoft open-world feedback loop of doing missions and unlocking stuff feels broken when (correct me if I’m wrong) every item you unlock is cosmetic.
On the I’m-not-sure-about-it-yet side: They offer a very forgiving restart system that draws a dotted line down the path you take and then lets you restart on any of those dots, but I would prefer the Forza series’ rewind feature. I’m guessing they don’t have that here because they have made the game co-op in a way I don’t yet understand or appreciate and can’t have you traveling back in time while another player might be standing next to you.
Fahey: In terms of difficulty, it all depends on the type of event. I tend to do really well in freestyle snowboarding and skiing, where the players has to score trick points to win. I have a much harder time with timed races, as the various mountain surfaces are far too appealing to limit myself to a single line. The wingsuit is very unforgiving, and most times I can barely make it to the finish line in time to pull my chute, let alone complete whatever objective I’m given. I have actively fallen asleep while paragliding.
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The whole vast open world thing is wonderful, though I find myself drawn to clean spots that aren’t littered with scored events, rather than trying to go for bronze, gold or silver medals. That’s probably why my stats are like they are.
Fahey: I do a lot of exploring.
Totilo: Oh yeah! I was going for green, too. But... Mike, am I playing the game wrong in that I often find that I have to go uphill? And then am faced with the fact that walking uphill in Steep is about as fun as watching a loading screen?
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I want a grappling hook or something. Maybe a hookshot? Or a jetpack perhaps?
Fahey: I would kill every random person wandering the map with me for a grappling hook. It seems like going uphill is a thing in Steep, which makes sense as steep works both ways. Some of the exploration-centric “mountain stories” made it seem like there was no other way to get things done than spend some time going uphill. Later I discovered that a better way to gain height is catching air currents with the parasail, but you have to stay awake for that to work.
I have no idea how co-op works either. And that was a big focus of the game when it was initially presented. Join together with your friends on a snowy sports adventure! I get the press (whichever button) to ride together prompt when another player is nearby, but I see no clear benefit to doing so.
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Hold on a second, getting thirsty.
Fahey: Ahhh, that’s better.
Stephen: Ha ha. There’s some subtle branding in this game!
Mike, if we were smarter, we’d have done some co-op already. Maybe even done this VG-chat while playing co-op. Interesting idea there that maybe the way to go up is to paraglide up hot-air drifts, but they sure don’t teach you that. So, yeah, some of the exploration-based mountain stories sure seem like they were designed to force you to sloooooowly climb remote parts of the mountains. That doesn’t make sense.
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Now, about the wingsuit... I think you need to push the stick up a lot, yeah? That’s the trick? My guy is always crashing. And speaking of my guy... do you have any idea why there are so many pre-set characters? Are we playing as famous winter sports athletes who I’ve never heard of? (edited)
Fahey: Let’s see, I am playing as Kelly Walsh. Google says... I do not think that is a real person. Let’s try another. Jean-Luc Cassel. That’s got to be a real guy. No. Doesn’t seem to be... wait, there is a Backgammon champion named Jean-Luc Cassel. Probably not him.
Stephen: They’re just some pre-set nobodies? Weird.
Fahey: I really do not know why we have these premade characters. Why not allow for character creation, if we’re going generic and no one has stats that make choosing one over another worthwhile.
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At the end of the day they’re all wearing the same bunny suit.
Stephen: What if the pre-sets were all Ubi characters? You could be Ezio and I could be Aiden Pearce!
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Fahey: Or the Far Cry caveman! As fun as that would be, I suppose that would make this less Steep and more Ubisoft All-Stars Snow Sports Festival.
To tell the truth, I do get kind of a Far Cry vibe from this, the latter bits, when you’re wandering about freeing forts or whatever.
Stephen: Man, I wish!
There is that binoculars thing where you can expose/defog parts of the mountains to discover new challenges.
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Fahey: Right, and at level 15 you unlock the shotgun (no you do not).
Stephen: I notice, by the way, that even though you’re about 10 levels above me, you have no equipment attached. No flashlight. No avalanche shovel. Probably because, like many of the items in Steep, they don’t seem to matter.
Fahey: Funny, I was actually just in the game equipping those, and no, they really don’t seem to do much. There have been night rides where the flashlight seems to equip itself automatically, but equipping them manually doesn’t give me access to new abilities. How strange.
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It does feel a bit like the developers had other things in mind that didn’t quite make it in to the final game.
Stephen: Right, and I’m wondering if we should really hold it against them. There’s something refreshing about a game that, I guess like most sports games, gives you all your abilities at once, doesn’t hide new features behind countless unlocks and just lets you go anywhere you want and play. I know they do lock off some stuff, like hot air-balloons, for example, but this is a much more free game than you usually get from Ubisoft.
I just think that the game needs a bit more life to it, that what you do in it should feel a little more dynamic and a little less prone to suddenly getting really boring. But, hey, what do I know? Maybe people like trudging uphill in the snow. Here’s a person who paraglided for 37 minutes! ( Different strokes...
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Fahey: Smart money says he napped through half of that.
Stephen: Different slopes for different folks, Mike!
Fahey: I don’t hold hold it against them. I like to imagine they were dutifully adding things, stopped at some point to see what they’d created, realized they’d already given us enough and called it a day. Which character I am playing and whether her ice axe is functional is the furthest thing from my mind while I am playing Steep. It’s a pretty outstanding (and safe) way to get lost in the snow for hours on end.
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Steep is now available on PC, PS4 and Xbox One.There is a new buzz in the air with Harry Potter fans in a state of ecstasy right now after hearing confirmation that there will be a new Harry Potter book called Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Part 1 and 2.
For those that currently have an Amazon Kindle or similar eBook apps on iOS or Android, we are now very happy to confirm the new Harry Potter book 8 release date as July 31, 2016.
More importantly, the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child story will be set 19 years after the events of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows where Harry defeated Voldemort and waved goodbye to his children departing for Hogwarts.
JK Rowling has also confirmed that in Harry Potter Book 8, Harry will be an employee of the Ministry of Magic which is an interesting twist given the events seen in the original books and movies.
The July 31 release date relates to both eBook versions digitally and also print copies as well, so it’s great that both will be available simultaneously on the likes of iTunes, Amazon and other digital stores.
Now that you know when Harry Potter Book 8 is coming out, it also poses a great discussion point on the question of if there will be a Harry Potter and the Cursed Child video game.
We know that millions of fans would love to see a LEGO Harry Potter and the Cursed Child game from Traveller’s Tales – would you buy this instantly if it came out on PS4, Wii U and Xbox One?
Let us know your thoughts on the book below, by using our comment section to discuss possible story plots and how you think the new events will unfold, 19 years after the Deathly Hallows.All Blacks coach Steve Hansen has defended Owen Franks, saying SANZAAR made the right decision not to suspend him for an alleged eye-gouge on Australia's Kane Douglas during Saturday night's Bledisloe Cup match.
New video of the incident emerged late on Sunday that shows Franks clearly making contact with Douglas' eyes, but SANZAAR deemed there were no incidents from the match that reached a red card threshold. Franks will be free to play for the remainder of the All Blacks' Rugby Championship campaign.
It comes after Wallabies coach Michael Cheika accused Franks of deliberately eye-gouging Douglas during a maul in the seventh minute of his side's 29-9 loss in Wellington.
World Rugby laws state that a player cannot make "contact with the eye area", while two different angles suggest Franks touched Douglas's eyes on one occasion, then grabs him around the neck seconds later."Ratatouille" as the story of a homosexual coming out? I think I get it, sort of. I know the subtext of "The Wizard of Oz," and like Dorothy, Remy -- the cuisinier-protagonist of "Ratatouille" -- is a misunderstood adolescent who embarks on a journey of self-discovery....
Laure Murat of the UCLA Department of French and Francophone Studies takes the exploration of this topic much further in her lecture Thursday, in which she delves into Remy's embodiment of "the lonely gay, both refined and the object of disgust, excluded and successful" and the animated movie as "the story of the Oedipus conflict, mixed with issues of race and species.... If 'anyone can cook,' any queer guy has a role to play in this world -- at least in Paris."
"Queering Ratatouille: A Rat Reclaiming French Cuisine" at Royce Hall, Room 236, UCLA campus, Thursday at 4:30 p.m.
-- Betty Hallock
Photo: Pixar/DisneyRemember all the collisions during the first snowfall last winter? How about the year before that?
Maybe your memory fails you, but there were lots.
It's the same story this year.
More than 130 collisions were reported to Edmonton police between 6 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. Wednesday as Edmonton motorists navigated their first winter commute.
More than 130 collisions were reported to Edmonton police Wednesday between 6 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. (CBC / Trevor Wilson)
Rick Lang, with the Alberta Motor Association, can't cite any studies but believes the spike in collisions is proof that we forget how to drive in the winter, even if we do it every year.
"I haven't seen any empirical studies on it anywhere around North America It is just a whole lot of observations from anywhere that there is winter in North America," Lang said. "It happens all over."
'People certainly forgot how to drive'
Wednesday in Edmonton was a perfect example, Lang said.
"It took me twice the amount of time to get to work as it normally does, and we had what, just a couple of centimetres of snow with a little bit of rain falling in between," he said.
"People certainly forgot how to drive. Lots of vehicles in the ditch, fender benders here and there, so it proves the point that if you don't use it you lose it and six months later we lose it and we have to relearn how to drive in winter time all over again."
Another casualty during Wednesday's commute. (CBC / Trevor Wilson)
Lang thinks the key is to be prepared |
laying that criminal charge into even more serious charges.
The distinction between civil and criminal is important because New Zealand won't extradite someone if the case is really just about civil copyright infringement. The U.S. government must prove criminal copyright infringement as a basis for the racketeering, money laundering and wire fraud charges.
The headaches for the U.S. began when authorities filed the wrong paperwork for the raid warrant, leading a judge to order in March that Dotcom's cash, cars and property were seized using a invalid court order that was "null and void" and had "no legal effect." Then Dotcom claimed that key pieces of evidence against him are actually files he legally owned, indicating that the prosecution's case has some serious weaknesses.
After that the police mysteriously lost the video of the raid after reportedly agreeing to let Megaupload's IT expert download a copy of security camera footage stored on Dotcom's personal file server. The server was seized by police during the raid even though it was not among the evidence they claimed to be pursuing, and they subsequently disassembled it for some reason.
It was also reported that federal investigators somehow gained access to the five years worth of online conversations between Dotcom and his colleagues. Since Skype— where many of the conversations took place — doesn't maintain records for more than 30 days and was never asked by the government to turn over transcripts, it has been speculated that the government used spyware to obtain the files.
The U.S. has also argued that going through a discovery process to share evidence with Dotcom and his lawyers would be too difficult because there is so much evidence and it's in electronic format, which the judge shot down immediately.
Basically — what a mess.WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Forty-seven Republican U.S. senators warned Iran’s leaders on Monday that any nuclear deal with President Barack Obama could last only as long as he remains in office, an unusual partisan intervention in foreign policy that could undermine delicate international talks with Tehran.
U.S. President Barack Obama speaks about Iran during his meeting with Secretary of Defense Ash Carter in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington March 3, 2015. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
The open letter was signed by all but seven of the Republicans in the Senate and none of Obama’s fellow Democrats, who called it a “stunt.” Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif dismissed it as a “propaganda ploy” from pressure groups he called afraid of diplomatic agreement.
In the letter, the senators said Congress plays a role in ratifying international agreements. Noting Obama will leave office in January 2017, they said any deal not approved by Congress would be merely “an executive agreement” that could be revoked by Congress.
The White House said the letter was a partisan effort to undermine Obama’s foreign policy by lawmakers who oppose a deal even if the only alternative is military action.
Obama said his focus now was on seeing if negotiators could get a deal or not, taking a jab at Senate Republicans for allying themselves with Iranian hardliners opposed to a deal.
“I think it’s somewhat ironic to see some members of Congress wanting to make common cause with the hardliners in Iran. It’s an unusual coalition,” Obama told reporters.
A Western diplomat said the action was “without precedent.” “It’s 100 percent an American issue, but obviously it could become a real problem,” the diplomat said.
Iran’s Zarif blasted the Republicans. “I wish to enlighten the authors that if the next administration revokes any agreement ‘with the stroke of a pen’... it will have simply committed a blatant violation of international law,” he said in a statement.
DEMOCRATS NEEDED TO PASS LEGISLATION
The letter seemed to harden partisan lines in the Senate, where Republicans will need Democrats’ support to pass legislation now in the works to tighten sanctions on Iran or require congressional approval of a deal.
“Republicans are undermining our commander in chief while empowering the ayatollahs,” said Democratic Minority Leader Harry Reid.
The letter, first reported by Bloomberg, was the latest Republican effort to influence the Iran talks. Many Republicans worry Obama is so eager for a deal he will sign off on an agreement leaving Iran able to easily make a nuclear weapon.
Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Congress Obama was negotiating a “bad deal” after Republicans invited him to speak about Iran, without consulting the White House or Democrats.
World powers and Tehran are trying to reach a framework agreement this month, and a final deal by June, to curb Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for easing sanctions. Iran denies its civil nuclear program is a cover for developing weapons.
Secretary of State John Kerry will travel to Switzerland on March 15 for the next round of talks.
The letter was spearheaded by first-term Senator Tom Cotton, who has called for “regime change” in Iran, not negotiations. Signers included all of the Senate’s Republican leaders, and possible 2016 presidential contenders Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul.
A spokeswoman for Cotton said his office had invited several Democrats to co-sign but none had done so.
One Senate Republican who did not sign was Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker. An aide said Corker is focused on getting a veto-proof majority to support his legislation, backed by both Republicans and Democrats, that would require Congress’ authorization of an Iran deal.HITC Sport understands Wigan are set to land Cardiff striker.
Adam Le Fondre during his loan spell at Wolves
Wigan Athletic have agreed a deal to sign Cardiff City striker Adam Le Fondre on loan, HITC Sport understands from sources close to the club.
Le Fondre has been frozen out of things at Cardiff this summer spending most of pre-season playing and training with the development squad with the club willing to let him move on.
Cardiff City manager Paul Trollope
The 29-year-old was a surprise inclusion on the bench for the recent defeat to Reading, but he does not figure in Paul Trollope's plans going forward.
Middlesbrough's Tomas Mejias in action against Wolverhampton Wanderers Adam le Fondre
Le Fondre spent last season out on loan at Wolverhampton Wanderers and he scored three goals in 26 appearances for the Molineux outfit.
The former Reading and Rotherham striker has struggled to make an impact at Cardiff since joining the club in the summer of 2014, making just 21 appearances for the Welsh club.
Cardiff are willing to let Le Fondre leave before the close of the transfer as they pursue a move for Norwich City striker Kyle Lafferty.
Wigan Athletic manager Gary Caldwell
SEE ALSO: Birmingham to land Premier League striker
Wigan are long-term admirers of Le Fondre and they have been monitoring his situation at Cardiff throughout the summer transfer window.
Wigan boss Gary Caldwell believes Le Fondre could prove to be a valuable addition to his plans with his experience and his know-how in front of goal.Joint U.S. and Israeli operations rounded up four individuals in Israel and Florida on Monday in seemingly unconnected arrests. The details, however, could possibly reveal a high-technology criminal ring operating a complex securities fraud scheme in Florida, Tel Aviv and Moscow. The arrests are widely seen to be linked with the massive data breach involving JPMorgan and other financial institutions that ocurred in 2014, which compromised 83 million household and small business accounts, Reuters reported.
Israeli police arrested Gery Shalon and Ziv Orenstein in Tel Aviv after they were indicted over a pump-and-dump scheme, a stock manipulation tactic based on the release and manipulation of stock information. Joshua Samuel Aaron, an American citizen, is the third member of the group and he remains at large, Bloomberg learned. Officials say that the three individuals are behind a multi-million stock fraud that manipulated shares in publicly traded stocks through deceptive email campaigns and prearranged stock trading, according to USA Today. They are in the process of being extradited to the U.S.
The arrest in Palm Beach, Fla. was carried out by the FBI and involved Anthony Murgio and Yuri Lebedev for their unlicensed bitcoin exchange, Coin.mx.
Authorities are still unable to collect enough evidence to arrest the culprits responsible for the JPMorgan breach, according to the New York Times. However, their investigation has led to the other activities of the suspected hackers, namely, the stock manipulation scheme and the unlicensed bitcoin exchange. Officials seem to expect that the arrests can provide new information and even cooperation from arrested individuals so that charges for the JPMorgan hacking can finally be filed. Authorities still refuse to comment on the recent arrests. Available information, however, has so far failed to link the arrested individuals with each other or how their activities are tied to the JPMorgan incident.And I bet you've never heard of SysAdmin Appreciation Day! Here's why we deserve it:
We keep your Facebook/Netlog/Twitter running, 24/7
We'll make sure you can receive e-mail, 24/7
We will protect your e-shop, 24/7
We'll tweak servers for maximum performance, 24/7
We'll protect your other servers with firewalls, 24/7
We'll make sure you can call using Voice-over-IP, 24/7
We'll make sure you can call, period. (Yes, this runs on actual servers too, not just over the air -- 24/7)
We'll keep businesses going by providing seemless IT integration, 24/7
We'll work on holidays, nightshifts, peak hours,... Heck, we're even on standby while having sex. 24/7
We'll protect your private, sensitive information you so freely enter into webforms, 24/7
We'll hack into our own systems, to detect security leapholes before anyone else will, 24/7
We'll encrypt your data on e-payment, 24/7
We'll work 24hour-straight shifts, surviving on a mere combination of Coffee, M&Ms and Coca Cola, 24/7
Just imagine the power we have. Fear us. Because, all your base are belong to us.
Feel free to add to the list in the comments!
*Edit 2009: it was a good one in 2009, with lots of pretty cakes!
*Edit 2010: again, we were treated with a nice one!It’s 1995. The world looks a little different after the failed assassination of JFK. In a bid to open-source all US and Soviet space patents, the Space Race booms into a new era of long-haul interplanetary travel—spearheaded of course by a friendly mega corporation; RAMA Industries. Something’s happened to one of RAMA’s experimental bases on Titan, and it’s your job to find out.
Advisory: Pollen is currently in VR beta. The official VR release is coming to HTC Vive and the Oculus Store in the coming months. For this reason we chose to omit any form of scoring.
Pollen, a first-person exploration game from Mindfield, puts you in the space boots of a new recruit assigned with the task of reestablishing connection with a deep space research facility, an outpost on Saturn’s largest moon Titan. Borrowing heavily from classic names in sci-fi history like Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, Pollen weaves a story through the audio tapes and personal relics of a crew gone missing. Much like breakout success Gone Home (2013), Pollen makes you paw through these relics to uncover the story bit by bit.
The game’s retro-future aesthetic is positively gripping, and features everything from punch cards to typewriters in a setting that looks straight out of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). And there’s a treasure trove of items between you and your quest to discover what the infamous ‘Entity’ is, what it did with the crew, and why it leaves behind a rip in reality—one that you regularly travel through.
Traversing through the rip in space reveals an alternate universe where the station is in shambles—something you’ll have to discover for yourself—but the opportunities here are many. Like Gone Home, the game lies in inspecting everything that looks important, thankfully highlighted so you don’t miss the most obvious ones (purists can turn off the function entirely). With an alternate universe at your fingertips—activated by finding key items—you’ll be able to illuminate the entire mystery by listening to every tape and unceremoniously ransacking every corner of the station, from an ominous-looking research lab to the intimate quarters of the lost crew. While not every clue forwards the narrative specifically, you’d be surprised at how much depth you can wrench out of the game from looking at family pictures, and hearing the internal personal struggles of a crew slowly succumbing to whatever it is ‘The Entity’ has done to them. As they say, the devil is in the details.
Memos, clipboards, audio cassettes, and key cards litter the whole facility, and all of them are just begging to be picked up by hand and examined naturally. There are moments when picking up items is pretty janky, and fumbling a tape, or accidentally throwing an important paper across the room was an occasional occurrence. Because you’re in a VR headset, you target items with your gaze-reticle and then pull the right trigger on your Xbox controller—something that will be better served with “hand controls” (presumably Touch) when Pollen officially releases on the Oculus Store in the next few months.
The narrative itself is definitely treading in homage territory, as seasoned students of hard science fiction will likely be able to pick out concepts from fan favorites like Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama (1973), Stanley Kubrick’s film depiction of Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, or the more recent films Contact (1997) and Moon (2013). This is accomplished in a lovingly obvious way (RAMA Industries) that makes you feel like you’re walking into familiar territory, but without the staleness of repeated tropes. That said, I really enjoyed the 2+ hours the game had to offer, although I do prefer longer gameplay experiences personally.
See Also: Review: ‘Technolust’ is a Gritty Cyberpunk Adventure That Leaves You Begging For More
Immersion & Comfort
There are some pain points, some of which you can minimize with the games extensive settings menu, and others that you’ll just have to deal with. Pollen can be very pretty on medium and high settings, but if you’re dealing with Oculus’ recommended specs (GTX 970 or AMD 290), you may need to crank down on a few things to get an optimal result—at least until the performance optimizations come in with the official VR launch. Going ‘bare bones’ on the presets and dialing down the render quality can leave you with a flat-looking grainy mess, so you’ll need to periodically pause the game to figure out what mix you need to hit a constant frame rate.
Comfort wise, Pollen offers the standard ‘snap-turn’ VR comfort mode, but with variable angles so you can customize your experience. You can thankfully decouple head and body movement, and walking/running speeds aren’t outside of the norm—making for a more natural playing experience. Since the game isn’t built from the ground-up for virtual reality, there are a few level design issues that might irk a user susceptible to simulator sickness. Stairs are everywhere, which can really lurch your stomach if you aren’t careful—and jumping is sometimes required, which also fits in the no-no list of first-person VR movement.
Natural input devices and room-scale gameplay could significantly increase the presence felt in Pollen, although it already benefits from rock solid game play and a story that will keep you guessing.
We’re hoping the official release of the game’s VR function, which will accompany ‘hand control’ support (presumably Touch), HTC Vive support, performance and UI fixes will do this title more justice. You can download Pollen (Oculus only) on Steam right now.During the DreamHack Winter weekend, Counter Strike: Global Offensive has set new records in every aspect of the game, from having over 145,000 viewers to seeing over 93 thousand concurrent players in-game.
The dust is settling from the biggest tournament in Counter Strike history, and it's worth looking back at a few records the tournament has set.
We saw record number of concurrent in-game players broken a few times in November before the big event, but now coupled with the Steam Autumn sale that brought up to 75% discount to CS:GO's price, as well as community-funded DH Winter that gave the game extra attention, the number skyrocketed to 93,905 on Saturday.
Not only that, but it kept going for the past two days, seeing a peak of over 90 thousand players both on Sunday, and today.
The amount of viewers also outmatched all previous numbers by far, as we saw Saturday attract a record-breaking 145,294 spectators during the third map of the final. That number included people watching through the official GOTV and through all Twitch.tv streams connected to that GOTV.
Saturday's matches set new viewership records in CS:GO
Mostly responsible for the big surge in numbers was obviously Valve's involvement, as they firstly put up the $250,000 prize purse, and then helped run the tournament and made it easily accessible for viewing in-game.
Future plans of the Seattle-based company are unknown, but with their hands-on approach for CS:GO's biggest event so far producing great results, it is fair to assume this won't be the last and only time that happens.1 of 1 2 of 1
Last night (June 6), Canadian Journalists for Free Expression hosted discussion with Gordon McBean at an event titled “Science in Peril: threats to free expression are threats to free science”.
McBean is a highly distinguished climatologist currently holding the position of chairman of the board of trustees of the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, among other responsibilities. He served as assistant deputy minister of Environment Canada in the 1990s.
Anna Maria Tremonti, CJFE board member and co-host of CBC Radio’s The Current, led the talk, explaining it would cover “cutbacks in government research and programs” and “the increasing inability of government scientists or scientists receiving government grants to speak to journalists, and by extension, to the public.”
“We are here to focus on and to learn about what Canadian scientists, both within government and outside, have characterized as muzzling,” she said. “And we are here to look at Canadian science in crisis. Research, responsibility, and the right to speak.”
The discussion in its entirety appears above. It begins after introductions, around the four-minute mark.Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps was arrested in Baltimore late Monday night for DUI, according to multiple reports.
Police stopped Phelps when he was reportedly driving over 80 miles per hour in a 45 mph zone. A statement from the Maryland Transit Authority reads, “Mr. Phelps was identified as the driver by his driver’s license and appeared to be under the influence. He was unable to perform satisfactorily a series of standard field sobriety tests. Mr. Phelps was cooperative throughout the process.”
Phelps had previously been arrested and charged with DUI ten years ago, when he was also pulled over for speeding.
Update- 4:26 pm: Phelps tweeted about the DUI later today:
(1/3) Earlier this morning, I was arrested and charged with DUI, excessive speeding and crossing double lane lines. — Michael Phelps (@MichaelPhelps) September 30, 2014
(2/3) I understand the severity of my actions and take full responsibility. — Michael Phelps (@MichaelPhelps) September 30, 2014
(3/3) I know these words may not mean much right now but I am deeply sorry to everyone I have let down. — Michael Phelps (@MichaelPhelps) September 30, 2014
[image via Everett Collection/Shutterstock]
— —
Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac
Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.comSusan Mullane-USA TODAY Sports
Roger Federer’s latest near-miss at Wimbledon is a reflection of an aging legend whose glory days are in the nostalgia-tinged past. No longer exuding the same aura of invincibility he once did, he has watched a new generation of players usurp his reign at the top of the game. But this reality gives a new perspective on his legacy.
His earlier accomplishments now look downright superhuman in retrospect.
Maybe we took the level of success Federer achieved in his prime for granted. Because he made winning look so routine, most fans expected to witness greatness every time he stepped onto the court. And he usually delivered.
The numbers he compiled at the peak of his powers are nothing short of mind-boggling. Here are his season-by-season records from 2004 to 2007: 74-6, 81-4, 92-5 and 68-9. Of the 16 Grand Slam events played during that four-year stretch, Federer captured 11 of them.
Marinate on those statistics; we'll likely never see anything like that run of dominance ever again.
ANJA NIEDRINGHAUS/Associated Press/Associated Press
To some, he approached deity status. In his renowned piece "Federer as Religious Experience," the late David Foster Wallace beautifully explained (or tried to) what made watching Federer such a visceral experience. Every match, he argued, there'd be a moment where Federer would do something so sublime that you'd wonder how it was even possible.
A certain beauty, grace and sophistication existed unique to his game. He transformed tennis into an art form, seemingly inventing shots on the fly. The way he'd contort his body to hit serves or snap his wrist to unleash a lethal forehand looked so effortless because of his masterful execution.
With a quick pitter-patter of his nimble feet, Federer would almost hover above the court. In another life, he'd probably give Fred Astaire a run for his money on the dance floor.
Vice Sports' Greg Couch said it best: Federer transcends time.
Greatness shouldn't be invoked so casually, or measured simply by the numbers. It requires context. An appreciation of history, and not just a recitation of it. Federer's greatness is that he keeps finding ways to amaze us no matter what point in history he's playing from. What era, exactly, should Federer be placed in? The truth is, Federer is a tennis time-traveler.
Federer is one of the most romanticized athletes ever to walk the planet, and it's easy to see why. Beyond the genius shot-making and overwhelming success, he's swayed spectators with his persona. On the court, you see a player who's icy cool even while facing pressure that would make others crack. And his affable, down-to-earth personality makes him a marketing darling and someone easy to support.
Perhaps those traits are what still make him so beloved. Inevitably, his results have declined from the majestic heights he once scaled.
Not even Federer is immune to the aging process.
The 33-year-old Federer we see on the court today is much different than the one who used to hold opponents under his thumb. This version of the Swiss athlete is more vulnerable, and you can almost spot the scar tissue left over by all the heartbreaking losses. He's become a more sympathetic figure because of that increasing mortality.
Cracks first started to show in Federer's armor back in 2008, and they've been slowly gaining in size ever since. Entering that year's Australian Open, he had made the finals of the last 10 major tournaments played—a profound streak. But he bowed out meekly in those semifinals to a 20-year-old prodigy named Novak Djokovic.
Only later would Federer reveal he had contracted mononucleosis before the event, a factor which no doubt contributed to his unceremonious exit Down Under. What effect any remnants of that illness had on him in 2008 remains a mystery. But that season marks a clear line of demarcation in his narrative.
Anja Niedringhaus/Associated Press/Associated Press/Associated Press
The persistent thorn in his side arrived in the form of Rafael Nadal, the ferocious bull who has frazzled Federer over the years with his lefty game and clay-court wizardry. In 2006 and 2007, Nadal beat him in six finals. Two of those losses came at the French Open, keeping Federer from winning a calendar Grand Slam both years.
A straight-sets shellacking at the hands of Nadal in the 2008 Roland Garros final raised many eyebrows and escalated Federer's malaise. Never before had he been so thoroughly outplayed; it was an ignominious day for the man who is obsessed with perfection.
At Wimbledon, Federer had beaten Nadal in the last two finals, including a five-set thriller the year before. Whereas Nadal owned the clay, Federer dominated the grass. When the two met again in the 2008 final, Federer was expected to continue those trends.
Thanks to an exhilarating match that many regard as the greatest in tennis history, Nadal finally toppled Federer and gained control of the throne. Wimbledon was supposed to be his salvation; instead, it became Federer's nightmare as he watched his younger foe steal his crown and the No. 1 ranking.
His tailspin ended with a fifth-straight title at the U.S. Open. It was a ribbon on an otherwise disappointing season.
Julie Jacobson/Associated Press
The following year, he reasserted himself by appearing in all four Grand Slam finals, winning his maiden (and sole) French Open title and a dramatic Wimbledon victory over Andy Roddick. Yet painful five-set losses—to Nadal at the Australian Open and Juan Martin del Potro at the U.S. Open—were symbolic of a Federer whose invincibility had long since faded.
His virtuoso dismissal of Andy Murray in the 2010 Australian Open final served as a turning point in his career. While he seemed destined to extend his prime with that victory, Federer instead entered a new era, one fraught with more fleeting moments of brilliance.
When he arrived at that year’s French Open, Federer had astoundingly reached the semifinals of the last 23 Grand Slam events. That streak came to a sudden end when big-hitting Swede Robin Soderling took him out on a damp and gloomy day in the quarterfinals.
Similar results would soon follow.
An exit in the quarterfinals of Wimbledon to Tomas Berdych meant Federer spent championship Sunday at home for the first time since 2003. Ditto for the U.S. Open, where he blew two match points against Djokovic in the semifinals. He had lost further ground to a younger rival.
Since his Aussie triumph in 2010, Federer has advanced to the finals in three of the last 22 major events he’s entered. That’s a stark contrast to the previous period, where he somehow wound up in 17 of 19 Grand Slam championship matches.
A turn-back-the-clock moment occurred when he defeated Djokovic and Murray in succession for the 2012 Wimbledon crown. To date, however, it remains his only major title in the last five years.
Andrew Brownbill/Associated Press
So what are the roots of this decline?
As an older athlete, he’s more prone to off days because his body simply doesn’t react and recover as quickly as it once did. He’s lost a few steps as well and lacks the top-end foot speed of his youth. Federer is no doubt still a phenomenally conditioned athlete, but even a minute deterioration can make a difference in the pro ranks.
Stubbornly, he held onto his antiquated Wilson racket well past its expiration date. That refusal to upgrade frames ostensibly cost him a shot at more major titles, and he looked borderline feeble in some instances against power baseline players who hit him off the court. And there were more than a few shanked backhands to boot.
Federer finally adopted a larger model in 2013 after a stunning second-round exit at Wimbledon, but the immediate results were mixed. He soon swapped back to his old blade. Not until the start of last season did he settle on his current racket, which took several months of acclimation.
To lessen the wear on his body and maximize that new frame, Federer has adjusted tactically. He realizes his best chance at winning points comes when he’s aggressive and moves to the net. With the help of volley master and coach Stefan Edberg, Federer has tried to move forward more frequently.
Those changes have paid off, just not to the degree he wants.
When he cruised into last year's Wimbledon final, he had an opportunity to end his Grand Slam drought. Ultimately, he again fell victim to Djokovic—this time in a gut-wrenching five-set thriller.
Pavel Golovkin/Associated Press
That match may be more a microcosm of larger problems than anything physical or mechanical he's faced in the last few years. On break points or in decisive sets, Federer's conversion rate seems sporadic at best. His inability to capitalize in these crucial situations leaves him (and his fans) often scratching their heads.
Titles at big events have arrived fewer and farther between because of those woes. Federer is also not immune to inconsistency early in events, and his third-round exit to Andreas Seppi at this year's Australian Open served as a particular stunner.
But it's important to keep perspective and realize that Federer is accomplishing what few tennis players have ever done in their mid-30s. Despite the increased frequency of his losses, he is still ranked No. 2 in the world and staying relevant.
That's not bad for a father of four.
During this past Wimbledon fortnight, there were many flashes of the vintage Federer. Take his semifinal destruction of Murray as an example. He looked pretty fresh by the way he zipped around the court and served precise bullets.
He just couldn't achieve that ultimate moment of triumph in the final, finishing runner-up for a second straight time to Djokovic. Yet even in defeat, that loss showed something: Federer isn't far from ending his slump.
The old man won't go away. Perhaps we've overlooked the special nature of his sheer longevity. Amazingly, Federer is hanging with players five to 10 years (or more) his junior.
Because of that staying power, ESPN's Adnan Virk even argued for Federer as "the most underrated superstar athlete of our lifetime":
Draw your own conclusions about that bold statement. Virk's underlying thesis, and it's a valid one, is that we didn't fully comprehend what Federer achieved during his zenith. Because he no longer wins as regularly these days, we can now step back and marvel at his extraordinary prime.
His unbridled love of the game keeps him playing. Yet even he would admit his judgment now rests exclusively on his performance at majors.
Three arduous years have passed since he captured his 17th Grand Slam title. That dry spell has allowed his greatest rival, Nadal, to creep up on his records and encroach on his claim as the greatest ever.
Legacy is the key word looming over Federer everywhere he goes.
His 10-23 record against Nadal is a substantial negative on his resume. But at age 29, Nadal is in the midst of a career crisis much more severe than anything Federer has ever experienced even at his lowest points. Whether or not Nadal will actually overtake Federer's major haul is firmly up in the air.
Djokovic, with nine Grand Slam titles, is charging fast at both of them. Before all is said and done, it's conceivable he could finish near the top of the list. His level of dominance right now (from a win-loss standpoint) is in the same ballpark as what Federer engineered in his heyday.
However, for all his technical precision and machine-like destruction of opponents, Djokovic still doesn't possess that same awe-inspiring factor Federer did. The Serb smothers you with his consistency, whereas the younger Federer played a brand of tennis that really can't even be adequately described with words.
It's tantalizing to argue over which player is the best of all time. And several people have a legitimate stake to that moniker. But as amateur historians with our macro-level view of the game, we risk missing out on what's happening before our eyes in this moment.
That Wimbledon loss shouldn't diminish Federer's place in the annals of the sport. Rather, it should make us cherish however long is left as he enters the sunset of his career.
All statistics are courtesy of ATPWorldTour.com unless otherwise noted.
Joe Kennard is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report.
Follow @JoeKennard.Experience tells us that a growling stomach might make you impulsively scarf a greasy burger and fries or cause you to waver when trying choose which leftover to reheat for lunch. So making decisions while hungry seems like a bad idea, right? Well, new research shows that the whole picture might be more complicated.
Related Content Brains Make Decisions the Way Alan Turing Cracked Codes
Hunger is a "hot state" emotionally, according to Denise de Ridder and her colleagues at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. In a paper published in PLOS One, they argue that hot states, which are characterized by heightened arousal, make people rely on their gut feelings and therefore improve their decision-making.
The researchers did three different experiments that paired fasting with a decision-making task to see how being hungry affects the choices we make. The results show that being hungry might help people make better decisions.
Students were told to fast (consuming nothing except water) starting the night before the experiment. When they arrived at the test location, one group was offered yogurt and other food to quell hunger pangs, but the other group had to perform hungry. For two of the experiments, the students played a computerized version of the "The Iowa Gambling Task," which measures decision making when faced with risk. In the third, a longer questionnaire assessed their ability to weigh risk and delayed rewards. Over all tests, the researchers tested 81 students.
The "Iowa Gambling Task" involves picking cards from four different decks. The goal is to win the most money, naturally. Some of the cards carry penalties and others rewards (but the picker doesn’t know this at first). Two of the decks have higher rewards but also higher penalties — and therefore they aren’t good choices in the long run. You can try your hand at this game with this iTunes app.
Hungry students figured it out and chose more cards from the advantageous desks, the researchers report. They also made better decisions in the delay-gratification test.
Whether this means that other hot states—arousal, for example—could also help us choose wisely, isn’t clear, as Tom Jacobs for Pacific Standard reports:
Hunger is a very specific sensation, of course, and other emotions will need to be tested before coming to any wide-ranging conclusions. But this study suggests that under certain circumstances—like when we’re in need of nourishment—our intuitive sense is to be trusted over our confused, confounded cognitive abilities.
Instead, other work suggests that sexual arousal "hijacks the brain leading to a focus on immediate pleasure an gratification," reports Psychology Today. Also, hunger might make sticking to a diet or resisting a cigarette craving more difficult. So don’t necessarily rely on a hungry gut to make you wise.Arguably: Essays by Christopher Hitchens, Twelve, 816 pages, $30
When polemicist and author Christopher Hitchens died in December of esophageal cancer at age 62, many of those mourning his death used the occasion to tell us something meaningful about themselves. Hitchens, they reported, had played a major role in their efforts to define themselves politically, morally, and socially.
Such disclosures, even when bordering on the maudlin, were apt. Hitchens transcended the relatively narrow boundaries for public intellectuals in the United States by transforming himself into a media phenomenon and inserting himself into the fabric of daily life and deliberation through all the means at his disposal. Here was a man equally at ease in the university lecture room and the debating hall, on William F. Buckley’s Firing Line and Jon Stewart’s Daily Show.
Hitchens cultivated a flamboyant persona. Like many men moved by ideas, he also had a weakness for style, and for the louche men of action with whom he frequently crossed paths. Yet ideas generally won out. If there are any doubts, Arguably, Hitchens’ last collection of articles, should dispel them.
Arguably will be the best remembered of the four compilations Hitchens published for its sheer size and topical breadth—but also because the collection is a memento mori. He knew when the volume came out that he was dying. The cover of the British edition is evocative. It shows Hitchens standing in his Washington, D.C., apartment, a Kurdish flag on his lapel. Behind and around him are the tools of his trade: filtered coffee on a tray at his feet, an aureole of books, reading glasses, a computer, and next to it a Panama hat to cover hair ravaged by chemotherapy. Hitchens, with an expression dour and bulldog-like, appears to be taunting his illness. And for more than a year after being diagnosed, he kept up that front.
There were many paradoxes in Hitchens, but three stand out in Arguably. The first is that this man of sharp angles and muscular opinions could understand half-tones while appreciating, and even seeking out, the charms of ambiguity. This sensibility, almost Mediterranean in nature, was appropriate for someone always drawn more to the human than to the institutional.
Take Hitchens’ essay on Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, the British writer Rebecca West’s posthumously famous book about Yugoslavia during the 1930s. Hitchens praises the work over its shortcomings, seeing in West an “ardent woman who manifested a nice paradoxical sympathy for the honor, bravery, and pageantry of the past, and for the apparently more modern ideas of socialism and self-determination.” This sympathy pushed West to champion Serb nationalists, who did not merit the approval, yet never blinded her to the perils of fascism.
West, as Hitchens wrote, “had stepped onto the perfect soil for one so quixotic.” It was a quixotism born partly of a turbulent love life, that of a woman “whose feminism was above all concerned with the respect for, and the preservation of, true masculinity.” How concise, and how astute to pursue that in the Yugoslav context, given the way that sexual violence came to define the savage conflict of the 1990s.
Hitchens’ sense of the counterpoint lying underneath is apparent in passages on other cosmopolitans. Of Karl Marx he noted, “the genius of the old scribbler was to see how often the sheerly irrational intruded upon the material and utilitarian world of our great-grandfathers.” Modern-day Marxist determinists will fail to notice that fact, the consequence of Marx |
gripped the country
Image copyright AFP Image caption Aden airport in south Yemen was shut down in protest at rebel actions in the capital
Image copyright EPA Image caption Tribal gunmen in the oil-rich province of Maarib could be seen mustering on Thursday, apparently to ward off possible attacks by the Shia Houthi rebels
Analysis: Sebastian Usher, BBC World Service
The resignation of the Yemeni president and his government is likely to plunge an already unstable country into uncharted territory.
Mr Hadi has been surrounded in his home in the capital, Sanaa, by rebels for several days. His resignation may be the last card he had left to play after being pushed to the brink.
The rebels have publicly welcomed his resignation but it is not what they wanted. As minority Shias from the north, their authority will not be accepted in the south, where many want to return to having their own state.
With no president and no government, there is also a fear that al-Qaeda's powerful branch in Yemen could make new gains from the political vacuum.
'Political maze'
Local officials in Aden told Reuters news agency that unidentified gunmen had attacked two military vehicles in the city early on Friday, local time.
Three explosions were heard during the attack, which was followed by the clashes, said one of the officials, who declined to be identified.
Explosions and clashes were also reported by Qatar-based broadcaster al-Jazeera, which said they were happening on the city's Martyrs' Square.
In his letter of resignation, seen by the Associated Press news agency, Mr Hadi said the parties had reached a "deadlock".
"We found out that we are unable to achieve the goal, for which we bear a lot of pain and disappointment," he said.
Image copyright AP Image caption President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi has been in power since 2012
Image copyright EPA Image caption Prime Minister Khaled Bahah was in office for just over three months
A government source told the BBC that ministers were resigning in protest at the rebels' challenge to Yemen's sovereignty and their seizure of state institutions.
In his resignation letter, Prime Minister Khaled Bahah said the cabinet did not want to be dragged into an "unconstructive political maze".
Earlier this week, Houthi gunmen fired on Mr Bahah's convoy and then laid siege to the presidential palace, where he was staying.
Then on Wednesday the home of President Hadi was shelled, shattering a ceasefire that had been agreed only hours earlier.
The ceasefire deal had met a series of rebel demands including the expansion of Houthi representation in parliament and state institution.
In return, the rebels said they would pull back from their positions and free the president's chief-of-staff, whom they have held since Saturday. But so far they have not done so.
The Houthis, who follow a branch of Shia Islam known as Zaidism, have staged periodic uprisings since 2004 in an effort to win greater autonomy for their northern heartland of Saada province.
Since July the rebels have inflicted defeats on tribal and militia groups backed by the leading Sunni Islamist party, Islah, and battled al-Qaeda as they have pushed into central and western provinces.Here’s a conspiracy worthy of the Initiative: Revenge‘s story might not be entirely over just yet. … Maybe.
Though the ABC drama wrapped its four-season run in May, there had long been speculation that it might live on in another form — partially due to the spinoff-worthy nature of Nolan’s ending, but also because of Kingmakers, a drama pilot from Revenge producer Sallie Patrick.
“The idea had been floated that a character or two from Revenge could show up on her show,” Revenge showrunner Sunil Nayar told TVLine in May. “The idea was to build [the two shows] in the same universe.”
Unfortunately, the pilot — which starred Kristin Bauer van Straten (True Blood), Adrian Pasdar (Heroes), Michael Trevino (The Vampire Diaries) and Colin Woodell (The Originals), among others — wasn’t ordered to series for the 2015–2016 season, dashing fans’ hopes for even a partial spinoff.
But at the Television Critics Association summer press tour on Tuesday, ABC president Paul Lee addressed the decision not to order Kingmakers — and his answer came with a tiny gift for hopeful Revenge fans.
“We didn’t land that pilot but … it’s a wonderful brand; it’s known around the world. That doesn’t preclude us from doing it again.”
Revenge fans, are you hoping we get to revisit that world someday, or is it time we all move on from the Hamptons? Drop a comment with your thoughts below.× BREAKING: Federal court denies DOJ request to resume President Trump’s travel ban
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Ninth Circuit Court has denied an immediate emergency motion request for an administrative stay of an injunction to stop the enforcement of President Donald Trump’s nationwide travel ban, CNN reports.
That means the ban is suspended, at least for now.
The court has asked for both sides to file legal briefs before the court makes a decision.
Just after midnight on Sunday the US Justice Department filed an appeal asking to pause the sweeping decision that temporarily halted enforcement of President Donald Trump’s travel ban nationwide, saying in a strongly-worded filing that blocking the travel ban “harms the public” and “second-guesses the President’s national security judgment.”
Trump’s policy banned foreign nationals from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the US for 90 days, suspended all refugee entry to the US for 120 days and indefinitely suspended entry for Syrian refugees.
When the President was asked at a gala in Florida whether he was confident his administration would prevail in the appeal, Trump replied, “We’ll win. For the safety of the country, we’ll win.”
On Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security announced it had suspended “any and all” actions to implement the immigration order and would resume standard inspections of travelers, as it did prior to the signing of the travel ban.I just finished re-reading Stephen King’s The Shining followed immediately by its brand-new sequel, Doctor Sleep. Like many King fans, I’ve waited for years—no, decades—to find out what happened to young Danny Torrance after he escaped the Overlook Hotel. If you’ve been waiting too, today is your day. All is revealed in Doctor Sleep. Friends who saw me with the book immediately started asking, “Is it as good as The Shining? As scary?” Those are questions I expected to be able to definitively answer after finishing both books, but it’s not that simple.
Writers change. Readers change.
See, the 66-year-old who wrote Doctor Sleep with a practiced pen and a well-earned reputation as the master of his genre is a different writer—probably even a different guy—than the 28-year-old alcoholic who was raising two small children while he wrote The Shining in Boulder, Colorado, in the 1970s. None of us are the same writer in our sixties as we were in our twenties, and that’s a damn good thing. It’s called progress, y’all.
But what I didn’t consider as much until seeing a BBC interview with King is that, as a (constant) reader, I'm different too. King told the BBC, “[I’m] really leery about revisiting the scary books because I feel like a lot of people read those books under the covers with flashlights when they were children themselves—12, 14 years old. And you’ll meet people who say, ‘[The Shining or Salem’s Lot] really scared the hell out of me,’ and I’m thinking to myself, ‘Well, sure, you were easy. You were 14 and… shaking in your shoes.’ So the fear is that people will come back expecting that kind of scare as grownups and that just never happens.” And he’s absolutely right.
I was around 15 the first time I experienced The Shining. After my parents had gone to sleep, I would hold my breath in bed, listening to the house settle. I was sure (so sure!) that every creak was the long-dead woman-thing from Room 217, bloated and creeping toward my bedroom full of Teen Beat posters and Lisa Frank stickers. I was, as King points out, an “easy” scare. During my recent re-read of The Shining, I was shocked at my ability to drift into pleasant dreams immediately after reading scenes involving guileful topiary animals and haunted ballrooms. Writers change. Readers change. Our fears evolve.
Doctor Sleep‘s release gives us the perfect opportunity to look at how our fears change over time, but before we go too far down that path, a quick refresher on The Shining for the uninitiated and a bare bones spoiler-avoidant plot summary of Doctor Sleep for those about to rock:
The story so far…
In King’s 1977 horror classic (the book is 36 years old, but I’ll still give a warning: this paragraph contains SPOILERS), alcoholic writer Jack Torrance (who King has referred to as the most autobiographical character he has ever written) accepts a job as the winter caretaker of an isolated hotel in the Rocky Mountains. The hotel happens to be chock full o’ all kinds of evil and ghosts, but that doesn’t become apparent until the snow has left Jack and his family (wife Wendy and son Danny) cut off from civilization. Five-year-old Danny has psychic powers (aka “the shining”) that cause him to see the hotel’s various specters and spooks. The hotel’s evil force wants Danny for his power and attempts to manipulate Jack into killing his family, so that they’ll be trapped there forever. Jack goes nuts, grabs a mallet and starts chasing Wendy and Danny around the hotel while all hell breaks loose with the ghosts and spirits. In the end, the hotel’s boiler blows the whole place sky high because Jack’s been too distracted by the whole psychopathic murdering thing to diligently keep up with his caretaking duties. He dies in the fire. Wendy and Danny escape with the help of a snowmobile brought in by the hotel’s chef, who also “shines” and was mentally summoned by Danny.
As an aside, if you only know The Shining from watching Stanley Kubrick’s wildly popular 1980 film version, you’re missing out. King himself despises the movie, claiming it minimizes the supernatural elements of the story, makes Jack seem like he’s got a major screw loose before the Torrance family even moves to Colorado, and turns Wendy in to a “misogynistic” scream queen stereotype. Take the time to read the original novel before you delve into Doctor Sleep.
Danny becomes Dan…
Doctor Sleep picks up only a year after the Overlook Hotel has burned to the ground. Seeing six-year-old Danny again is nostalgic and a lot of fun while it lasts, but what we really want to see is Danny as an adult (ahem, it’s “Dan” now, all grown-up-like) and King doesn’t leave us waiting long. Note: I’m about to give you some basic plot, but I’ll avoid spoilers and it’s nothing that the press releases and any article you read about the book won’t immediately tell you.
Adult Dan Torrance is a bit of a hot mess when we first meet him—an alcoholic like his father, a drifter, and a guy who has made more than his fair share of poor life choices. His shining is dulled by alcohol and age but reappears after he cleans up his act and takes a job at a New Hampshire hospice. There, his ability to soothe dying patients as they transition from this world earns him the nickname Doctor Sleep. By the way, Dan’s going to be with us the whole way, but don’t expect all the action to be laser focused around him. Come to the table ready to meet some new folks, see some new places, and hear a whole new story, and you’ll be fine.
Not far away, a little girl named Abra is born with an extraordinarily strong dose of the shining (and a bit of a temper—King fans might notice that with worse parents, fewer friends, and a bucket of pig’s blood, she might well have grown up to be Carrie). She uses her unusual powers to reach out to Dan and they develop a connection over time. Unfortunately, Dan isn’t the only one to pick up on Abra’s shine. Her powers draw the attention of the True Knot, a group of vampire-esque serial killers who feed on fear and pain and also happen to disguise themselves as RV-driving retirees. A nail-biting battle of good versus evil ensues.
Comparing fears
On the surface, The Shining seems more frightening. It is packed with far more typical horror scares—dead things rustling leaves in dark tunnels, evil hedge animals that move when you’re not looking, fire hoses that slither snake-like down dim hallways—but in many ways, the fears evoked by Doctor Sleep—fears of regret, death, the past, and the ghosts we all hold inside ourselves—strike a deeper chord. It takes longer for those types of fears to sink in, but once they do, there’s not a bogeyman in the world that can hold a candle to them. There’ll be plenty of people (many of them the readers King mentioned who read The Shining with flashlights under the covers during their youth) who will read Doctor Sleep and claim it isn’t nearly as terrifying as The Shining, but in the interest of fairness—and of evolution—here are three ways the sequel is even more horrifying than its predecessor.
Fear 1: The Overlook vs. The True Knot
Let’s start with villains. The Shining‘s are slightly less straightforward, but let’s take the most direct approach. Sure, Jack had demons. He made mistakes. He was vulnerable to the evil that lived within The Overlook Hotel, but he wasn’t the true villain. Even when he was hacking at the wallpaper with a roque mallet and trying to choke out his wife, King (and Danny) made sure to let us know that it was the Overlook, not Jack himself, that was to blame. It was the Overlook that wanted Danny dead. The Overlook that was calling the shots. As a villain, the Overlook is terrifying. There’s no reasoning with it. It is mysterious and nebulous in a way that prevents you from determining what tricks it has at its disposal. It is pure evil—and manipulative, to boot.
At first glance, it doesn’t appear that Doctor Sleep’s True Knot can compare. They are, after all, driving Winnebagos across America’s interstates while sporting Wal-Mart mom jeans and visors—even if they are pulling over to feed on fear, pain, and misery from time to time. More importantly, from a scare perspective, they are not pure evil. They care about each other and show a fairly wide range of emotions that suggest some level of humanity remains. But if you stop to think about it too much, those brilliant disguises and remnants of humanity are exactly what makes them disturbing.
I’ve always loved horror movies. When I was younger, my mother used to tell me that supernatural movies never scared her because she knew the ghosts and ghouls weren’t real. “What scares me,” she told me once, “are the things that could really happen… the evil people who look completely normal to friends and neighbors but have a basement full of body parts.” At the time, I didn't understand how she could watch demons possess a little girl then go straight to sleep. Now I do. As we grow up, the monsters that give us nightmares become more complex. Sure, we still have the odd moment when we imagine a slithery tentacle creeping onto our pillows as we sleep, but deep down, we understand that the monsters we truly need to worry about aren’t under our beds; they're walking past us on the street, and they look just like us. Because of that the True Knot rivals the Overlook for terror.
Fear 2: Isolation vs. Movement
When the snow drifts cover the doors and the windows of the Overlook, all that’s left are rows and rows of identical doors... and behind those doors, bloated dead things. It’s enough to send any horror fan’s blood pressure through the roof. I visited the Stanley Hotel, on which the Overlook is based, last year, and just standing in the halls gave me major heebie-jeebies. The unrelenting claustrophobic isolation in The Shining is truly dread-inducing and part of that novel’s power, but if you’re expecting that in its sequel, you’ll be disappointed. Doctor Sleep is all wide-open interstate highways and movement, but that only means there are more potential victims. No one is safe from the True Knot or from the tragedies they feed off of—not you, not me, and most alarmingly of all, not the people we care about.
Fear 3: Death vs. Death
Like any good horror novel, both books play on our fear of death, but this is where Doctor Sleep’s more mature approach puts it ahead of The Shining. While five-year-old Danny is obviously frightened for his life at the Overlook, that fear is colored by the sense of invincibility that his youth brings. He worries but it’s an immature worry, death through the eyes of a child. He’s too busy dodging topiaries and mallets to contemplate his own mortality in any emotional sense.
Doctor Sleep, on the other hand, hits you right in the guts more than once with the inevitability of death, the fear of closing your eyes for the last time, the pain of watching someone you love slip away, the sheer agony that can reduce a dignified human being to a crumpled body screaming like an animal caught in a trap. Before Dan reprises his role as “Dr. Sleep” by helping the patients in his care die peacefully, many have heart-wrenching flashbacks of special times in their lives. The knowledge that we’ll lose all of those memories, all of those moments, in the end and the vivid, impossible-to-ignore way King presents that message is, at times, brutal enough to make the Overlook look like child’s play. It is Doctor Sleep’s most haunting scare. It keeps catching up to me when I’m not expecting it. Well played, King.
In the end, it doesn’t matter which is the more goosebump-inducing tale. If you’re a King fan, this is not one to miss. His storytelling is as on-point as ever, and catching up with Dan Torrance feels like hanging out with an old friend for 500 pages. Do you have expectations going into this sequel? If so, what do you want out of Doctor Sleep? What would delight you? What would disappoint you? Let’s hear it in the comments.Bruce Willis Demanded $1 Million A Day On Expendables 3 By Eric Eisenberg Random Article Blend
Following Sylvester Stallone's
When Stallone revealed the news about both Willis and Ford yesterday he was quite vocal - and a tiny bit passive aggressive - about his disappointment with Red 2 star. Said the actor/writer on his Twitter feed,
GREEDY AND LAZY...... A SURE FORMULA FOR CAREER FAILURE — Sylvester Stallone (@TheSlyStallone) August 6, 2013 As Katey
Hopefully someday the two sides will be able to bury the hatchet and then we can have Willis come back for The Expendables 16.
Bruce Willis has been a bona fide blockbuster action star for about 25 years now, and in that time, like most A-list actors, he has been well compensated for his work. Over the course of his career he has signed many multi-million dollar contracts - to the point where you'd think that $1 million wouldn't be that much. Apparently it means everything, though, because it was that sum that ended up stopping the Die Hard star run in the Expendables movies.Following Sylvester Stallone's announcement yesterday that Willis would not be returning as the mysterious Mr. Church in The Expendables 3 The Hollywood Reporter did some digging and apparently discovered what caused the fallout between the two action stars. According to the trade's anonymous source, Willis was offered $3 million for four days of work on the set of the anticipated sequel, but said that he wouldn't return for less than $4 million (a.k.a. $1 million for each day). Stallone and "everybody else involved" rejected this counter-proposal, and Willis walked away from the table. Within three days of that negotiation Stallone reached out to Ford and got him to sign on. Said the insider, "I think [Willis] was pretty surprised he was replaced in 72 hours by Harrison Ford — a better actor, a much nicer person and a more interesting direction for the film."When Stallone revealed the news about both Willis and Ford yesterday he was quite vocal - and a tiny bit passive aggressive - about his disappointment with Red 2 star. Said the actor/writer on his Twitter feed,As Katey explained in her feature earlier today, this is far from the first time that Willis has managed to get under somebody's skin during his time in Hollywood. Over the course of his career there has been very public antagonism between him and people like his Moonlighting co-star Cybill Shepherd, Michael Bay, and Kevin Smith. What's surprising about the Expendables news, however, is that Willis and Stallone actually go way back - all the way to the days of Planet Hollywood.Hopefully someday the two sides will be able to bury the hatchet and then we can have Willis come back for The Expendables 16. Blended From Around The Web Facebook
Back to topCorey Haim‘s mother has named the man she alleges sexually abused her late son.
During an appearance on The Dr. Oz Show on Friday, Judy Haim addressed a recent National Enquirer report in which former actor Dominick Brascia, who was close with Haim, alleged that a 19-year-old Charlie Sheen sexually assaulted a 13-year-old Haim on set of the 1986 film Lucas.
A spokesperson for Sheen previously told PEOPLE the actor “absolutely denies the claim,” and on Friday, Judy alleged that it wasn’t Sheen who sexually abused her son, but rather Brascia himself.
“This guy Dominick is the guy that abused my son,” she said. “My son said so.”
Brascia was accused of being Haim’s abuser last year. At the time, he denied the allegation in an interview with Perez Hilton.
“It’s totally not true,” he said. “I’m as shocked as anyone else [as Haim] was one of my good friends, I knew him for over 25 years.”
Brascia did not respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment Friday.
In her interview, Judy said Haim — who struggled with drug addiction for decades before dying of pneumonia at 38 in 2010 — made reference to the alleged abuse he suffered at the hands of Brascia on The Two Coreys, a reality show that chronicled his life with friend and fellow child star Corey Feldman.
“He said so on The Two Coreys,” said Judy. “If you ever go back and watch any interview that my son ever gave, you would understand what I’m talking about. He hid nothing.”
Judy said Feldman, 46, introduced Haim to several people in Hollywood at the time — one of whom was Brascia. She claimed Brascia lived near them in Studio City, and that Haim and his friends would often visit Brascia’s home to watch TV and play pool.
Haim said that one day, she received a call from Haim “yelling and screaming” that Brascia allegedly wouldn’t get off of him. She rushed over to the apartment and alleged that when she walked in, she saw a “fully dressed” Brascia sitting on top of her son.
“Dominick was sitting on my son, pinning him to the floor, not allowing him to move,” she said. “I took a pool cue — and he will remember that — and I went so close to his head and I said: ‘You better get off of him or I’m bashing your head in.’ And he got off of him and we left.’ “
Judy alleged that Haim had been sexually abused by Brascia one other time in that apartment before, but she would not go into further detail.
“The industry or the media, they always go and tend to blame a parent,” she said. “You know what? You can watch them as much as you can watch them. But what are you going to do, go out with a 16- or 17-year-old to every single party, to every single movie? It’s the same thing on set. What if a producer wants to read lines in the trailer? … It’s a really tough situation. What are you going to do? My son went in with a whole bunch of boys to play pool, and one day, this is what happened to him.”
Asked why she thinks her son never spoke out about his alleged abuse, Judy said “he kept it [secret for] so long because he didn’t want to talk about it.”
“He didn’t want people to think he was gay or say it was his fault,” she said. “He said, ‘Mom, somebody hurt me, I don’t need to hurt them back. I need to take this to my grave.’ “
“The memory of the experience has to be horrifying,” she said. “Then the guilt, and the shame, and what are other people going to think? It’s a horrible thing. Victims, you’ve got to talk nice about victims. … We can say, ‘Go and speak up, go and tell your parent, go and tell your teacher, go and tell a social worker’ — but it’s not easy.”
Asked what she would say to Brascia today, Judy said she would urge him to “admit it.”
“You know the truth. You know what you did,” she said. “Honestly, I hope you didn’t hurt anyone else. Admit it. It’s going to set you free, and move on. but do the right thing for a change. Nobody is coming after you. Do the right thing for others, please.”
Judy said that if she could do it all over again, she would “definitely not” have allowed Haim to pursue acting in Hollywood.
“He would have been in school, in Toronto, with his friends, playing hockey like he loved,” she said. “[It’s] not a good idea to put these young kids in these movies in Hollywood. Do it in the summertime, let them go to school, don’t go to Hollywood.”
Judy said she prays that her son will be allowed to rest in peace.
“He was a good kid. A lot of people that really knew him well knew his heart,” she said. “He had a great talent. … It wasn’t somebody’s business to say he was raped. … That’s a disgrace.”Anyone with a color printer knows that selling replacement ink cartridges is the quickest way to become a millionaire. But what if your printer never needed a single drop of ink to produce color images at impossibly high resolutions? A new laser printer can already do that by etching microscopic patterns onto sheets of plastic.
Researchers at the Technical University of Denmark have taken inspiration from creatures like butterflies and peacocks, whose wings and feathers create bright, iridescent colors not through light-absorbing pigments, but by bending and scattering light at the molecular level, creating what’s known as structural color.
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The new printing method the team has developed starts with sheets of plastic covered in thousands of microscopic pillars spaced roughly 200 nanometers apart. To get those tiny plastic pillars to produce color, or at least appear to, they’re first covered with a thin layer of germanium—a shiny, grayish-white metalloid material. An ultra-fine laser blasts the germanium until it melts onto each pillar, strategically changing their shape and thickness. This is then followed by a protective coating that helps preserves the shape and structure of all those tiny pillars.
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When light hits this modified plastic surface, the lightwaves bounce around amongst the various pillars, which end up changing their wavelength as they’re reflected, producing different colors. The researchers were able to predict what colors would be produced by those nanoscale pillars, and by creating specific patterns, they were able to generate recognizable, high-contrast images.
How high contrast? Your average desktop inkjet can produce images with a resolution of around 5,000 dots per inch. Laser printers, which use a fine powder called toner, can muster a resolution closer to 20,000 dots per inch. But this new technology can generate detailed images with an astonishing resolution of 127,000 dots crammed into a single square inch, making it ideal for anti-counterfeiting, since a high-res watermark could be created that’s smaller than a pin head.
Will this technology replace your home inkjet printer that’s always begging for a refill? Not anytime soon, but eventually it could replace paper printing altogether, since those plastic sheets could be easily recycled by the very same laser that prints on them. Eventually, the days of having to constantly reload your printer’s paper tray might end.
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[Science Advances via ScienceNews]Please enable Javascript to watch this video
Some think it's controversial, others say it's a miracle cure.
Legalizing medicinal marijuana is on the agenda this legislative session but getting it passed will be an uphill battle.
However, for a group of Iowa families legalizing the drug could be their last hope to help their suffering children.
All parents want the best for their kids. Maria La France is fighting for a cure for hers.
“When you watch your child have a seizure it`s the most helpless feeling in the world,” says La France of Des Moines.
Quincy, now 12, started having seizures at just five months old.
Regular pharmaceuticals either didn't work or increased his symptoms.
“Within four doses of that drug he stopped walking and talking, so pharmaceutical drugs aren't always the answer either,” says La France.
La France is convinced answer lies in a form of cannabis oil.
“It`s complete torture to know there is something out there that can heal his brain, that`s an anti-inflammatory, an anti-spasmodic, that`s completely natural, I want to get my hands on it,” says La France.
And she isn't alone, 24-year-old Margaret Gaer has lived with seizures for two decades.
Only recently was she was diagnosed with Dravet Syndrome, a rare and heartbreaking form of epilepsy.
“It`s pretty devastating,” says Sally Gaer of West Des Moines.
Gaer, Margaret's mom and wife of West Des Moines' Mayor, wishes marijuana was an option.
“I think some form of medical marijuana will be able to help her,” says Gaer.
Gaer’s becoming more optimistic as a growing number of people focus on marijuana's potential to help instead of its potential for abuse.
“We`re looking for medicine. We`re not looking for any kind of recreational use, we`re looking for help to make our loved ones lives better and our lives better,” says Gaer.
That same search for help led the Selmeski's from Iowa to Colorado.
“As a parent of a special needs child, a child that`s told they probably won`t live very long, you`re going to do everything and anything you can for your child and I think any parent that can resonate with,” says Rachel Selmeski from Colorado Springs.
Maggie's seizures started at 6 weeks old, occurring up to 500 times per day.
“We look at every day of her life as a tremendous blessing, we look at every inch stone that she does as a tremendous blessing,” says Selmeski.
Three months ago, Maggie started taking Charlotte's Web.
It's a low dose of cannabis oil that's high in a medicinal component called CBD.
“She just is waking up and becoming more alert and aware and we`re seeing more improvements,” says Selmeski.
And that's after just three months of use.
“We`re going to be able to meet our daughter soon, she`s going to be able to be fully awakened and we`re going to get to know who little Maggie is,” says Selmeski.
Maggie's seizures have dropped by 30 percent, a success the Selmeski's hope other mothers will get to enjoy.
“It`s not fair that children and parents in other states have the opportunity to try this medicine and good hard-working Iowans do not have this opportunity,” says La France.
The Iowa Office of Drug Control Policy has contacted the FDA asking for additional research into medical marijuana.
Two marijuana bills are also pending at the State House. One would reclassify marijuana as a schedule two drug, allowing for medical use. The second would create a medical marijuana program in Iowa.Columbia University Computing History
The IBM 1401
Photo: IBM 1401 Data Processing System Reference Manual A24-1403-x.
The IBM 1401 Data Processing System, a stored-program transistor-logic computer announced October 1959. At $2500 per month minimally configured, this was IBM's first affordable general-purpose computer, and it was intended to take the place of all the accounting machines and calculators that still provided a cheaper alternative to IBM's 650 and 70x computers. Thousands of 1401s were sold or rented; in fact, it was the first computer to deploy 10000 units. The 1401 was a decimal (not binary) computer, with variable-length words composed of 8-bit bytes containing 6-bit BCD (binary coded decimal) characters (plus parity and wordmark bits), and was intended primarily for business applications (its scientific counterpart was the 1620). The 1401 was the first in IBM's 1400 series of computers, which later included the 1410, 1440, and 1460. Originally programmed only in machine or assembly language or (a bit later) Autocoder, which proved difficult for many people, the 1401 was soon host to one of the earliest high-level business-oriented programming languages, RPG (Report Program Generator), which increased its usability and popularity [4]. Later FORTRAN was added for scientific programming.
According to Hugh T. Hoskins, there was an assembler called SOPAT, delivered from IBM, prior to the appearance of Autocoder. This was at the University of Southern California School of Business in 1962. Also see the later comments from Keith Williams below.
The 1401 was so popular that (according to legend) 1401 applications were still running in 2000 on 1401 simulators (which themselves might be 70x0 applications, therefore running on simulators of their own), and this presented a special challenge in the Year-2000 conversion. You can bet that 1960-era programmers with a only few thousand bytes of memory at their disposal didn't "waste core" on 4-digit years!.
Pictured (left to right; follow links for bigger pictures):
The 1403 printer could print up to 1400 132-column lines per minute, sometimes more. The 1402 reader/punch could accommodate 1000 cards (half a box) in its hopper, read 800 cards per minute, and punch 250 cards per minute. Loren Wilton (of Burroughs/Unisys, who worked with the 1401 while in college) pointed out (31 Dec 2003) that:
... if you let a handful of cards fall down into the read feed (which was normally done when loading the tray, and would happen as soon as you started the reader anyway) the tray plus the read feeder would hold an entire box of cards easily, or 2000+ cards. This was quite handy, since it reduced the amount of time you had to spend loading the cards into the reader, and you could devote your time to managing the punch, which had a much smaller hopper, and the read/punch stackers, which only held around 800 to 1000 cards at most in each stacker. Typically only the right stacker was used for the reader, and the left stacker used for the punch, so multiple stackers didn't help much. If you were running a job that printed data onto preprinted forms, (especially with multipart paper or stiff paper) you would also have to devote a fair amount of time to monitoring the 1403 stacker to make sure that you didn't end up with forms spilling all over the floor rather than stacking neatly in the stacker. Thick forms tended to not stack well, especially if the printer were doing a lot of high-speed slews, as was typical in forms jobs.
Not shown: the 1406 storage unit containing core memory. The 1401 was equipped with up to 4K 8-bit characters of core memory; the 1406 increased its memory capacity to 8K, 12K, or 16K (thus the 1401 shown above has 4K).
The 1405 Disk Storage Unit Model 1 had a capacity of "10 million alphanumerical characters stored on 25 disks" (platters). The Model 2 held 20 million characters on 50 platters. Each platter is accessed by its own access arm (read/write head). This is one of the earliest production disk drives, the direct descendent of the original IBM 305 Disk File introduced with its RAMAC (RAndoM ACcess) computer in 1956. "The in-line method of data processing continually maintains the records of a business in up-to-date status. Any transaction affecting a business can be processed when it occurs, and all the records and accounts affected are updated immediately. The executives of an organization have available, at any time, information representing the status of any account at that moment."
Anecdotes Department
From Bob Resnikoff, perhaps the only person on staff here longer than me*:
I seem to remember (though I can't be certain) that we used the 1401 to process print tapes from the 7090 (or 7094). Since the 7090 was "so fast," it was considered a waste of resource to use it to print output. So print and punch output was written to tape (even parity for text, odd for binary) which was then processed on the 1401. I always liked the 1401; I remember it as being kind of elegant and economical in its use of storage (the words were only as long as you needed them to be).
This one's by me...
When I was in the Army in Germany in the mid-1960s, at 7th Army Headquarters in Stuttgart, Patch Barracks, we had a mobile 1401. It was in a BIG truck trailer. When we went out on maneuvers, it came with us. The trailer was hitched to a deuce and half, and a gigantic gas-powered generator was hitched to the trailer. Once we were deployed in the woods or wherever, the sides of the trailer telescoped out and you had a fairly large machine room full of key punches, verifiers, the 1401, tape drives, desks, etc. Maybe the key punches and verifiers were |
of the study is available for reporters by e-mail request to the ASBMB News Office ahopp@asbmb.org.
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Dr Josh P Davis Reader in Applied Psychology Applied Psychology Research Group, University of Greenwich, London, SE9 2UG
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Dr Josh P Davis PhD, MSc, BSc, FHEA, MBPsS has been employed at the University of Greenwich since 2008. His PhD from the University of London was mainly conducted at London's Science Museum was on the “Forensic Identification of Unfamiliar Faces in CCTV Images” (2007). He has since published research on human face recognition and eyewitness identification, the reliability of facial composite systems (e.g., E-FIT, EFIT-V), and methods used by expert witnesses to provide evidence of identification in court (e.g., ‘facial comparison evidence: ‘face mapping’).
Since April 2011, much of his research has specifically focussed on so called ‘super-recognisers’. This research has led to changes in the management and distribution of CCTV images by the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS). In May 2014, he received funding from the European Commission as part of the LASIE consortium, with the primary aim of developing a test of superior face recognition to ensure the MPS can identify, and optimally deploy officers, staff and recruits possessing this ability. A secondary component is to advise on the human-computer LASIE system interface.
He has since advised other UK police forces on super-recognition, consulted with business (e.g., Yoti), and presented his research worldwide (e.g., Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Russia, USA). He has featured in the international media and his first co-edited book “Forensic Facial Identification: Theory and Practice of Identification from Eyewitnesses, Composites and CCTV” (Wiley Blackwell) was published in 2015 (Valentine & Davis, 2015) is available here.Feminist activist and Women's March organizer, Linda Sarsour, has been accused of enabling the sexual assault of a female employee who worked for her in 2009 at the Arab American Association, two sources "directly familiar" with the matter tell the Daily Caller.
Linda Sarsour
According to Sarsour's accuser Asmi Fathelbab, a 37 year old New York native and devout Muslim - a man named Majed Seif who lived in the same building as the Arab American Association began stalking Fathelbab. Asmi tells the Daily Caller that one of Seif's favorite activities was "sneaking up on her with a full erection."
“He would sneak up on me during times when no one was around, he would touch me, you could hear me scream at the top of my lungs. He would pin me against the wall and rub his crotch on me.” "depending on what floor I was on, you could hear me scream at the top of my lungs."
“It was disgusting,” Fathelbab told the Caller. “I ran the youth program in the building and with that comes bending down and talking to small children. You have no idea what it was like to stand up and feel that behind you. I couldn’t scream because I didn’t want to scare the child in front of me. It left me shaking.”
When Fathelbab went to Linda Sarsour to report the sexual assaults, she was dismissed and shamed. “She [Sarsour] called me a liar because ‘Something like this didn’t happen to women who looked like me,'” Asmi says. “How dare I interrupt her TV news interview in the other room with my ‘lies.'”
Fathelbab says Sarsour "regularly body-shamed her" and enabled the sexual assaults, and Sarsour threatened to legal and professional damage if she went public with the sexual assault claims. “She told me he had the right to sue me for false claims,” said Asmi, adding that her abuser “had the right to be anywhere in the building he wanted.”
"I cannot stand by any longer and watch everyone praise a woman that claims to be for women’s rights and someone that fights for women when she herself allowed for abuse to occur to women," wrote Fathelbab. When Fathelbab went to the president of the Arab American Association's board of directors, Ahmed Jaber, he too shut her down.
“Jaber told me my stalker was a ‘God-fearing man’ who was ‘always at the Mosque,’ so he wouldn’t do something like that,” Fathelbab claims. “He wanted to make it loud and clear this guy was a good Muslim and I was a bad Muslim for “complaining.” -Daily Caller
In response to these claims, Sarsour attacked Fathelbab - telling her that if she continued to report sexual assaults by Jajed Seif, her allegations would result in disciplinary action. Fathelbab told the Daily Caller that she was once forced to talk to a dectective from the community liaison division about the consequences of making false claims to the authorities.
Two sources who knew Fathelbab while she was employed with the Arab American Association told the Daily Caller that Asmi would return from work "emotionally distressed and in a panic," describing it as an "unsafe" work environment. Another source who has worked with the Arab American Association for 12 years and spoke on the condition of anonymity said that Sarsour was "militant against other women," and that they remember witnessing Fathelbab being harassed in the building.
“They made it about her weight, saying she was not attractive enough to be harassed and then swept it under the rug,” the source said. “It was Linda Sarsour, Ahmad Jaber and Habib Joudeh who took care of it.” Habib Joudeh is the vice president of the Arab American Association of New York. -DC
Fathelbab says that she's now unemployable as a result of going public with her claims.
Linda Sarsour with supporters at Women's March
Sarsour - a self-proclaimed "racial justice & civil rights activist," made headlines during the Women's March for attacking Ayyan Hirsi Ali, a former Muslim who was forced to suffer female genital mutilation. After the 9/11 attacks, Hirsi Ali renounced Islam and ran for Dutch parliament in 2003, winning. In 2006, she rallied against Iran's development of nuclear weapons, and in 2015, she railed against the Islamic State.
In a now-deleted tweet from 2011, Sarsour - who posed with an alleged Hamas financier in January, said of Hirsi Ali: "I wish I could take their vaginas away - they don't deserve to be women."
In July, Sarsour called for a Jihad against the Trump administration "fascists reigning in the White House" at the Islamic Society of North America Convention.
“I hope that we when we stand up to those who oppress our communities that Allah accepts from us that as a form of jihad. That we are struggling against tyrants and rulers not only abroad in the Middle East or in the other side of the world, but here in these United States of America where you have fascists and white supremacists and Islamophobes reigning in the White House,” Sarsour said. “Our number one and top priority is to protect and defend our community, it is not to assimilate and please any other people and authority,” she said. “Our obligation is to our young people, is to our women, to make sure our women are protected in our community.” “Our top priority and even higher than all those other priorities is to please Allah and only Allah,” Sarsour declared.
Watch here:
The Daily Caller received no response from Sarsour in regards to Asmi Fathelbab's allegations.NEW YORK (Reuters) - Most Americans believe the United States should take “aggressive action” to fight climate change, but few see it as a priority issue when compared with the economy or security, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday.
The June 2-4 opinion poll suggests American voters may not penalize President Donald Trump too harshly for walking away from the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, even if they would have preferred he keep the country in the deal.
The poll found 68 percent of Americans want the United States to lead global efforts to slow climate change, and 72 percent agree "that given the amount of greenhouse gases that it produces, the United States should take aggressive action to slow global warming."
Infographic ID: '2ruwdol'
Even so, Americans rank the environment near the bottom of their list of priorities for the country. Only about 4 percent of Americans believe that the “environment” is a bigger issue than healthcare, the economy, terrorism, immigration, education, crime and morality, Reuters/Ipsos polling shows.
“I just kind of feel helpless about it,” Dana Anderson, 54, of Mesa, Arizona, said about climate change. “If something happens to the environment, it is what it is, right?”
Anderson, who has multiple sclerosis, said that whatever Trump says about healthcare will matter to her much more than his thoughts on global temperatures.
The poll was conducted after Trump announced on Thursday that the United States would abandon the landmark agreement with 195 countries to slash carbon emissions and curb global warming. The Republican president, who had previously called climate change a “hoax” despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, said he thought the pact would harm the U.S. economy without providing a tangible benefit.
The decision drew anger and condemnation from world leaders and business chiefs, many of them worried a U.S. exit would put the planet at risk and leave the United States behind in a global shift away from fossil fuels.
The poll found the U.S. public split along party lines over the move to withdraw from the global climate pact, with most Republicans supporting it and most Democrats opposing it.
Overall, 38 percent agreed with Trump’s decision, 49 percent disagreed and 13 percent were undecided.
The poll also showed 50 percent of Americans believe global temperatures will rise faster as a result of the U.S. withdrawal from the climate deal, and 64 percent think U.S. relations with other countries will suffer.
FILE PHOTO: Protesters carry signs during the Peoples Climate March at the White House in Washington, U.S., April 29, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo
The public was split over the decision’s economic impact, too, with 41 percent saying it will strengthen the economy and 44 percent saying it will not.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online in English throughout the United States. It gathered responses from 1,398 Americans, including 459 Republicans and 635 Democrats. The poll has a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 3 percentage points for the entire group and 5 percentage points for the Republicans and Democrats.
For more on the polling methodology, questions and credibility intervals, see tmsnrt.rs/2qYVdR6Sweden is often looked upon by liberals and statists as a shining beacon of what all countries should aspire towards – a government run utopia, where everything is taken care of: a true nanny state. Naturally, this is all made possible due to the absurd tax rate – tied for the highest in Europe right around 45%. I wrote recently about Sweden’s problems with unemployment due to its policy of imposing a high minimum wage that has driven the young, unskilled and foreign into a state of employment coma, and recent news has further damned its failed state healthcare. Up to 10% of Swedes have recently opted to pay for healthcare in order to skip the very lengthy wait times to see a doctor, specialist, etc.
Swedish Newspaper The Local has the breakdown:
More than half a million Swedes now have private health insurance, showed a new review from industry organization Swedish Insurance (Svensk Försäkring). In eight out of ten cases, the person’s employer had offered them the private insurance deal. “It’s quicker to get a colleague back to work if you have an operation in two weeks’ time rather than having to wait for a year,” privately insured Anna Norlander told Sveriges Radio on Friday. “It’s terrible that I, as a young person, don’t feel I can trust the health care system to take care of me.”
Of course you can’t – with government run healthcare you remove the market, which is the great equalizer in the equation. The industry can’t help but be swamped via the influx of individuals who now have access to care and without monetary incentive can abuse the system either intentionally or unintentionally through demands for care on imagined or inconsequential health issues.
Government can invest all of the cash it wants into this (recently Sweden invested €5 Billion to try to cut wait times down, an effort that didn’t provide much, if any, relief – see Gammon’s Law about this), there is still a sea of government waste, ineptitude and corruption to swim before any progress can be made and even then the system is inherently flawed (good Mises article from Thomas Di Lorenzo here).
Milton Friedman studied this phenomenon, looking at government’s takeover of hospitals over a 24 year span.
Friedman’s key conclusion was that, as with all governmental bureaucratic systems, government-owned or -controlled healthcare created a situation whereby increased “inputs,” such as expenditures on equipment, infrastructure, and the salaries of medical professionals, actually led to decreased “outputs” in terms of the quantity of medical care. For example, while medical expenditures rose by 224 percent from 1965–1989, the number of hospital beds per 1,000 population fell by 44 percent and the number of beds occupied declined by 15 percent. Also during this time of almost complete governmental domination of the hospital industry (1944–1989), costs per patient-day rose almost 24-fold after inflation is taken into account. The more money that has been spent on government-run healthcare, the less healthcare we have gotten. This kind of result is generally true of all government bureaucracies because of the absence of any market feedback mechanism. Since there are no profits in an accounting sense, by definition, in government, there is no mechanism for rewarding good performance and penalizing bad performance. In fact, in all government enterprises, exactly the opposite is true: bad performance (failure to achieve ostensible goals, or satisfy “customers”) is typically rewarded with larger budgets. Failure to educate children leads to more money for government schools. Failure to reduce poverty leads to larger budgets for welfare state bureaucracies. This is guaranteed to happen with healthcare socialism as well.
When this Swedish galleon of socialized ideology runs aground on the rocks of reality, which it has been doing for some time now, one has to hope that politicians and the public will look and learn what to avoid in our own future. Obamacare is already destroying the lives of virtually every citizen it touches, and it isn’t even close to a single payer system (yet).
The State should stay out of healthcare. How much evidence is needed to prove this point?
Receive access to ALL of our EXCLUSIVE bonus audio content – including “Conspiracy Corner”, “Degenerate Gamblers” and the “League of Liberty Podcast” by joining the Lions of Liberty Pride and supporting us on Patreon!Rand Paul, once seen as a top-tier contender, finds his presidential hopes fading fast as he grapples with deep fundraising and organizational problems that have left his campaign badly hobbled.
Interviews with more than a dozen sources close to the Kentucky senator, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity, painted a picture of an underfunded and understaffed campaign beaten down by low morale.
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They described an operation that pitted a cerebral chief strategist against an intense campaign manager who once got into a physical altercation with the candidate’s bodyguard. And they portrayed an undisciplined politician who wasn’t willing to do what it took to win — a man who obsessed over trivial matters like flight times, peppered aides with demands for more time off from campaigning and once chose to go on a spring-break jaunt rather than woo a powerful donor.
They sketched a portrait of a candidate who, as he fell further behind in polls, no longer seemed able to break through. Paul, lionized as “the most interesting man in politics” in a Time magazine cover story last year, was supposed to reinvent the Republican Party with his message of free-market libertarianism, his vision of a restrained foreign policy and his outreach to minorities.
Instead, he has been overshadowed by louder voices like Donald Trump’s and better-funded figures like Jeb Bush. His theory of the 2016 primary — that Republican voters would reward a candidate who promised fresh ideas and an unconventional approach — has not been borne out in reality.
At Paul’s campaign headquarters on Capitol Hill, morale has begun to sink. At least one key aide recently departed, and others have had conversations with rival campaigns.
“It’s such a negative environment,” said one Paul aide. “Everyone is on edge, and no one is having any fun. They need to recapture some of their positive mojo, and fast.”
***
Easily the biggest problem confronting Paul is his fundraising — or lack thereof. Paul has taken in just $13 million, a fraction of what all of his major rivals for the Republican nomination have raised and far less than Paul hoped.
Those close to Paul say there’s a simple reason for his lack of success: He’s simply not willing to do the stroking and courting that powerful donors expect. He’s downright allergic, they say, to the idea of forging relationships with the goal of pumping people for dough. And while he’s had no shortage of opportunities to mix and mingle with some of the Republican Party’s wealthiest figures, Paul has expressed frustration that donors want so much face time.
He’s even turned away the Koch brothers. When the billionaire industrialists convene their network of conservative benefactors in Southern California this week, Republican candidates like Bush, Marco Rubio and Scott Walker will be in attendance. But Paul won’t be. The senator, the Koch summit’s baffled organizers said, turned down an invitation. Paul has said he will instead be campaigning in Iowa.
While rival presidential candidates cultivate “sugar daddy” contributors, Paul doesn’t yet have one. Peter Thiel, the eccentric Northern California venture capitalist, had once been seen as the the kind of person who could give millions. But Thiel, who helped to fund Ron Paul’s 2012 presidential campaign, is now unlikely to be a major contributor. The senator had once lavished attention on the billionaire — the two had a long lunch meeting at the 2012 Republican National Convention — but no longer does. Since Paul launched his presidential campaign in April, one source said, his personal contacts with Thiel have been few and far between.
At times, Paul has simply seemed uninterested in playing the donor game. Earlier this year, the senator had agreed to speak at the Dialog Retreat, a gathering hosted by Auren Hoffman, a prominent investor with deep ties in the well-heeled Silicon Valley world. But just before he was to appear at Hoffman’s, Paul pulled out so that he could take his family on a spring-break excursion to Florida. Paul’s aides were aghast, realizing they’d missed an opportunity to cultivate the very type of donors likely to be receptive to his small-government philosophy.
A Paul spokesman, Sergio Gor, declined to comment other than to say that “scheduling conflicts come up all the time.” (Hoffman did not respond to requests for comment.)
Paul had once hoped to establish a national network of bundlers who would collect cash from an array of contributors and interest groups. But as he stalls in national polls, those expectations are being scaled back. Former Ambassador Cathy Bailey and South Carolina academic and businessman Mallory Factor were among those once seen as potential major sources of funding, campaign sources said, but have begun to drift away.
In an interview over the weekend, Factor praised Paul, saying he’d make an “excellent president” and vowed to provide him with financial backing. But others were catching his eye. “I’ve spoken to other candidates,” he said. (Bailey did not respond to a request for comment.)
Paul has had to confront another challenge: expanding and professionalizing the activist-driven operation his father Ron used to establish himself as a libertarian force. The senator had once hoped to develop an apparatus that would allow him to nationalize his political brand but instead finds himself with a skeletal operation that has suffered from disorganization and dysfunction.
The confusion starts at the top and dates back to the campaign’s earliest days. One of the first major collisions took place late last year, after Paul tapped Chip Englander, who spearheaded Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner’s 2014 run, to serve as his campaign manager. At the time, Englander told those around him that he expected to have a broad list of powers typically allotted to campaign managers, including oversight of budgetary decision making, hiring and firing authority and unfettered access to the candidate.
But Paul’s longtime chief strategist, Doug Stafford, had other ideas. Stafford would be running the show, the chief strategist said at the time, while Englander would be the “implementer” — in other words, an administrative position focused simply on making the trains run on time. When word traveled back to Englander, said one source close to the campaign, he vented to others. Among his complaints: Stafford’s decision to bring on Marianne Copenhaver, a Web designer with a history of provocative statements. (For example, in one Facebook post, she wrote: “Side note: A big f—k you to Lindsey Graham and John McCain.”)
Stafford is now on better terms with Englander, who was not bothered by the “implementer” term, campaign sources said. (“‘Implementer’ is a compliment to Chip,” said Gor.) The campaign manager has also taken on some key powers. Englander, for example, played a major role in hiring Tony Fabrizio, a veteran GOP pollster. But the early run-in created uncertainty in an organization that was just getting off the ground.
In Paul world, Stafford and Englander — who share an office in campaign headquarters, their desks just a few feet apart — cut diametrically opposite personalities. While Stafford, Paul’s closest political confidant, has a reputation for being laid-back and introspective, Englander is known to be intense — a “mile-a-minute” kind of guy, in the words of one friend.
At times, some in the campaign have questioned whether his intensity has gone too far — and whether it will ultimately distract from his job of keeping the campaign moving. In April, Englander was in New Hampshire with Paul for a campaign event. The senator was mingling with the crowd while John Baeza, a 280-pound retired New York police detective and Paul family loyalist, stood behind him and provided security. Englander barged over, convinced that the ex-cop was getting in the way of supporters eager to snap pictures with the senator.
“What the f—k, Baeza?” Englander said, grabbing his shoulder. “Why are you always getting in our f—king shot?”
“Don’t ever put your hands on me again,” the bodyguard fired back.
Two aides were taken aback at the treatment of Baeza, who is considered essentially a member of the Paul family. Gor maintained that the interaction was not out of the ordinary. “It would be any senior staff’s duty to ensure staff is not in the way of supporters when Sen. Paul is out on the trail,” he said. (Baeza declined to comment.)
The staff serving beneath Stafford and Englander, meanwhile, is undermanned and overworked. While other presidential candidates have hired multiple aides to oversee their day-to-day scheduling, for example, Paul has only a few. The job is not for the faint of heart: In recent weeks, two overwhelmed schedulers, Cheyenne Foster, who worked on the presidential campaign, and Jessica Newman, who worked in the Senate office, have departed.
Those tasked with crafting Paul’s schedule say the process is like playing a game of three-dimensional chess. Rather than letting his campaign team determine his travel schedule, as is customary for busy presidential candidates, Paul often demands sign-off on minute details, going so far as to request detailed lists of possible flight schedules and routes. Paul — who has complained that running for president is “not really a lot of fun” — can be prone to asking for time off the campaign trail and can be prickly about the most mundane commitments. Shortly before attending an event in Monterey, California, last month, he griped about having to do a photo line with supporters even though it had been on his schedule for weeks.
Another worry has been the press office, which has been overseen by two aides, Gor and Eleanor May, both of whom are regarded as competent but lacking the deep experience of many counterparts on rival Republican campaigns. While Bush has filled his campaign with senior communications strategists, Paul has no one playing that role full time.
Paul’s campaign has tried in vain to add more muscle. Stafford, for example, embarked on a months-long quest to woo Josh Holmes, the top architect of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s 2014 reelection campaign, that began last year and extended into the current one. But Holmes, widely considered a rising Republican Party star, said he was uninterested in getting involved in a primary campaign. He is instead working at a newly established political consulting firm.
Winning over top talent has at times been a frustration. At one point, Stafford talked to Danny Diaz, a hard-charging operative with a knack for digging up opposition research. (Diaz would ultimately accept the job of campaign manager for Bush.) At another, he talked to Jon Downs, a respected media strategist who worked for Paul’s father. (Downs also went to work for Bush.) And early on, before Englander was tapped for the campaign manager job, the Paul team talked to Ward Baker about the post. (Baker, an ex-Marine who played a key role for the party as a strategist in the 2014 midterms, opted for a top job at the National Republican Senatorial Committee.)
Some Paul advisers may be starting to think about their future employment. Rex Elsass, a veteran media consultant who is working for the Kentucky senator, recently had a phone conversation with Beth Hansen, the campaign manager for Ohio Gov. John Kasich. In that conversation, according to one source, Elsass, who formerly worked for Kasich, told Hansen that, if at any point in the future Paul was no longer in the contest, he’d be open to going to work for the Ohio governor should he still be in the race.
In a brief interview on Monday, Elsass insisted that he isn’t interested in jumping. “I’m totally committed — 150 percent — to Rand,” who, he said, would be the party’s best nominee.
“It can’t be that fun over there these days. The candidate is dipping in the polls, the money is tight and it’s hard to tell your message that ‘I’m the anti-establishment candidate’ when Donald Trump is crowding out that base,” said Kellyanne Conway, a Republican pollster who was brought onto Newt Gingrich’s 2012 primary campaign after he endured a summer of turmoil.
“This is a marathon, not a sprint, and candidates will fluctuate in the polls,” said Gor. “Our team will have organizational advantages like no one else. Sen. Paul continues to resonate outside of the D.C. bubble; we’ve had large crowds and enthusiastic support at every single stop.”
But Paul’s problems go beyond money or organization. In a campaign now dominated by other candidates, he has struggled to accomplish perhaps his chief objective: winning over an expansive swath of the Republican electorate, including those who didn’t support his father.
“Paul seems to have lost his mojo in broadening the base of his support,” said Scott Reed, the chief strategist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Paul’s allies insist that all is not lost. On the fundraising front, while Thiel may no longer be the sugar daddy they hoped he’d be, another major donor may be ready to step up for the senator: Andrew Beal, a Texas banker who has a reported net worth of $11 billion. Beal, a poker-playing libertarian, has contributed $50,000 to a super PAC supporting Paul and may give far more.
There are also indications that Paul recognizes the need to broaden his tight inner circle. Chris LaCivita, a political veteran who orchestrated the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attacks on John Kerry; Steve Munisteri, a former Texas Republican Party chairman; and Fabrizio, the longtime party pollster, have taken on increasingly assertive roles in recent weeks.
And in a crowded field of Republican candidates, Paul can lay claim to something few others can: a committed group of activist supporters who will go to work for him.
“Rand has a strong team, and his support has deep, deep roots,” said Jesse Benton, who managed Paul’s 2010 Senate bid and is now overseeing one of his super PACs. “He’ll be just fine.”
But with little cash, and with other candidates like Trump sucking oxygen out of the race, Paul may be running short on time.
“He hasn’t had a great start, and I don’t know whether it’s too late,” said Ed Rollins, a veteran of Republican presidential campaigns. “Others have stepped into that void, and I don’t see him in the top three or four anymore.”
Follow @politicoMillions of lives will be unnecessarily lost to soaring rates of respiratory disease and lung cancer unless the Chinese government takes determined action against rampant air pollution, according to one of the country's foremost lung experts.
Bai Chunxue, the head of respiratory medicine at Shanghai's Zhongshan Hospital, said that while smoking was still the main culprit for skyrocketing rates of lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), the dangerously high level of air pollution was taking an increasingly devastating toll on Chinese lungs.
"If air pollution is not reduced we will have more and more respiratory disease, including lung cancer, COPD, asthma and even pneumonia and also heart disease, coronary heart disease," warned Dr Bai, who is also chairman of the Chinese Alliance against Lung Cancer and the director and founder of the Shanghai Respiratory Research Institute.
He singled out the level of fine dust particles with a diameter of 2.5 micrometres or less - known as PM2.5 - as especially dangerous because of their impact on both respiratory and cardiovascular systems.
"Respiratory disease, including lung cancer, causes a very high incidence of mortality," he said. "Therefore, if they [authorities] pay more attention to prevention and treatment we can save a lot of lives - not only of Chinese patients but of foreigners, because air pollution is not just causing a problem for China. It can move to Japan, to America, anywhere."
Dr Bai's comments to The Telegraph came as state media took the unusual step this week of lampooning the Chinese government for failing to protest its citizens from toxic air.
"Don't pretend to be blind to the smog," CCTV, the state broadcaster, urged on Weibo, the Twitter-like social media platform, after Beijing's air quality plummeted to "hazardous" depths over the weekend but authorities failed to take emergency measures. "The government should not shun its responsibility or turn a blind eye to the smog."
The English-language China Daily also slammed Chinese politicians for their "indefensible" response to a recent wave of air pollution.
"Beijing government leaders and leaders of other cities have time and again expressed their resolve to tackle the problem of air pollution," it said. "But their inaction in the face of the heaviest air pollution in a month flies in face of their own promises and their own credibility."
Dr Bai, whose hospital is part of Shanghai's prestigious Fudan University, told The Telegraph he believed Communist Party leaders now understood they had to act. "They are also afraid of air pollution," he said. He called for tougher fuel standards for vehicles and the closure or relocation of polluting factories.
Among a flurry of official announcements over recent days about anti-pollution initiatives has been a plan to create a 10 billion yuan (£9.8 billion) "reward" scheme for cities that succeed in significantly reducing pollution. A 22-point nationwide "clean air plan" is expected to be submitted to the state council, China's cabinet, soon.
Air pollution is also likely to be a major talking point among leaders and advisers at next month's National People's Congress in Beijing.
Dr Bai, whose 40-strong medical team treats around 150,000 lung patients each year, said he feared that even with concerted action, "we will still have this problem in around 10 or 20 years."
Until then, he is taking precautions of his own. On smoggy days, the veteran doctor wears a face mask during his walk of just over a mile to work. Hoping to escape the fumes, he has also moved to a 37th floor flat. "It's the top one in my building. Air pollution is usually highest at the level between the 10th and the 20th floors."
China diagnoses around 1.3 million new cases of chronic bronchitis and emphysema each year, and around 600,000 new cases of lung cancer. Over the last 30 years deaths ascribed to lung cancer have risen by a factor of five in China, an increase that Dr Bai attributes to a combination of better diagnostic techniques and rising levels of pollution.
Dr Bai said tobacco was still by far the leading "risk factor" associated with both conditions, but was followed by "really serious" air pollution. Last December, during a particularly severe bout of smog, the number of outpatients at his Shanghai clinic rose by almost a third.
Rising lung cancer rates among non-smoking women and the young also suggested pollution was an increasingly important risk factor, Dr Bai added. Last November, an eight-year-old girl in Jiangsu province was diagnosed as China's youngest lung cancer sufferer, with her doctor blaming air pollution.
Dr Bai said he suspected pollution had also contributed to the lung cancer he diagnosed in his own youngest patient, a 14-year-old girl.
"To see older people suffering from lung cancer is not strange," he said. "But for a girl who is only 14-years-old, it is very awful."
Despite a dearth of academic research on the topic in China, there is an increasing consensus about the connection between familiar grey skies over Chinese cites and the black lungs of their inhabitants.
Air pollution causes between 350,000 and 500,000 premature deaths each year, Chen Zhu, China's former health minister, estimated in the Lancet medical journal in December.A Washington Post story last month revealing that Marco Rubio had been arrested after hours in a Brickell Park in 1990 quickly sparked far slimier allegations in the conservative Twittersphere: Namely, that the 18-year-old Rubio had actually been cruising for gay sex in the park with a good friend who later ran a notorious gay porn site.
New Times ran down those rumors and found that, indeed, Rubio's childhood pal — a man named Angel Barrios — went on to become entangled in Miami's most notorious gay smut legal case. But that's where the rumor mongering and fact separated; there was zero proof that Rubio and Barrios were gay cruising in Brickell, and Barrios insisted that both men are straight. What's more, Barrios said his ties to that gay porn case were minimal: He simply rented a house to the site, called CocoDorm.com, without knowing what they were up to.
Now, New Times has spoken to the man who actually ran that website. And he backs up Rubio's buddy's claims. He says Barrios had nothing to do with the gay porn business and was merely a landlord who accidentally ended up in the middle of a precedent-setting porn lawsuit.A Blood Moon prophetic disaster?
The restart of the LHC makes big bang of doom?
Mercury in retrograde? Heaven forfend!
There are all these weird noises too! What does it all mean? The Apocalypse? Well if you buy into tabloids, and religious and conspiracy sites hype (specifically from the WND site), it sounds like the End. But we doubt it. While it may sound sciencey on the surface, such claims are a bunch of pseudoscientific nonsense. So you can stop worrying, really. OK, here’s the reasoning.
End of the world claims are common. Remember, the world was supposed to end in 2011 (twice), in 2012 (multiple dates), 2014, and when Pope Benedict was done with his tenure. See all the dozens of other times that the Apocalypse was predicted. All such predictions failed.
In early September, we told you about reverend John Hagee who was promoting his new book on the end times culminating with the “Blood Moon” concocted scare to happen on September 27-28. As we noted then,
Prophecy isn’t real.
Religion is not science.
Hagee is selling a book, encouraging fear to bring people to his brand of religion.
There is no natural reason why the end of the world has anything to do with this date.
There have been 62 tetrads since the first century, these are natural cycles, nothing special.
A story about the END OF THE WORLD!!! is guaranteed click-bait. Jewish mystics and Christian End Times evangelists promoting this view cite various recent catastrophes (drought, fires, volcanoes and earthquakes), increased murder rates [only in some cities], gay marriage legalization, signs in the sky, and Pope Francis’ visit to the US now as signals of the return of Jesus. Bookies are taking bets; I can’t quite figure how those will pay out.
Earth-Sky has this on the Blood Moon hype:
From what we’ve been able to gather, two Christian pastors, Mark Blitz and John Hagee, use the term Blood Moon to apply to the full moons of the ongoing tetrad – four successive total lunar eclipses, with no partial lunar eclipses in between, each of which is separated from the other by six lunar months (six full moons) – in 2014 and 2015. John Hagee appears to have popularized the term in his 2013 book Four Blood Moons: Something is About to Change. Mark Blitz and John Hagee speak of a lunar tetrad as representing a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. After all, the moon is supposed to turn blood red before the end times, isn’t it? As described in Joel 2:31 (Common English Bible): The sun will be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood before the great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. That |
] She also indicated that she plans to launch her own line of lingerie and other Sunny-branded products including a diamond jewellery line.[41]
In September 2009, an iPhone application consisting of a collection of non-nude photos, some videos and a porn star-penned blog[65] was approved by Apple for sale in the iTunes store, making it the first officially sanctioned application featuring a porn star.[66] By February 2010, the app had been removed by Apple from the store.[67]
Leone was voted number 13 (up from number 41 in 2007[68]) on Genesis magazine's "Top 100 Porn stars" list,[69] number 34 on Desiclubs.com's Top 50 Coolest Desis of 2004,[70] and one of the "40 under 40" ranking on AVN Online magazine.[71] In 2010, she was named by Maxim as one of the 12 top female stars in porn.[72] She was voted number 82 in the Top 99 Women for 2012 in AskMen.com's list.[73]
In 2013, she announced her retirement from the adult industry stating "I am lucky that the audience is accepting me. I have come my way from there (porn industry). I don't have any plans as of now to go back there."[74]
In 2016 she was chosen as one of BBC's 100 Women.[75] The Tech magazine, Exhibit has chosen Sunny Leone[76] for their cover girl of October 2016 issue.
Mainstream appearances
Leone's first mainstream appearance was in 2005, when she was a red carpet reporter for the MTV Awards on MTV India. She has also had a cameo in the film The Girl Next Door, performed in Ja Rule's video Livin' It Up and a video for Kidd Skilly.[77] Other credits include E!'s "Wild On!" and the Sundance Film Festival's 'After Dark'.[78] Leone was a contestant in the second season of the Fox reality show My Bare Lady 2: Open for Business, in which a group of adult actresses were given classes and training on how to pitch investment ideas and competed for success in the business world.[79] In addition to filming her scene for Debbie Does Dallas in 2007, Leone was also part of a Showtime documentary of the same name detailing the production of the movie and the personal lives of its stars.
She indicated that for the right price she would seriously consider a career in Bollywood.[80] She was courted by Indian directors in the past but felt uncomfortable with the roles that she would have played.[24][81] Director Mohit Suri reportedly asked Leone to play the lead role in his film Kalyug, but instead cast Deepal Shaw as he could not afford Leone's $1 million acting fee.[82] She has mentioned that Aamir Khan is her favorite Bollywood actor,[83] and that over 60% of her fans are from South Asia.[84]
In 2008, Leone announced that she would be starring in a mainstream action adventure movie titled Pirates Blood, which was shot in Oman. The shooting was completed in two weeks and was to be released in winter 2008.[85] Leone also landed a role in Middle Men, producer Chris Mallick's indie feature about the birth of the online porn industry set for wide theatrical release in 2009.[86][87] She appeared in the 2010 film The Virginity Hit playing a version of herself, where she is hired to take the virginity of the lead character.[88]
Leone at the PETA's stray dog adoption campaign
Leone has made appearances at events such as the 2002 SEMA International Auto Salon, the 2002 Extreme Autofest Pomona and the 2006 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.[89] Sunny has also been the hostess at events in clubs like the Mansion in Miami[90] and the Highlands in Hollywood.[91]
In 2005, she was mentioned in Forbes magazine for a story on Vivid Entertainment.[92] Leone has also been featured in mainstream publications like FHM, Front and Jane magazine.[93] In 2007, along with the other Vivid Girls, she was seen in a 48' high holiday Billboard in Times Square at W. 48th Street and Seventh Avenue.[94] Leone is also one of the Penthouse Pets who appears in the PlayStation Portable game Pocket Pool. She was also featured in a coffee table book titled Naked Ambition: An R Rated Look at an X Rated Industry by Michael Grecco.[95]
In 2004, she was part of No More Bush Girls, in which she and several other popular adult actresses shaved off their pubic hair in protest of the George W. Bush presidency.[96] In May 2008, she shot a promotional video for Declare Yourself, a nonprofit, nonpartisan voter registration campaign targeting 18- to 29-year-olds.[97] She indicated that Barack Obama would be her choice in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, primarily because she felt he was more business friendly to the adult industry than his opponent John McCain.[98] She also released a public service announcement on behalf of the ASACP, reminding adult webmasters to protect their sites from children by having an RTA label on it.[99]
Leone has a strong interest in health and fitness, and has been featured in several mainstream fitness publications. Leone has modelled fitness clothing for the sports brand Fantasy Fitness[100] and shared that she keeps her body in shape by working out as much as she can despite her busy schedule and as quoted in Men's Fitness magazine, "I try to eat very healthy – lots of vegetables, drinking my milk every day."[101]
In 2013, Leone posed for a PETA ad campaign, encouraging dog and cat owners to have their pets spayed and neutered. In an interview for PETA India, Leone said, "I believe that every single dog should be spayed and neutered. You don't want to continue the cycle of homeless dogs or cats. And spaying and neutering also keeps them healthy."[102] PETA named her their "Person of the Year" in 2016.[103]
Bigg Boss
In 2011, she participated in the Indian reality series Bigg Boss 5, entering the house on day 49.[104][105] However she refused to divulge her porn star status, and replied to fellow house-mate Pooja Bedi that she was a model and a TV star in America for the last ten years or so.[106] It was reported that she caused a stir in the larger populace[107] with her Twitter feed gaining 8,000 new followers in just 2 days[108] and Google saying searches for her experienced a "breakout".[109] There were also complaints lodged with the Indian Ministry of Information and Broadcasting alleging that the Colors TV channel was promoting pornography by having Leone appear on the show; among those who filed are the Indian Artistes and Actors Forum[110] and Anurag Thakur, member of Lok Sabha and head of the Bharatiya Janata Party's youth wing.[111]
Indian cinema
Jism 2 in 2012 Leone on the set ofin 2012
During her stay in the Bigg Boss house, Leone was approached by Bollywood film-maker Mahesh Bhatt who entered the house briefly to offer her the lead role in Jism 2 (the sequel to the 2003 film Jism). She accepted it, which resulted in Pooja Bhatt's production house, Fish Eye Network and Leone's agent discussing the movie further.[112] Leone entered Bollywood in 2012 with the film Jism 2 to weak critical reception but was commercially successful.[113] Sunny Leone signed her second Bollywood film, Ragini MMS 2, sequel to Ekta Kapoor's crossover horror movie Ragini MMS.[114] Sunny Leone featured in an item number in the Sanjay Gupta and Ekta Kapoor's 2013 film Shootout at Wadala.[115][116] She further started filming for Kaizad Gustad's Jackpot in which she plays a femme fatale.[117] Jackpot released on 13 December 2013 and was panned by critics.[118]
Her first release of 2014 was the much anticipated horror film Ragini MMS 2, which proved to be a box-office hit.[119][120] Leone's performance received all round praise with critic Mohar Basu calling her work a "revelation".[121] Critic Taran Adarsh also noted that Leone, "carries off her character with supreme confidence".[122] In November 2013, she had confirmed that she would make her Tamil film debut in Vadacurry which released in May 2014 and featured her in a special appearance.[123] She next appeared in the item number Pink Lips for the film Hate Story 2,.[124] After giving a hit number Pink Lips, she appeared once again in Shake That Booty opposite Mika Singh from his film Balwinder Singh Famous Ho Gaya. She made her acting debut in the Telugu film industry by appearing in a cameo in Current Theega opposite Manchu Manoj and Rakul Preet Singh where she played a school teacher.[125]
Leone then appeared in item song Sesamma Bagilu Tegiyamma in Kannada film DK, which marked her debut in Kannada film industry.[126] In April 2015, Leone appeared in Bobby Khan's musical thriller Ek Paheli Leela, where she portrayed dual roles as Leela, a village belle and Meera, a supermodel from Milan. The film was released on April 10, 2015.[127][128] The film met with mixed to negative reviews but was a commercial success with collections of ₹27.47 crore (US$3.8 million).[129][130] After a little gap, post the release of Ek Paheli Leela, she appeared in Devang Dholakia's Kuch Kuch Locha Hai was released on May 8, 2015. She essayed the role of a film star opposite Ram Kapoor, Evelyn Sharma and Navdeep Chabbra. The film emerged to be a critical and commercial failure.[131] She did her second Kannada song "Kamakshi" from the film Luv U Alia.[132] Last in 2015, she appeared in a cameo in Akshay Kumar's Singh is Bling.[133] In January 2016, she appeared in Milap Zaveri's adult comedy Mastizaade, released on January 29, 2016 where she portrayed twin sisters, Laila Lele and Lily Lele along with Tusshar Kapoor and Vir Das. The film released to mixed reviews and was an average earner.[134] One critic said "Leone may not be better than this film, but she's the best thing in it."[16] Her next film was Jasmine D'souza's One Night Stand with Tanuj Virwani released on May 6, 2016. The film was released to mixed reviews but was a flop commercially.[135] Her last release of 2016 was Rajeev Chaudary's Beiimaan Love opposite Rajneesh Duggal that released on October 14, 2016. Her performance was widely praised but the film met with negative reviews and flopped.[136] She also appeared in song "Tu Zaroorat Nahi Tu Zaroori Hai" with Sharman Joshi in Fuddu and item song "Choli Blockbuster" for the film Dongri Ka Raja.[137][138] In December 2016, her song "Laila Main Laila" from Raees with Shah Rukh Khan was released.[139]
Raees in 2017 Sunny Leone at an event promotion ofin 2017
In April 2017, she appeared in a cameo for Sonakshi Sinha's Noor where she is portrayed the role of an actress.[140] She then appeared in song "Piya More" with Emraan Hashmi in Milan Luthria's Baadshaho.[141] In addition, she appeared in song "Trippy Trippy" in Sanjay Dutt's comeback film, Bhoomi released on September 22, 2017.[142] She also made her Marathi and Bengali film debuts the same month with songs "Kuth Kuth Jayacha Honeymoon La" in Vishal Devrukhkar's Boyz and "Chaap Nishna" in Swapan Saha's Shrestha Bangali.[143][144] She then appeared in song "Deo Deo" for Rajasekhar's Telugu film PSV Garuda Vega[145] Her last appearance was her mainstream film Tera Intezaar along Arbaaz Khan directed by Rajeev Walia. The film released on 1 December 2017.[146]
Sunny Leone was voted by the Network 7 Media Group jury as "Indian Affairs Actress of the year 2018" founded by Satya Brahma at the historic 9th Annual India Leadership Conclave & Indian Affairs Business Leadership Awards 2018.[147]
Upcoming projects
In January 2018, Leone started filming for the Hindi remake of 2012 Punjabi film Jatt & Juliet opposite Manish Paul.[148] She is also set to star in Veeramadevi a period war Tamil film in full-fledged lead role directed by V.C. Vadivudaiyan. The shooting for the film will commence in February 2018 and will be released in Telugu, Hindi & Malayalam.[149] Sunny Leone's auto biopic titled "Karenjit Kaur – The Untold Story of Sunny Leone", an original web-series by ZEE5,[150] was released on the platform on 16 July 2018.[151] The series narrates her journey from a middle-class girl in Canada to becoming India's most googled celebrity. The series starts from her childhood as Gogu to her foray into the adult film industry to her exciting journey into Bollywood. The series will also be available in Bengali, Tamil, Telugu and Marathi languages.
Writer
In April 2016, Leone published an e-book of love stories entitled Sweet Dreams.[152] The work was well received by the Hindustan Times, which commented, "Sunny's stories are relentlessly optimistic. The characters are not complicated or unpleasant and exist in a world that veers on the border of Valentine's Land with its floating pink hearts and soft focus lighting."[153]
Personal life
Leone at the launch of her perfume brand in 2016
In June 2006, Leone became an American citizen,[22] but stated she planned to remain a dual citizen of Canada.[154] On 14 April 2012, Leone announced that she was now a resident of India[155][156][156] explaining in an interview to The New Indian Express that she was an Overseas Citizen of India and that she was eligible for overseas citizenship because her parents lived in India. She applied for it prior to filming Jism 2.[157][158][159]
Although bisexual, she has stated that she prefers men.[160] Sunny Leone had dated Indian-Canadian stand-up comedian Russell Peters up until they broke up in 2007.[161][162][163] Leone was then dating Matt Erikson, a vice-president of marketing at Playboy Enterprises. After being engaged to Erikson, they broke up in 2008.[19][164][165][166] She mentioned in an interview at the start of 2011 that she was married to Daniel Weber.[167] During her stay in the Bigg Boss house later that same year, Leone indicated that she had married; Leone said she "purposely arrived late" to their first date as she was not impressed with him, but he changed her mind by sending 24 roses to her hotel room.[168][169]
A 2008 Eye Weekly article reported that "Leone does her best to maintain a link to Sikh traditions, even if more in theory than in practice. But she's unlikely to disavow her career path due to religion" and that Leone said "Girls will leave the industry claiming that they found God. Well, the fact is, God has always been with them the entire time."[170] In a 2010 interview, she said
It's a community-based religion. You walk into a temple and you're greeted with the utmost respect... But, just like any religion it doesn't want you to shoot adult material. I mean, I grew up going to temple every Sunday. When my parents found out they knew my personality which was very independent. Even if they tried to stop me or tried to steer me the right way they would have lost their daughter. I'm too headstrong. And it wasn't a plan. It just happened and my career and everything just kept getting bigger and bigger.[18]
Sunny Leone and her husband Daniel Weber at Vogue Beauty Awards in 2017
In July 2017, Leone and her husband Daniel Weber adopted their first child from Latur, a village in Maharashtra. The baby girl, whom they named Nisha Kaur Weber, was 21 months old at the time of adoption. Actress Sherlyn Chopra first confirmed the news by writing a congratulatory message on social media on 20 July 2017. "Never in my life did I think that I want to adopt a child. People doing such amazing work at the orphanage changed my mind," Daniel Weber told Hindustan Times."[171][172][173][174]
On March 4, 2018, Sunny Leone and her husband announced the birth of their twin boys, born through surrogacy. They named the boys Asher Singh Weber and Noah Singh Weber.[175][176]
Leone lives in Mumbai, Maharashtra. She moved into their new house with husband Weber and children on Ganesh Chaturthi which fell on September 13, 2018.[13]
Controversies
A police first information report was filed against her in May 2015 after a woman at Mumbai, India, complained that Leone's website, sunnyleone.com, was destroying the Indian culture. Thane police's cyber cell at Ramnagar booked her for sections 292, 292A, 294 which could land her into jail, fine or both. Senior police inspector JK Sawant stated, "We cannot block the website, but will ask the operator to remove objectionable content."[177]
In the 2017 new year, a pro-Kannada group Rakshana Vedike Yuva Sene protested against the event Sunny Night in Bengaluru NYE 2018 in Bengaluru. Sunny Leone was to perform at this event and the group argued that due to her pornographic past, she shouldn't be allowed in the event. The protesters even threatened mass suicide and fearing that there can be a law and order situation, Karnataka home minister Ramalinga Reddy denied permission to this event.[178]
In 2018, a social activist lodged a complaint against Leone at the Nazarethpet police station in Chennai. He stated that the actress is promoting pornography which is against the Indian nation's law. He also added that this will majorly dent the Indian culture and spoil the moral fabric of the society.[179]
Producer and distributor Bharat Patel (Producer) has accused Leone of not returning the signing amount of Rs 5 lakhs which she had taken to do a special dance number for his movie Patel Ki Punjabi Shaadi starring Rishi Kapoor and Paresh Rawal in lead roles.[180]
Bibliography
Sweet Dreams (2016)
See also
ReferencesLos Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant (8) is still holding out hope the team gets players to make them more competitive. (Photo: Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports)
Somewhere in the recesses of Kobe Bryant's mind, there is a list of possible Los Angeles Lakers saviors that seems to get shorter by the day.
Carmelo Anthony was near the top, but he made the choice to return to New York last summer. Rajon Rondo was someone who he was hoping could help, too, but the recent trade sending him from the Boston Celtics to the Dallas Mavericks means he's unofficially off the market.
They are the latest Lakers lifelines to land elsewhere, the kinds of talents who could have helped the Laker Nation out of this deep recession while aiding Bryant in what is fast becoming a brutal final chapter.
Yet still, with this idea that one of the game's greatest winners might go out with a whimper seeming more likely every time a prospective teammate gets away, the always-cocksure Bryant somehow sees it differently.
"I really do trust management," he reiterated to USA TODAY Sports. "I mean I really, really do. They'll get things turned around pretty quickly. I'm not really concerned about that."
He's about the only one in Laker Land who feels that way.
We'll know in the next 19 months whether Bryant's faith in management was misguided or merited, but the reality of his situation is setting in now that the noise about passing Michael Jordan for third all-time on the NBA's scoring list has finally quieted down. For all the recent handwringing over his shoddy shot selection, and the recent debate about whether he needs to take some time off, the only storyline that truly matters is the one about his future teammates and whether or not they'll arrive in time to change this script.
Might Goran Dragic, LaMarcus Aldridge, or Kevin Love come their way this summer, or Kevin Durant the next? The Lakers, who cornered the market on good, old-fashioned luck during their franchise's history, simply need to catch a break at some point.
Bryant admitted his disappointment in the Rondo development, as the recent recruiting breakfast that captured so many headlines in Boston and beyond was apparently for naught. Rondo is still set to be a free agent this summer, but the Mavericks are confident he will re-sign and it seems only a disastrous showing by Dallas can change that now. So, after the Lakers had inquired about a Rondo trade but ultimately lacked the assets to pull one off, was he disappointed to see him head for Dallas?
"Oh yeah," said Bryant, who has insisted that he plans on retiring after next season. "Of course. Of course. But all you can do is control what you can control. We did our part. We did what we could.... It's not from a lack of effort. It's not from a lack of smarts, so I trust the process. It's hard going through this (expletive), but our management will figure it out."
The Rondo situation was the latest reminder that these Lakers are fighting an uphill fight, their odds of a turnaround during Bryant's time decreasing every time a prominent player picks another path. Bryant knows this, of course, yet still hasn't reached for that panic button that Lakers fans are pounding.
GALLERY: KOBE'S CAREER YEAR BY YEAR
The frustration is there, of course, and it was there for all to see a few weeks back when his post-practice rant that went viral said everything about his true state of mind relating to this talent-starved team. But what isn't there — at least publicly — is a sense from Bryant that all hope is lost when it comes to top-tier teammates coming his way.
He admitted this week that this load is simply too large, saying after a loss to the Sacramento Kings on Sunday that "I didn't anticipate having to do so much." Yet still, as Bryant said, there is a hyperfocus on the daily rigors that doesn't allow him to look too far down the road. After all, being a 36-year-old NBA player who is still not far removed from an Achilles tendon tear and serious leg injury is daunting enough. So what's inspiring him now, he was asked, during this in-between stage that will only improve if they win this free agent waiting game?
"Um, just playing," he said. "Playing and competing is what gets me going, and figuring out this body. This is unchartered territory, and I'm just trying to figure it out on a daily basis, and not trying to completely break down and still try to carry the load for my team, which is way too much."
If only Anthony hadn't been beckoned back to the Big Apple.
The Knicks star's choice couldn't look more foolhardy at the moment, as New York has lost 15 of its last 16 games and — at 5-25 and with a winning percentage of.167 — is on pace to have its worst season in franchise history. Just five months ago, Anthony was contemplating life with the Lakers while visiting with Bryant during free agency and considering the idea of two aging veterans aiding each other's cause.
But the Knicks could offer the fifth year that came with all that extra cash (he signed a five-year, $124 million deal), thereby giving them the edge over the Lakers and a Chicago Bulls team would have given him a chance at the title (they could only offer four-year deals). So Bryant's mentor and friend, Knicks president Phil Jackson, won his services and left Bryant (not to mention his fiance' and Lakers governor Jeanie Buss) playing the bridesmaid role that has become their norm.
For Bryant's part, he isn't about to criticize his good friend for the choice he made.
"I hear you (about Anthony making the wrong choice), but at the same time as players you have to make business decisions," he said. "You have to try to make decisions where it's a win-win for you and for the organization. It can't be a one-sided street, so Phil and the management over there in New York, they'll figure it out. They'll get the pieces around him. It's not happening right now. I don't think anybody expected that this year they'd be world-beaters. They know it's a process. He knows it's a process. They'll figure it out."
If you didn't know any better, you'd think he was talking about himself.
Follow Sam Amick on Twitter @sam_amick.Thomas Piketty’s global renown shouldn’t stop us from asking some hard political questions — or rather questions about his intellectual and political deception. The media have been almost unanimous about his Capital in the Twenty-First Century (1), proof in itself of the book’s total innocuousness. The world would have to have changed a great deal for Libération, Le Monde, the New York Times, the Washington Post and many more to be so enthusiastic about anything actually controversial. Some English-language media, helped by less than progressive reservations, have managed to keep their heads: the Financial Times took Piketty to task on an obscure statistical point; Bloomberg ran a front cover last May in the style of a teen magazine, showing Piketty as a heartthrob surrounded with stars.
One thing is for sure: only favourably disposed media could hail Piketty as a “21st-century Marx” simply because he calls his book Capital. He admits he has “never managed really” to read Das Kapital (2) or any other works of Marx, does not set out any theory of capitalism, and makes no attempt to challenge its basis (3).
We should not ignore the book’s merits. Every commentator must be impressed by the scale and quality of Piketty’s statistical work. But its principal virtue lies in the fact that it is a book. Most economists, driven by the need to publish, have unlearned the skill of writing books. Instead, they produce technical papers (not longer than the 15 pages allowed by academic journals) so standardised that they lose all meaning. Capital in the Twenty-First Century is the thousand-page culmination of 15 years of dedicated toil. The usefulness of social sciences is never so clear as when they contribute to the political debate with solidly established facts.
But all the methodological rigour in the world will not make up for the most basic deception, so obvious that it has passed unnoticed: the title. Piketty tells us he is going to discuss capital. He is aware that a well-known author has written a book about it before him. He seems to think “I can get away with this”. Unfortunately, it does matter: it’s fine to call a new book Critique of Pure Reason provided you are not writing about, say, herbal medicine.
Just what is capital? Piketty, not having really read Das Kapital, is only able to give a very superficial definition: the wealth of the wealthy. To Marx, capital was something else entirely, a mode of production, a complex social relationship which, crucially, adds employment relationships to the monetary relationships of simple market economies. These are based on private ownership of the means of production and on the legal myth of the “free worker”, who is deprived of any means of making a living independently and therefore forced to hire himself out to survive, and to submit to domination by an employer.
Ultra-long-term view that isn’t
That is what capital is, not just the Fortune 500. In the narrow sense of wealth, capital affects ordinary people through the obscene spectacle of wealth inequality. But as a mode of production and a social relationship, it affects them far more through the slavery it creates — an eight-hour working day takes up half their waking day. Redundant workers probably suffer less from seeing the rich parade their wealth than from the way their lives have been wrecked by the iron law of financial valuation. The same goes for those in work, who suffer under the tyrannical demands of productivity and profitability, constant threats of mass layoffs, delocalisation, restructuring — the energy-sapping precariousness and brutal nature of employment. None of this is even mentioned in the book.
The form and intensity of this slavery are determined by the historical circumstances under which capitalism is manifested — for in practice, there are many different kinds of capitalism. And it is the inseparably linked, changing economic and political factors that continually steer capitalism in new directions. But Piketty is quite unable to see things in a light that would show up the specifically political factors in the history of capitalism.
The first problem is his insistence on taking an ultra-long-term view — which is welcome, given how little most economists know about history, but creates its own problems. To do this over decades can be highly relevant and informative; to do it ultra-long-term, over millennia, means constructing meaningless statistical models and creating huge anachronisms. Piketty presents a graph of “after-tax rate of return vs growth rate at the world level from antiquity to 2100”, as if the concepts of GDP, capital and return on capital after tax had any relevance in antiquity, or even in the 18th century. Applying such concepts as if they were universal is a typical economist’s solecism. Piketty is unable to see that they are ad hoc (and recent) inventions. Ironically, it is when he turns historian, and suddenly switches to the ultra-long-term view, that he most clearly demonstrates his ignorance of the historical realities.
There is also a clear risk of depoliticisation, in that events taking place over decades become minor fluctuations when seen from the perspective of millennia. The decade is the pertinent timeframe for political action, the timeframe within which nations judge their living standards and assess the scope for doing something about them.
Readers may object that Piketty deals mainly with the 20th century. He does, but he applies to it the same universal “laws” that he believes he can apply to capitalism through the ages. To believe that it is possible to define the course of capitalism according to invariant, transhistorical laws, modulated only by fluctuations whose principles are never clearly explained, is the most distinctive feature of economists’ thinking. They see themselves as physicians to society, and often succumb to the temptation of formulating scientific “laws”, like the law of gravity. Piketty is not as naïve as that. But the fact that he too is tempted shows how prevalent “economist-think” has become, affecting even those who (belatedly) advocate a break with economism.
‘Fundamental laws of capitalism’
There are no transhistorical laws applicable to capitalism, and Piketty’s own fundamental laws of capitalism are nothing more than accounting equations. What does exist is the historical course of capitalism, as determined by institutional configurations, their succession controlled mainly by political processes; each of them brings particular forms of the servitude that capital — not wealth — imposes on labour.
Piketty may repeat over his thousand pages that inequality increases when r (rate of return on capital) is greater than g (growth rate), but he has explained nothing because he doesn’t describe the factors that determine rates of return and growth in each era. These depend on the organisation of structures in the particular era, the result of political struggles — of class struggles. In France, there was an impressive institutional conjunction after the second world war, and the balance of power between capital and labour tipped some way in favour of labour, with tight controls on capital, the reduction of the stock exchange to a rump, strict regulation of international competition, economic policies geared towards growth and employment, and repeated currency devaluations, producing 5% growth and forcing capital to behave a little more decently. But this only happened because the Matignon agreements of 1936 had prepared the ground after the liberal elite of the 1920s had been swept away, because employers had been compromised by collaboration with the Nazis, the Communist Party had 25% of the vote in the post-war years, and capitalists were nervous about the Soviet Union.
Though Piketty repeatedly mentions “institutions” and “politics”, he is blind to institutional and political history. He talks about the effects of war, and more remotely of decolonisation. These external shocks are almost impossible to quantify, but their role is to destroy capital (wealth) and turn the clock back. He fails to mention general strikes, social struggles, the power struggle between capital and labour, and their institutional consequences. Capitalism according to Piketty has no history — only an unvarying age-old law, occasionally disturbed by accidental events, but always returning to its implacable long-term trend, which leaves no room for conflict between social groups, the real force behind institutional change.
Yet it is the outcome of such conflicts that determines the course of capitalism. Just as it took one direction after the second world war, it took another at the end of the 1970s. Piketty says nothing of the ideological and political reconquest by the rich who, having been less rich for a time, wanted to be richer again. The rollback agenda of US conservatives in the 1970s explicitly expressed the intention of reversing social advances. These advances are always institutional conquests.
The key question is who controls institutions and structures, who has the power to create them, or reshape them to their own ends. Such political questions never surface; the book never mentions any real conflict. There is no analysis of financial deregulation in the 1980s, which made businesses more subject than ever to shareholder control. There is no account of the key role of the socialist governments of the time, the management revolution or the elimination of political and economic differences between leftwing and rightwing elites. There is no account of the unchecked neoliberal drift of the EU from 1984 towards “free and undistorted competition” — the mechanism par excellence for the destruction of advanced social models. There is no account of the treacherous treaties that have removed all room for manoeuvre in national economic policy. Unless these things happened by chance, they must be human work. Capital, as a social group, has now won back everything it conceded after the second world war. But it is still pressing its advantage — with unprecedented support in France from the Socialist Party, which seems to have decided to hand it everything on a platter.
Evasion and sleight of hand
Piketty remains in a fog of macroeconomic abstractions, repeating that r > g, and cannot claim to have shed light on anything, still less to have made the “theoretical breakthrough” some journalists claim for him. He is ill equipped to tell this story. Nothing in his career has prepared him for it: he cannot go overnight from a social-democratic, organic economist to being the Marx of the 21st century. He is a historian of the sociopolitical school of Pierre Rosanvallon; he was an adviser to the Socialist Ségolène Royal during her 2007 presidential election campaign; the media call him one of the “substitute intellectuals”. In the late 1990s, tousled casual was no longer fashionable, people wanted seriousness: figures, a scientific approach and no ideology, except for Rosanvallon-style globalisation-is-doing-OK-though-it-could-do-better equivocation, suggesting we should not rebel over a few imperfections (“that’s what we have experts for”). La République des Idées (RI), a thinktank and publisher of “correct” ideas led by Rosanvallon, with a mission to nurture France’s Socialist Party intellectually, has consistently taken great care never to raise any indecorous issues. RI has talked about inequality for many years, weeping over the sufferings of the workers, but has blamed rapid technological innovation and lack of training, and praised the virtues of academic research. What about free trade and the devastation it brings? Or the tyranny of shareholder value? Or the EU, now in the final stages of neoliberalism? Not a word (4). RI thinks all these are our destiny. It has a strategy of evasion — and sleight of hand. Those who claim to be serious and are keen to maintain their influence and their reputation in the media never mention such things.
The financial crisis of 2007-8 and the European crisis of 2010 brought a violent resurgence of what had been suppressed. (This will have to be discussed. But it is difficult to discuss such issues from scratch — when one does not know how to respond properly, not knowing about whole areas and without the words to describe what can be seen.) Finance has been globalised and nobody had taken any notice, but it is now clear that everything is not rosy. The economist Daniel Cohen, like Piketty, after decades of silence on this, has suddenly realised that the design of the EU’s monetary union was “faulty from the start” (5). These experts must be running on diesel: they clearly need time to warm up. Their belated rectifications will have very little effect. Long-term intellectual and political habits are hard to overcome. Capital is riddled with them; Piketty skips over the political and social history that led to Fordism, then to neoliberalism.
Even more spectacular is the ambition expressed in the last part of his book, boldly titled “Regulating Capital in the 21st Century”. The logical consequence of the strategy of evasion is that taxation becomes the only remaining tool available. Giving up on trying to change structures means taking palliative measures. Taxation has never been anything more than a social-democratic palliative — if we can’t tackle the causes, let’s at least try to alleviate the effects. Piketty, torn between the immediate problem and his desire not to disrupt anything fundamental, would like taxation to have greater virtues than it does, even the ability to regulate international finance. It |
circles, including some at Essendon, that Hird’s position at Essendon is untenable and he cannot return as coach.
Hird’s career seemingly hangs in the balance after the club has refused to guarantee his future.
SHOULD JAMES HIRD BE SACKED? VOTE AND HAVE YOUR SAY BELOW
On Friday Little urged Hird to “control” those around him, amid fallout from wife Tania Hird’s controversial TV interview.
“James needs to control those around him — I don’t think anyone would argue with that,” Little told 3AW radio on Friday.
“We really want to speak to James about what he knew, and what was motivating Tania. We haven’t been able to speak to either of them. We are putting that off until next week.
“It is a complex situation. There are a lot of things that need answering, and we’ll work on those next week,” Little said.
News_Rich_Media: Essendon Bombers chairman Paul Little has offered no assurances of James Hird's future, suggesting Tania Hird's revelatory interviews could prove the tipping point.
Little was unable to contact Hird, who’s in Singapore, to seek an explanation of the latest flare-up.
Bombers board members held a telephone hook-up, and will convene again about the furore next week.
It is expected Hird and all Essendon coaches and officials will be warned to respect club protocols and to stop commenting publicly on the drugs saga.
Hird’s lawyer, Julian Burnside, QC, said it would be outrageous for Essendon to sack its coach because of an interview given by his wife.
Footy’s drugs saga reignited on Thursday night when Hird’s wife Tania repeated claims AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou had tipped off Essendon about investigations into the club’s 2012 drugs program on the ABC’s 7.30, which aired on Thursday night.
Little appeared on Eddie McGuire’s breakfast radio show on Friday, fuelling speculation Hird might be sacked.
“The club will need to meet now... to determine how we go forward in relation to the James Hird issue,” Little said.
“Up until the events of the last 24 hours we believed that James was acting and responding to our requests in a positive way.”
McGuire declared: “I’ll make a bold prediction, I don’t think we’ll see James Hird coach Essendon again.”
CLICK HERE TO READ A TRANSCRIPT OF THE PAUL LITTLE INTERVIEW
JON ANDERSON: TAKE YOUR CASH AND SHUT UP, HIRDY
TIMELINE: THE ESSENDON SAGA SO FAR
But by mid-afternoon the club had resolved not to make an immediate call.
Hird is en route to France where he will complete an elite business course paid for in part by Essendon as he serves a 12-month suspension from the game.
Tania, who will join him next week, said yesterday she felt the need to defend her husband’s reputation.
“There comes a point that I, as the wife, I’m just sick of the wrong things being written about my husband,” she said outside her Toorak home.
“He is such a caring, loving, wonderful person, he really is a fabulous person, he’s not vain, he’s not arrogant... that is so far from the type of person that he is.
“Hysteria’s been allowed to mount on the basis of things that are just not accurate.
“We’re still waiting to see anything of substance.”
News_Image_File: Tania Hird leaves home on Friday. Picture: Jake Nowakowski
News_Rich_Media: Suspended coach James Hird joins The Hangar for a candid discussion on the support from Essendon fans, his relationship with Mark "Bomber" Thompson and how he will spend the next few months on the sidelines from the AFL.
Demetriou again denied tipping off the Bombers.
The Herald Sun reported last July that Demetriou had spoken to Essendon officials on February 4, 2013 — the night before the Bombers announced they would come under AFL and ASADA investigation.
“For the 125th time... no (I did not tip them off),” Demetriou told 3AW.
“She (Tania) is not the first one who has said that... and you’ve heard my response to that and the response is pretty simple. It was impossible to tip off anyone... when I wasn’t privy to the information because I didn’t have access to it.
“It is just a distraction. I mean this issue which you have heard me say before, this issue is not about any individual, this is about a regime, a system where young men were being injected with substances many of which are unknown, some of which we know are banned for use in humans. And we put a stop to that regime.”
CLICK HERE TO READ A TRANSCRIPT OF THE DEMETRIOU INTERVIEW
The outgoing league boss said he detected Little had become frustrated.
“I have a lot of sympathy for the Essendon supporters and the club,” Demetriou said.
“The last thing they want to be talking about is the (Tania Hird) interview.
“People are fatigued by this issue. We need to move forward.”
AFL commissioner Bill Kelty yesterday defended Demetriou’s conduct over the course of the saga.
“What is not fair for Andrew (Demetriou) is … for it to be continuously said by people that in some way he acted improperly,” Kelty told ABC radio.
“It’s just not fair. He acted honourably and professionally throughout the process as far as I was concerned. And I stood aside from it.”
- with Daryl Timms
News_Rich_Media: Essendon's hierarchy will meet on Friday to discuss the future of suspended coach James Hird following explosive claims made by his wife Tania on the ABC's 7.30 Report on Thursday night.
News_Rich_Media: Tania Hird, the wife of James Hird, has dropped a bombshell early in Andrew Demetriou's farewell season, claiming the AFL boss did tip Essendon off prior to last year's ASADA investigation.
Kelty revealed he had excused himself from commission deliberations on the Essendon saga because of his friendship with former Bombers chairman David Evans.
“I have a very special relationship with David Evans. David Evans is like a son to me,” Kelty said.
“I said instantly, once it was clear that it was Essendon, that I had to stand aside. Not because it was Essendon Football Club, but because it was David Evans chairing the board.”
Kelty said it was unfortunate that the doping saga had become personal.
“The one most important thing is the welfare of the players... it’s not about James, it’s not about me, and it’s not about Andrew.”Brooks and Company's Into the Dark Wood is one of the first dance productions of what promises to be a busy new year on the Atlanta dance scene. The show, which plays at the Balzer Theatre January 5-7, explores the dark side of three fairy tales: Hans Christian Anderson's “The Ice Queen”; the Slavic folktale "Baba Yaga”; and the Bluebeard-like English tale “Mr. Fox.”
“I would say they're 'dark' only because we're telling the original versions, not the Disney versions,” says the show's creator and choreographer Kristyn McGeehan. “When you string the stories together, it tells a larger story. The first one is innocent, and each of the heroines gets a little darker as it moves along. It felt like the arc of a life to me.”
The stories are linked together by a narrator but are told primarily through dance. Though the dancers in Brooks and Company are classically trained, the segments of the show utilize a range of styles: “The Ice Queen” is told with balletic movement, “Baba Yaga” in a more modern style, and “Mr. Fox” has a jazz feel, McGeehan says.I just read a volume of papers on creativity in museums, visitor experiences, and so forth. Despite the plethora of measurement outcomes for visitors touching pieces, engaging with staff, talking among themselves, voting for their favorites, and so forth, I found no mention of a visitor being asked “what are your needs and wants from this institution.” That is, the papers reflected what professionals determined as an appropriate set of goals and then a set of measures of how well the visitor experience achieved those goals.
The papers reflect the trend that to prioritize the visitor experience is often simply making a decision to value the visitor on an equal or greater level than the object. The museum staff then generate a set of proposals on how this engagement might occur. This approach seems the antithesis of John Cotton Dana’s 1917 mandate in The New Museum to “Learn what aid the community needs: fit the museum to those needs.” Explicit in this mandate is engaging directly with the community to determine those needs.
I had a couple of interesting lessons recently on Dana’s point. I previously posted how an article published on the engagement between the Southwest Memphis community and the C.H. Nash Museum along with printed banners honoring military veterans were highly valued by the community members. In conjunction with faculty from the University of Memphis, this summer our Museum conducted another round of oral history interviews that will be archived at southwestmemphis.com. The important point about these projects is that they resulted from the expressed needs of community members.
I emphasize here that I do not mean to take a holier-than-thou position on our community outreach. I am consistently surprised at which projects resonate with the community. But through experience, I am coming more and more to act on the direct community input at the very start of project development. We then filter the community input through the mandates of our museum mission statement.
This process holds true in my recent collaborations in Hualcayán, Peru. On the PIARA Team, my primary responsibility this summer is beginning the process for the development of a cultural center or museum for the small village of 400, a 2-hour drive on an unpaved road from the next larger community. To that end, I have scoured the literature on small indigenous museums and cultural centers for models and have found very few. One of the better resources is Sustainable Cultural Tourism: Small Scale Solutions by Susan M. Guyette, a rather encyclopedic approach to the concept.
Last year I asked Rebecca Bria, the founder and co-director of PIARA, if the Hualcayán community really wanted a museum or were they really more interested in economic, educational, and health care development. She emphatically responded that through her five-year engagement with the community, they expressed that a museum, a physical structure to showcase their heritage was a primary need. Rebecca’s assessment came through quite clear in the discussion with the Hualcayán teachers I posted about last week. The teachers want a written record of Hualcayán generated.
Another example of meeting a community expressed need came last week in a classroom project with Hualcayán high school students carried out by Karissa Deiter and Hannah McAllister. They adapted the quipu exercise from Archaeologyland for this project. After introducing the importance of artifacts in telling the stories of the past, Karissa and Hannah used quipus as an example of how past societies recorded information. Each student then created their own quipu string that recorded their age, numbers of siblings, and so forth. The project was originally designed so that each student would create their own quipu, yet the teacher and students decided that the individual strings would be tied to a unified class quipu. Minimally, the quipu will live on at the school and ideally will become in “artifact” in the community’s museum set to open on August 2nd. After the quipu demonstration, the history teacher decided that the next project was to develop a timeline of the entire Hualcayán community. To that end Karissa and other members of the PIARA team will lead the high school students on a tour of the archaeological site, the research lab, and more.
As I noted in last week’s post, from the very inception, the in-class presentations developed for this summer in Hualcayán were based on the previously expressed needs of the teachers and community. The PIARA team put together projects that were then modified and further developed on the spot by the community members. Ultimately, the product is tailored to the needs of the visitor/student/community member and not the museum. This approach strikes me as a method that emphasizes a bottom-up method for co-creation.
What are your experiences with this type of co-creation process?AES Reveals Another Energy Storage Alternative To Peaking Power Plants
December 22nd, 2015 by Jake Richardson
In what ways is the Advancion 4 system a better alternative to peaking power plants?
Advancion 4 saves customers money, reduces emissions, provides more flexibility, and is more reliable than a peaking power plant. Advancion arrays are continuously and instantly available without burning a fuel in “standby mode” and can deliver cheaper energy than a peaking power plant. The arrays serve as both generation and load, marking a turning point in grid flexibility and renewable integration, by giving power producers more than twice the flexibility compared to a gas peaker plant on the same interconnection. Advancion can deliver power significantly faster, more reliably and with more accuracy than a gas peaker and thus helps improve both the reliability and efficiency of the whole power grid.
What is the capacity in megawatts and megawatt-hours?
Advancion 4 has a unique scalable design that allows for standard configurations from 100kW to over 1,000 MW, and from 15-minutes of duration to over four hours without any reengineering. The largest AES Energy Storage project to-date is a 100 MW Advancion Array, that will deliver 400 MWh of energy to Southern California Edison.
What is the cost of a system?
System costs vary depending on the size, duration, and online date of the project.
Does it work well with renewable energy like solar power?
Yes, Advancion provides flexibility, peak capability, and grid-stabilizing capabilities that are critical for integrating renewable energy, such as solar and wind power, into our electric grid. Even better, Advancion does not need to be collocated with renewable generation; it can be sited at critical points on the grid, and still deliver the same benefits to renewable energy.
What makes the Advancion system suitable for commercial operations like utilities?
Advancion 4 is among the most proven energy storage platforms available, resulting from AES’ more than eight years of commercial experience operating grid-connected energy storage. AES developed, owns and operates the largest fleet of grid connected energy storage, with nearly 3 million megawatt-hours of service delivered. Advancion 4 delivers the highest reliability, has the lowest total cost of ownership, and is available to utilities, developers and power system operators to own directly or through a managed service contract.
Do you anticipate installing any that are 100 MW or larger?
Yes. AES has been awarded a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) by Southern California Edison (SCE), to provide 100 MW of interconnected battery-based energy storage. Advancion 4 is also being evaluated for other projects larger than 100MW in several markets and countries.
Is the Advancion system containerized, or is it located within some other structure?
The Advancion solution can be deployed either in containers, or for larger scale projects, in a building.
What type of batteries are used?
As part of the Advancion solution, AES has developed relationships with the world’s leading battery manufacturers to supply the most advanced and highest quality batteries on the market. The current preferred technology is Lithium Ion, but as battery technology evolves, Advancion’s certification process will allow for these new technologies to be incorporated – effectively future proofing Advancion.
Who is the battery manufacturer?
Advancion has relationships with the world’s leading battery manufacturers, supplying the most advanced and highest quality batteries on the market.
What does it mean that the Warrior Run Advancion Energy Storage Array has 10 MW of capacity that is equivalent to 20 MW of flexible resource?
Batteries can either charge or discharge, both of which are valuable to the grid operator for stabilization of the grid. The grid operator can use batteries to absorb up to 10 MW of excess power from the grid, or supply up to 10 MW of power to the grid. Both of these services are considered a valuable resource to the grid, and this -10 MW to +10 MW range is considered a 20 MW resource.
Once the system is installed, who monitors its performance, and is that done with software and real-time analytics?
The Advancion system has sophisticated software that can, in real-time, monitor the health and capability of the battery system. For example, the Warrior Run installation regularly measures and records nearly 80,000 separate data points, representing more than two terabytes of data per year. This data is evaluated and used to make real-time and longer term decisions over the life of the system.
What kind of maintenance is required?
AES operates the largest fleet of battery based energy storage projects in the world and has a proven track record of safely operating and maintaining these systems. The systems require scheduled maintenance such as changing air conditioner filters to replacing parts as needed. The Advancion architecture allows for segmented battery maintenance. This feature maximizes system availability even while maintenance activities are being performed.
Image Credit: AESCLOSE As President Donald Trump deals with the self-inflicted scandals and White House turmoil, Republicans are already thinking about how to prep his understudy. Susana Victoria Perez (@susana_vp) has more. Buzz60
Vice President Mike Pence will be in Milwaukee Saturday for an event on health care. (Photo: Bill Ingalls, Associated Press)
Vice President Mike Pence is heading to Milwaukee Saturday to bolster support to complete the repeal of President Barack Obama's signature health care law.
Pence will meet with Gov. Scott Walker and members of the business community and their employees at Direct Supply, a medical supply store servicing the senior living industry.
After his meeting at Direct Supply, he will make some public comments.
Pence's visit is part of a full-court press by President Donald Trump's administration in Wisconsin. On Tuesday, Trump will participate in a fundraiser for Walker and is expected to hold a public event tied to jobs.
The administration is attempting a business-as-usual approach in the wake of damaging testimony Thursday to a U.S. Senate committee by fired FBI Director James Comey.
The vice president’s office said Pence will meet with business leaders and families in Wisconsin to discuss the “adverse effects” of the law known as Obamacare.
In May, the U.S. House passed a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare, but Republican leaders in the Senate are working on their own version of a bill. Trump is prodding the Senate to get a bill passed by this summer.
Read or Share this story: http://jsonl.in/2sI2G9aKERBEN, Kyrgyzstan (Reuters) - Uzbek and Kyrgyz border guards held their first face-to-face talks on Friday since both sides deployed troops and armored vehicles in a disputed area, Kyrgyzstan said.
Kyrgyz and Uzbek troops are seen in a disputed area near the town of Kerben, Kyrgyzstan, March 25, 2016. REUTERS/Hulkar Isamova
The confrontation between the two ex-Soviet Central Asian republics has triggered public protests on the Kyrgyz side and President Almazbek Atambayev has accused his opponents of using the border standoff to try to destabilize the country.
Kyrgyz and Uzbek servicemen have set up two checkpoints each along a road which connects the Kyrgyz town of Kerben with Ala-Buka, a Kyrgyz village, but crosses an area which Uzbekistan has claimed as its own territory since last Friday.
“The meeting has been initiated by the Uzbek side,” the Kyrgyz border service said. It gave no details on how the talks went.
The border zone is not clearly demarcated. Uzbekistan stationed two armored personnel carriers and about 40 soldiers in the area last week, prompting smaller Kyrgyzstan to send two of its own APCs and a similar number of troops.
The sides had reduced the number of deployed servicemen to about 10 on each side by Friday but the APCs remained there.
Both governments say the confrontation is taking place on their side of the frontier. But locals on the Kyrgyz side say they used to travel along the road in question until last week without having to pass any checkpoints.
Nurlan Aitmurzayev, a deputy of the local council in Kerben, said the Bishkek government had informed the council on March 18 that Ungar Too, a nearby mountain, belonged to Uzbekistan. The council has asked the government to provide legal proof.
“Ungar Too is ours, we have used this mountain for ages and we will not cede it to anyone,” Aitmurzayev said.
“If the government cannot protect our lands, we will do it ourselves,” said Janarbek Nadyrbekov, a businessman from Kerben.
Kyrgyzstan’s foreign ministry said this week Bishkek had demanded a complete withdrawal of Uzbek troops from the area and had discussed the matter with a Russia-led security bloc.
Uzbekistan has not commented on the matter since a statement run by Uzbek media a week ago. This said it had reinforced its side of the border because the frontier had been temporarily closed due to road repairs and a public holiday.Katter candidates fall over anti-gay remarks
Updated
A Katter's Australian Party candidate for the federal election has stood down and a Senate nominee has been suspended after they both made anti-gay comments.
The candidate for the Victorian seat of Wannon, Tess Corbett, has withdrawn her nomination after causing controversy for comparing gay people with paedophiles.
Queensland Senate nominee Bernard Gaynor, meanwhile, has had his party membership suspended and nomination deemed invalid after making other homophobic comments.
But the disciplinary action came as news to him.
"No-one from the party has spoken to me in any way, shape or form to say that my comments are inappropriate and I'd be surprised if anyone from the party did," he said.
"I think everyone from the party would support my view that parents should be able to choose who teaches their children."
He says Mr Katter agrees with his view.
"Perhaps the most disappointing thing for me is that Bob actually supports my stance 100 per cent," he said.
The comments which sparked the controversy were made by Ms Corbett to a local newspaper when she was asked about Labor's anti-discrimination bill.
She said people "should be able to discriminate" in some cases.
"I don't want gays, lesbians or paedophiles to be working in my kindergarten. If you don't like it, go to another kindergarten," she told the Hamilton Spectator.
When asked by the paper whether she considered homosexuals to be in the same category as paedophiles, Ms Corbett replied: "Yes."
"Paedophiles will be next in line to be recognised in the same way as gays and lesbians and get rights."
Mr Gaynor, KAP's former national general secretary, had taken to Twitter in his defence of Ms Corbett, writing: "I wouldn't let a gay person teach my children and I am not afraid to say it."
'Stupid statement'
Federal crossbench MP and party founder Bob Katter has told PM that Ms Corbett's comments were stupid and both nominees breached party protocols.
"It was made perfectly clear continuously to all candidates and potential candidates that the party does not exist for them to promote their own preoccupations whether the party agrees with them or not," he said.
But he would not say whether he regards the remarks as offensive or if they are against KAP's position on homosexuality.
"I'm sick and tired of wasting time that should be spent on serious issues, issues serious to this nation," he said.
"I'm not interested in wasting my time on it. I must have made that perfectly clear to the media on a thousand occasions."
KAP national director Aidan McLindon says Mr Gaynor represented his personal views as the party's.
"These are not the issues that we're trying to champion in the public arena," Mr McLindon said.
But he has blamed the media for the furore.
"People just hear the word gay, they jump up and down and all of a sudden they fill the airwaves," he said.
The KAP is trying to run candidates in every federal seat at the next election.
At last year's Queensland election, when Mr Gaynor was the party's media director, it drew widespread criticism for running an anti-gay television advertisement.
'Offensive'
Ms Corbett's remarks have drawn condemnation from the Coalition, the Greens and Labor.
Labor frontbencher Penny Wong, who is openly gay, said the comments did not reflect the values held by the vast majority of Australians.
"The thing that always worries me when I hear these comments is I think about young gay and lesbian Australians, maybe some in country areas, who hear these things from public figures and the message they hear is that they're not OK," she said.
"And I don't think that's a good message for any child to hear.
"To seriously say in today's Australia that someone who is gay is akin to a paedophile is completely offensive."
Greens leader Christine Milne said KAP was fostering discrimination.
"Demeaning and abusing and undermining people who are gay, that is completely unacceptable," she said.
Mr Gaynor says he is not surprised people like Senator Wong have criticised the comments.
"I'm not surprised that Penny Wong has said something against them. She thinks it's fine for a child to be raised without a father. So obviously she has got a different world view than myself," he said.
"I'm surprised that the Opposition has. They tout themselves as the party that supports families, so obviously it seems like they're coming out and saying that parents shouldn't be able to choose who teaches their children."
Topics: sexuality, federal-government, government-and-politics, vic
First postedUpdate
Reviewing the Claims
Kerry Cassidy doesn't think Corey Goode is authentic.
Goode sent some messages to Ryan that Goode later denied sending. Ryan believes when Goode sent the messages, he was in a "split-minded state." (i.e. under mind control). Apparently the messages were on Goode's computer, and the person he sent them to, which Ryan discovered later.
Ilie Pandia, an alleged IT specialist, reviewed Goode's messages and claimed that Goode is not actually an IT professional, as Goode claims. Ryan and others view this as a point of proof that Goode is a liar.
During the interview with Christine in Sept-Oct 2014, Goode said he was unemployed. Ryan claims that later, Goode said he lost his six figure income job after being outed by Cassidy and himself. Ryan claims this false statement by Goode is proof that he is lying about his past employment.
Goode was allegedly using the Project Avalon forum as a "catchment area" for former MILABs, counseling them without the permission of the moderators. This was viewed by Ryan et al as a grave infraction, although it is not clear if Goode agreed not to talk to MILABs on the forum, thus deceiving the moderators.
Goode's wife Stacy joined the forum and made a post that claimed Bill Ryan was once a member of the Church of Scientology. Ryan claims that the person she found in her research was not actually Ryan, a different Bill Ryan, and edited her posts accordingly, but did not notify her of the changes. Ryan claims Stacy and Goode reacted aggressively, saying that Ryan had censored her on the forum. This appeared to make the situation even more tenuous. Ryan claims that in Stacy's subsequent posts, she revealed that Goode was working with "higher authorities" and was asked to produce a dossier on Ryan by a senior member of the church. Ryan implies this is further evidence of Goode working for shadowy groups.
Ryan claims Goode was given FBI database access during this time, which Goode apparently disclosed to Ryan in a skype message, also viewed by Ryan as an indication Goode is an agent.
After the drama on the forum, Stacy's account was "unsubscribed" and Goode left soon after on his own accord. Goode then started a blog and posted several items that attempted to smear Avalon, according to Ryan.
Goode then began to speak with David Wilcock, and seemed to have a more "polished" version of the story than Goode had previously given to Christine, which Ryan and Cassidy thought indicated duplicity.
An alleged intelligence agent contacted Ryan to inform him that he had recorded Goode and Stacy speaking in their home by activating the webcam on a computer near by, using well-known methods available to government agents. In the recording, Goode and Stacy are allegedly discussing how they plan to deceive David Wilcock. Ryan claims that Goode was desperate for money, was looking for stardom and that apparently the intelligence community was "letting this all happen" because it fit their agenda, all according to Ryan's unnamed source in the intelligence community.
The same intelligence contact sent a screenshot from a phone of a skype conversation between himself and Goode to Ryan, wherein Goode says "you are now on the payroll... so am I.. it is what it is." Ryan asserts that this is proof Goode is an agent.
Ryan claims the substance of Goode's testimony and story is a "carbon copy" of other insiders, like Michael Relfe. Furthermore, he also feels some of Goode's claims are just too wild to believe, e.g. that there are thousands of undetectable planet-sized spheres in the solar system.
Ryan also feels that if Goode was authentic, he would never be allowed to talk. He further claims that Goode is likely a false whisleblower, only allowed to talk because he was given false memories and experiences that serve the agenda, much like what Dr. Steven Greer claimed in November 2016.
Ryan claims that if Goode was authentic, he should have been silenced by now, like other whistleblowers. The fact that he wasn't, in Ryan's mind, is proof that Goode is an agent.
Ryan claims that even if some of the information Goode brings forth is true, the whole data set is "is almost valueless for research purposes." [However, this is not valid because information is inherently valuable, but said value is dependent upon the person who analyzes it.]
Ryan claims, although some disinformation agents genuinely believe their own testimony, he thinks Goode is a conscious deceiver.
Analyzing the Claims
Smear Campaign?
- Justin
The following article was released to the public by Bill Ryan via his Project Avalon website on April 26, 2017. I am posting this for your awareness only. It is up to you to discern if this has any relevance to your search for truth. It is interesting to note that we recently had an outing of the COBRA organization and now we have this outing of Corey Goode. I know it is hard for the alternative community to unify as there is so much convoluted information and so many different factions in many different alliance and cabal groups. Even if Goode or Cobra have been compromised in any way, they have contributed greatly to alternative community by exposing subject matter that is grossly ignored by the main stream media. As the cliche goes..... everything will be revealed in due time.
ascensionwithearth.com
Bill Ryan of Project Avalon
“You’re US government property. You’re a malfunctioning 30 million dollar weapon. You're a total goddamn catastrophe, and by God, if it kills me, you're going to tell me how this happened." There’s a great deal of truth in those lines.
Stillness in the Storm Editor's note: Did you find a spelling error or grammar mistake? Do you think this article needs a correction or update? Or do you just have some feedback? Send us an email at Did you find a spelling error or grammar mistake? Do you think this article needs a correction or update? Or do you just have some feedback? Send us an email at sitsshow@gmail.com with the error, headline and url
Thank you for reading.
April 29th, 2017: Minor grammar corrections where made to the introductory portion of this article. And in an earlier version of this article, it was apparently unclear if Stillness in the Storm was for or against Corey Goode—some felt we were. Changes in the text have been made to further clarify our position of impartiality.
April 29th, 2017: Additional grammar corrections were made to this article.
________
Sources:
http://www.ascensionwithearth.com/2017/04/bill-ryan-update-truth-about-corey-goode.html?spref=fb
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Image Source - https://spherebeingalliance.com/media/img/800x0/2016-10/corey_goode.jpg
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Subscribe to Stillness in the Storm Blog by Email] Question -- What is the goal of this website? Why do we share different sources of information that sometimes conflicts or might even be considered disinformation? Answer -- The primary goal of Stillness in the Storm is to help all people become better truth-seekers in a real-time boots-on-the-ground fashion. This is for the purpose of learning to think critically, discovering the truth from within—not just believing things blindly because it came from an "authority" or credible source. Instead of telling you what the truth is, we share information from many sources so that you can discern it for yourself. We focus on teaching you the tools to become your own authority on the truth, gaining self-mastery, sovereignty, and freedom in the process. We want each of you to become your own leaders and masters of personal discernment, and as such, all information should be vetted, analyzed and discerned at a personal level. We also encourage you to discuss your thoughts in the comments section of this site to engage in a group discernment process.
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." – Aristotle
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The following is an "outing" of the Secret Space Program insider and whistleblower Corey Goode. It was produced by Bill Ryan, of Project Avalon, one of the forums Goode initially was using to release information, prior to going public in 2015. I have a lot of respect for Ryan, and Kerry Cassidy of Project Camelot, as they have played a large role in my awakening. But I think there is a serious problem within the truth movement that this issue is highlighting.This article is not pro-Goode or pro-Ryan. However, as it stands, it seems the dialog needs some clarification, and we hope to offer that here.: Apparently a lot of people feel I am coming out against Corey Goode, this is not the case. This article is my attempt to objectively analyze the claims of Ryan, and present them in a somewhat unbiased way, for your consideration. Please read the article completely before making your conclusions.Firstly, for clarity, despite the fact Stillness in the Storm has featured a great deal of Goode's testimony over the years,Goode's overall rhetoric to seek the truth, discern, get healthy, and be a better person is a message we agree with, thus we are allies in that regard. His work is a series of unproven claims, but these claims have much indirect support to confirm them, and are highly thought-provoking, serving in consciousness expansion for that reason. The fact that the claims are unproven doesn't mean they are untrue, but their incredible scope makes it difficult to believe. And all the more easy to dismiss.Secondly, those who are comfortable with uncertainty will have no problem contemplating Goode's material with an open unbiased mind, discerning objectively what they find. But to those who need definitive answers, the temptation toinformation is always great. And to make matters worse, there are scores of people who tend to reject any information that doesn't fit their worldview or belief system, a form of emotional discernment.What this does is shift a discussion away from seeking for the truth, analyzing claims by themselves, and move it to a discussion about the person's character and past. Instead of listening to the message, we can be tempted to focus on the messenger—who they are as a person, what they like or don't like, what crimes they have committed, who are they associated with, and so on. And while this can make people feel good or bad about the messenger, and by proxy the information, it doesn'tconfirm or deny the veracity of what is claimed—it doesn't help determine if it is true or not. This is a strawman tactic to pull people's focus away from the issues at hand and on to the person sharing the data—one of the methods theuse all the time.Before long, a claim of truth isn't judged on its merits alone—on what it actually says and if this matches reality—instead it is "discerned" by focusing on who is saying it.Unfortunately, because of time constraints, people in general simply don't have the ability to dig deeply into a topic so they can make an honest assessment. This creates a perfect storm—people who want to know the truth, who want an answer, but can't devote the time or energy to seek for it properly—making them very easy to persuade with smear campaigns and unfounded claims.To add another layer of complexity to an already complex situation, there are very real disinformation agents out there who most definitely are muddying the waters.all information is just a vehicle for ideas, and can be discerned at a personal level to see if it is true or not. Whether an idea came from an outright disinformation agent, like the mainstream media, or from the mouth of Jesus himself, you can analyze it and draw a conclusion.So in the end, since information, regardless of the source, can be evaluated for its truthfulness,Especially, if the end result is division of the truth movement?Obviously, denying the fact that someone could be an agent isn't advisable, but rejecting a whole body of information based purely |
mounting pressure on the New South Wales Government to improve the rights of tenants, who face a tough market in light of Sydney's property boom.
The Government said it was looking at new rental measures.
Labor today announced changes it would introduce to improve the rights of the more than 2 million tenants.
At Labor's announcement today, Kirsty explained she had asked for repairs to her rental property, a request she followed up eight months later.
"I restated the repairs that still need doing and I got the 90-day no-grounds termination, right before Christmas and my daughter's birthday," she said.
Measures announced by Labor include:
Scrapping the 90-day no-grounds eviction
A default minimum 12-month rental agreement
Option for leases of up to five years
"When it comes to the one-in-three people renting in New South Wales, this is a game changer," Labor's Better Regulation spokeswoman Yasmin Catley said.
Evictions should be justified
The Tenants Union of NSW has been critical of no-reason evictions and has been negotiating with the Government to change the rules.
He argued it also made people nervous about speaking up.
"They're worried by the simple fact that it can be issued and it puts them off raising issues and concerns and having conversations with their landlords to solve problems," Tenants' Union of NSW's Ned Cutcher said.
The Government has not given a timeline on when its changes would be unveiled.
Matt Kean, the Minister for Innovation and Better Regulation, said the Government was "looking at all options to better safeguard the rights of renters across this state".
The Property Owners Association of NSW is cautious about what is being proposed but is open to change.
President John Gilmovich said landlords have had to shoulder a number of new regulations in recent years such as health and safety compliances.
"The old assumption that a tenant is lesser well off than a landlord is incorrect, there are actually some tenants financially better off than landlords," he said.
Topics: government-and-politics, housing, laws, sydney-2000
First postedA growing number of Republican lawmakers are opting out of town hall meetings this week, choosing instead to speak with their constituents in a less direct way.
In response to a wave of anti-Trump activism that has resulted in the perceived "hijacking" of such public town hall events by protesters, many Congressional Republicans are ditching the traditional in-person appearance in favor of large conference calls with constituents, with in-person meetings limited to small sit-downs with individuals and community groups.
During these conference calls, dubbed "tele-town halls," questions are screened by aides, with no follow-ups, crowd reactions, or visuals. Those who endorse the strategy say it keeps question-and answer-sessions productive by eliminating disruptions from angry demonstrators, and is a necessary measure amid post-inauguration unrest. But critics say face-to-face interactions between lawmakers and their constituents are necessary for a healthy democracy.
"I like hearing divergent views, but I don't want to be baited into having an event that some outside group can just make a spectacle out of," said U.S. Rep. Tom MacArthur on Monday, when asked during a teleconference with constituents why he wasn't addressing them in person. Such events, he said, are frequently "highjacked."
In many ways, the phenomenon is an "uncanny reprisal of the 2009 birth of the tea party – but this time on the left," as Patrik Jonsson reported for The Christian Science Monitor on Wednesday:
In 2009, the Democratic playbook involved avoiding town halls and dismissing protesters as paid stooges. Then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D) famously said the protesters were not grass roots but fake “Astroturf.” A year later, tea party fervor reshaped Congress, with Democrats losing 63 seats in the House and five in the Senate. The Democrats have never recovered. Today, the Republican playbook involves avoiding town halls and dismissing protesters as paid stooges. Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R) called the protest that shouted him down at a recent town hall a “paid attempt to bully and intimidate.” Only 10 Republicans members of Congress are planning town halls next week, notes David Hawkings of Roll Call.... "One of the things we’re seeing in American politics right now is it’s easier to get people energized in opposition to things they don’t like than to get them energized to support anything their party or president is doing," says Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta. "People are really angry and worked up, and I don’t think it’s going to stop. In some ways, this is even more organic than the tea party."
"Town hall meetings tend to be platforms for people to shout at one another and get angry at one another and leave more upset and disappointed and bent out of shape than when people came," U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam of Illinois told a Chicago radio station last week. "And the proof of that is just look at the national news."
Rep. Roskam noted that during his decade in Congress, he's only hosted one town-hall meeting, which he "didn't find... particularly productive." Last year, he held 11 tele-town halls.
But many concerned constituents say events like these aren't enough.
"It’s the same reason people like to go to concerts instead of just listening to the radio or buying the album," activist Nancy Bea Miller told the Philadelphia Inquirer. "Looking someone in the eye, even if it's across an auditorium, really helps you judge the person, decide how sincere they are."
Some Republican lawmakers agree. U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan of Florida told the Herald-Tribune that he will continue to host town hall events, despite the fact that "there's a lot of passion out there."
"We want to have town halls," Rep. Buchanan said. "We want to have it constructive. I want to get their input so I can better represent them."
"We are a democracy," he added. "People get a chance to weigh in."
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In-person town hall events may be worth the risk, political analysts say, not just for the sake of democracy, but as a smart political move for the lawmakers themselves.
"Democracy is a messy thing, and this shows it – and it’s also a fragile thing," James Thurber, founder of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University in Washington, told the Monitor. "That’s why members of Congress have got to get used to this and listen to the feedback or there will be consequences for them, electorally."Anzhi Makhachkala coach Guus Hiddink faces a six-match ban after he pushed the fourth official during his side’s 2-1 defeat at Dinamo Moscow on Friday.
Hiddink pushed fourth official Roman Chernov on the shoulder following the late penalty award.
Dinamo won the match courtesy of Andriy Voronin’s penalty deep into injury time after Anzhi, down to ten men from the 33rd minute when Ewerton was dismissed, looked to have rescued a point through Christopher Samba’s late equaliser.
Hiddink, angered by the penalty award, which came after Marko Lomic’s cross had struck Mehdi Gonzalez’s arm, lightly pushed fourth official Roman Chernov in frustration.
Russian Football Union (RFU) rules stipulate that those guilty of an “intentional push” on a match official be suspended for six matches.
The referee, Sergei Karasev, is reported to have told Hiddink he made a mistake in awarding the spot kick and apologised to the Dutchman, who added: “And I have apologised for the push on the fourth official.”
Hiddink also said he had no issue with the red card for Ewerton.
"We made a mistake in defence and were reduced to ten men and it influenced the play a great deal," he said. "I have no doubts that it was a fair decision.”Jon Gabriel (a.k.a., @ExJon on Twitter) is the Editor-in-Chief of Ricochet. He is a political writer and marketing consultant, contributing articles to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, and USA Today among others. Until 2012, he served as Director of Marketing for the free-market Goldwater Institute, where he converted policy initiatives into compelling stories. In the private sector, Jon led marketing efforts for Cold Stone Creamery, Honeywell, and several technology companies. In his… [more]
It’s been two years since violent racial unrest crippled the University of Missouri. The school’s decision to coddle the mob resulted in freshmen enrollment dropping by more than 35 percent, the elimination of 400 positions, and the closing of seven dorms. The 2017 enrollment drop lost the school $16.6 million, while a disgusted state government punished the campus with another $15 million in cuts.
Following this summer’s angry protests at the much smaller Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA, that school is also facing the “Mizzou Effect.” The College Fix has the deets:
Administrators at The Evergreen State College have announced that the embattled school faces a massive $2.1 million budget shortfall due in part to a drop in enrollment, and the institution has already handed out some temporary layoff notices as officials grapple with balancing the books. In an Aug. 28 memo to the campus community titled “Enrollment and Budget Update,” officials report that fall 2017-18 registration is down about 5 percent, from 3,922 students to 3,713. But the problem is nearly all of the students they lost are nonresidents, who traditionally pay a much higher tuition to attend, officials explained in the memo, a copy of which was obtained by The College Fix. Combined with a shortfall in funding from state coffers to shoulder a mandatory cost-of-living salary increase and a rise in the general cost of operations, and the school must find a way to resolve a $2.1 million shortfall for the fiscal year that began July 1, according to the memo. “This creates the need for significant budget cuts in the immediate future,” the memo states, adding that the university late last month already handed out temporary layoff notices to 17 facilities staff members.
Universities might praise Marxist economic theory, but they’re waking up to how the real world operates. Even the most progressive upper-middle-class parents won’t send tens of thousands of dollars to schools that won’t prepare their kids for adulthood — or even provide physical safety.
The free market works, even among the woke.Many don’t see this as a metal topic, but as Cianide would say, “Metal never bends!” What does bend, to trends? The hipster and all other people who think a surface-level view of life is important.
A hipster is someone who leverages all aspects of their personality, art and social group for the kind of invisible magic karma points that “popularity” and “notoriety” confer upon the narcissistic personality. Like cultists, hipsters have shattered self-esteem and seek to compensate by knowing things that other people don’t know, specifically traded in artistic and cultural artifacts that are special — like the hipsters themselves — for being unique, odd, “different,” unconventional, distinctive, etc.
Notice what’s missing in there: realistic, accurate, informative and/or useful.
Hipsters originally shunned metal because metal is by nature a warlike genre. We look past the surface level of life’s drama, expressed dually by individual narcissism and social group zombie hive mind thinking, and instead pay attention to the situation beyond the individual. The heavy stuff: war, death, metaphysics, infinity, disease, history, the occult and the esoteric.
In 2008, Adbusters magazine blew the lid off the rising millennial hipster epidemic by proclaiming hipsters the dead end of Western civilization. An excerpt:
Ever since the Allies bombed the Axis into submission, Western civilization has had a succession of counter-culture movements that have energetically challenged the status quo. Each successive decade of the post-war era has seen it smash social standards, riot and fight to revolutionize every aspect of music, art, government and civil society. But after punk was plasticized and hip hop lost its impetus for social change, all of the formerly dominant streams of “counter-culture” have merged together. Now, one mutating, trans-Atlantic melting pot of styles, tastes and behavior has come to define the generally indefinable idea of the “Hipster.” An artificial appropriation of different styles from different eras, the hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture lost in the superficiality of its past and unable to create any new meaning. Not only is it unsustainable, it is suicidal. While previous youth movements have challenged the dysfunction and decadence of their elders, today we have the “hipster” – a youth subculture that mirrors the doomed shallowness of mainstream society.
Since that time, the hipster epidemic has only become more pervasive. Famous for being ironic, in order to be unconventional and different, hipsters wander through life making art out of garbage, Instagraming their oddball tastes in food, liveblogging their personal drama, treating their children like press agents for themselves, and generally making society more vapid, plastic, superficial, oblivious, trivial and vain.
Luckily, world leaders and authority figures are stepping in to help out.
First, North Korea is helping by threatening immediate war. But this isn’t a war on the USA. It’s a war on hipsters:
Some Texans, however, suggested the path in fact led 95 miles south to Austin, the state’s capital, and speculated that Mr Kim had taken against the liberal enclave’s young “hipster” population.
North Korea probably doesn’t get a lot of US papers. They probably don’t get too many Americans over there who aren’t credulous tourists or formal State Department types. However, they do get the internet. To them, America is an unending stream of Pinterest, Facebook, Reddit and FourSquare. From their point of view, the US = hipsters. So they’re taking out the real hipster capital of this place, and hope that will kill our culture like an ant mound poisoned with cianide.
From a completely different angle, Taylor Swift is mocking hipsters with her new single, including Instagram-style photographs, ironic hipster classes, and bittersweet lyrics that are poignant through indecision. She is hoping to curry her fanbase, composed of legions of young women with disposable income, to wage war on the hipster. This might succeed even better than Kim Jong-un’s nuclear attack.
And covering the domestic front, Boston’s police department are cracking down on hipster house parties featuring boring two-note pop punk bands with ironic themes about getting lost on life’s highway. Apparently, the officers are impersonating trendy hipsters in order to figure out where the hip ones are congregating in suburban houses, where they and their bad bands and PBR make noise until 4 am, prompting not one but many homeowners to open fire with rusty old weapons from the last real war.
While by themselves none of these seem significant, when added up these commonalities point to one thing: a world-wide backlash against the hipster and its superficial, ironic and selfish ways. As the hipster falls, metal rises, so we’re glad to see this development.
Tags: hipsters, metalcoreThe Toronto Marlies announced today the hockey club’s 2017 training camp roster. The initial camp roster will have 40 players, including 24 forwards, 12 defencemen and four goaltenders. The full roster can be seen below.
The Marlies open training camp at the MasterCard Centre for Hockey Excellence in Etobicoke, holding on-ice sessions from Tuesday, September 26 to Thursday, September 28 before their preseason games against the Rochester Americans. The roster will be split into two groups, with the first group practicing at 1:30 p.m. followed by a scrimmage at 2:15 p.m. and the second group’s practice. Media availability will follow practices.
The Marlies will play back-to-back preseason games this weekend against the Rochester Americans. With the Friday game being held at the Rochester Institute of Technology, the Marlies will close their preseason schedule at HarborCenter in Buffalo. Tickets are available through www.amerks.com.
Date Venue Time Fri., Sept. 29 Gene Polisseni Centre 7:05 p.m. EST Sat., Sept. 30 HarborCenter 7:05 p.m. EST
The current Maple Leafs training camp roster includes 29 players who have developed with the Toronto Marlies. The final roster of the 2016-17 Toronto Maple Leafs consisted of 12 Marlies graduates (Tyler Bozak, Nazem Kadri, Jake Gardiner, Leo Komarov, Morgan Rielly, Josh Leivo, Connor Brown, Connor Carrick, Zach Hyman, Nikita Soshnikov, William Nylander and Kasperi Kapanen).
The Marlies open their regular season on home ice with back-to-back games against the Utica Comets on Saturday, October 7 and Sunday, October 8, both at 4:00 p.m. EST. Tickets for opening weekend at Ricoh Coliseum can be purchased at www.marlies.ca or by calling 416-597-PUCK (7825).
Click here to see the full Toronto Marlies 2017 Training Camp Statistical RosterAsk yourself this: Are you a statistic or a specific example? That's the question being raised in the aftermath of a study in which researchers secretly tracked the locations of 100,000 people to determine their movement patterns. Such studies are considered invasions of privacy -- and illegal -- in the United States, but this one was done in an undisclosed industrialized nation. The subjects were chosen at random out of a pool of 6 million from a mystery wireless provider and tracked based on cell tower triangulation and other "tracking devices." Study co-author Cesar Hidalgo at Northeastern University promises that researchers didn't know the individuals' phone numbers or identities, and offers that the results are a major advance for science. The study found that people are homebodies -- most stay within 20 miles of their home and are rather habitual. Scientists say the findings -- to be published in Nature on Thursday -- can help improve public transit systems and even fight contagious diseases.
[Thanks, Doug]
[Via MSNBC]Notes
I'd like to note this is my first time publishing anything like this, so please be kind, but I appreciate all feedback.
A lot of fans have noted Raynor feels dated, and how he only has 2 abilities. Personally I agree so I decided to right a rework that I think could be fun while trying to keep certain aspects of Raynor the same. He's usually said to be the noob hero, even though he is no longer the tutorial hero, (Valla gets that title) and Jaina/Muradin/Tyrande are granted free to new players. I like the idea of giving him ways for a good player to show mastery, while keeping a lot of his current options around.
I want to make it clear that numbers are something I do not think are final. I also want to note that my goal was that Auto Attack Raynor would deal the most damage, though provide the least utility, a Q/E focused build would give Raynor a way to deal damage if enemy has a lot of blinds, with some more utility, though would deal less damage than auto attack Raynor. and the Inspire build would deal notably less damage but include strong utility options
First, I opted to make his E his new trait - though I increases the threshold slightly since he can be burst from 30% to death super easy now. I added in Airstrike as his new E, a reference to one ability of his from Co-op Commander. I also thought about a version thats similar to Ragnaros' Living Meteor where a Banshee bombards enemies in a line - either thin and long or shorter but wider(referencing the Card to Play cinematic), or being able to place Spider Mines (referencing his vulture days) that had 3 charges and could be place, thinking less vision but more damage - it could be a level one talent replacing Scouting Drone as well.
After this, I decided what builds did I want to be potential for him (whether they are viable or not). So I kept talents to keep his identity as a simple auto attacker who stutter steps and brings damage. I gave the option to get the vision and range back alongside Seasoned Marksman benefits. I altered Giant Killer slightly to play around Inspire, it deals less damage at first, but more damage under Inspire so a good player can realize when to use inspire to get the damage boost. Vigorous Assault and Nexus Frenzy got a Raynor specific version that similarly plays around Inspire.
Instead of having Airstrike knock enemies out of the area (which would be similar to Tychus Grenade) I decided to have it do a bit more damage but no knock back - and later can be talented into leaving fire to force enemies out.
I also included some options for Penetrating Shot - increase damage per enemy hit, rewarding increased width, while keeping Double Barreled and Bullseye.
I included Combat Shield which gives Raynor a defensive option, I chose to give armor with it, but it could also increase health - Raynor is a fragile hero so this is a defensive option.
I also introduced strong utility talents that work with Inspire, such as giving them a shield (Nova has Defense Matrix Drone in Co-op served as a basis for this), and granting its full bonus to allies. There is also a talent to give armor to allies which can be powerful as no other assassin currently has that as far as I know.
I think Bunker is an iconic element of Terran gameplay so included it as the new heroic alongside Hyperion. Raynor calls down a bunker that he can enter for increases range, and the need for enemies to break down the bunker to get to Raynor giving him a defensive option. It has the weakness of either being busted down fairly easily or the enemy just moves away. While I started with the idea of it not having a time limit, if we think it is too powerful we can put one in. The upgrade increases the health and adds a bit of damage/utility too it with the firebat/marauder addition. Similarly, if its too powerful we can either take out the health increase or the firebat or marauder.
I gave the level 20 Hyperion upgrade a partial benefit of what happened when Hyperion was bugged a while back and gained the benefits of Seasoned Marksman, Giant's Killer and Executioner. I have no idea what the portion would be, and it would gain benefits from other talents so it isn't useless if Raynor took non- AA talents. I like the idea of it getting more effect if Raynor did well. I also included Raynor's iconic Revolver as a level 20 talent that gives Raynor an option for bursting an enemy. I decided to make it similar to Cursed Bullet, but do a flat 15% instead of 40% of the current health. So its weaker than Cursed Bullet when the enemy is high on health, while stronger at lower health.
So at 20 Raynor will pick either Nexus Frenzy, a stronger Hyperion/Bunker, or burst depending on his needs.When I was in college, there were some people on the internet who claimed that you could train yourself to sleep as little as two hours per day. Keep in mind, this was back in the early 2000s when we all still believed random shit we read on the internet.
Here’s how the story went: There was a hyper-productive sleep schedule that had been discovered by military scientists. They were testing the limits of sleep deprivation on soldiers and made this startling discovery. Supposedly, great historical figures like Napoleon and Da Vinci and Tesla followed the same sleep schedule and it’s why they were so productive and influential in history. Supposedly, anybody (i.e., you and me) could achieve this state of daily hyper-productivity. Supposedly, all we needed was enough willpower to barrel through days of sleep deprivation and “acclimate” to this new superhuman schedule. Supposedly, this was all true and verified and somehow made sense.
Supposedly.
The scheme was called “The Uberman Sleep Schedule,” and here’s how you did it:
Sleep follows the 80/20 Rule—that is, 80% of your recovery comes from 20% of the time you’re unconscious. Conversely, 80% of the time you’re asleep, you’re a lazy piece of shit.
This uber-efficient portion of sleep is called REM sleep and only lasts approximately 15-20 minutes at a time. That means for every two hours that your body is asleep, really only the last 20 minutes or so is “useful” sleep. Thus, when you sleep eight hours during the night, only 80-100 of those minutes are actually causing you to feel rested and restored. 1 People on the internet decided this was inefficient and needed to be fixed.
People on the internet decided this was inefficient and needed to be fixed. What the military scientists (supposedly) discovered is that if you’re severely sleep deprived, your body will immediately fall into REM sleep the second you pass out. It does this in order to compensate for its lack of rest. People on the internet decided this was incredibly efficient.
The idea of the Uberman Sleep Schedule was that if you took 20-minute naps, every four hours, around the clock, for days and weeks on end, you would “train” your brain to fall into REM sleep instantly the moment you laid down. Then, once your REM sleep was over, you would feel rested and restored for the next 3-4 hours.
As long as you continued to take 20-minute naps every four hours, you could effectively stay awake forever. Congratulations, you were now an Uberman. Here, have a gold star.
But there was a catch: supposedly it took 1-2 weeks of intense sleep deprivation to properly “adjust” to the Uberman Sleep Schedule. You had to stay up all night, every night, forcing yourself to only sleep for 20 minutes at a time, six different times per day. And if at any point you screwed up and overslept your nap, all would be undone and you would have to start over.
PS: Caffeine is not allowed. And alcohol might as well be suicide.
Therefore, the Uberman Sleep Schedule became this kind of decathlon of willpower among internet self-help people—an ultimate test of one’s self-discipline with the ultimate pay-off: an extra 20-30% of productive waking hours per day, every day for the rest for your life. That’s like having an extra two days each week, or an extra three-and-a-half months per year. That’s insane! Over the course of one’s life, that’s over a decade of extra waking hours. Imagine everything you could accomplish with an extra decade of life, all while everyone else is asleep.
Like an idiot, I tried to do this. Multiple times. For years, I obsessed with achieving the Uberman Sleep Schedule. And for years, I continually failed at it.
You have probably pulled an all-nighter before. Not sleeping for one night is not that difficult. Especially if there are deadlines and/or drugs involved.
What’s difficult are the second and third and fourth nights. Extreme sleep deprivation is a crash course on how fragile our mind actually is. By day three, you will start falling asleep standing up. You will doze while walking down the street in broad daylight. You forget basic facts like your mother’s name or whether you had eaten that day, or—fuck, what day is it?
By day four you become delirious, imagining that people are speaking to you when they’re not, believing that you’re writing an email when you’re not, and then discovering that you don’t even remember who you were supposed to be emailing. I used to walk in circles around my living room for an hour, just to keep myself awake. When nap time came, I would crash, falling unconscious instantaneously, and proceed to have intense, fucked up dreams that seemed like they lasted for five hours. Then, 20 minutes later, my alarm would wake me up, where I would spend the next three hours and change desperately lying to myself, trying to convince myself that I felt rested and couldn’t wait to get back to—wait, what was I supposed to be doing again?
In the end, I could never make it through the fourth day. Each time I failed, I felt intense disappointment at my own lack of willpower. I believed this was something I should be able to do. It pissed me off that some random people on the internet could supposedly do this thing that I couldn’t. I felt like it meant there was something wrong with me. That if I didn’t have the self-discipline to sleep deprive myself for weeks on end, then what the fuck, Mark? Get your shit together!
So I tortured myself. And the more I tortured myself, the more unrealistic my expectations for myself became.
***
Chances are, at some point in your life, you’ve tried to change your behavior through sheer willpower. And chances are, you also failed miserably. Don’t feel bad! This is what happens most of the time.
Most people think of self-discipline in terms of willpower. If we see someone who wakes up at 5 AM every day, eats an avocado-chia-fennel-apricot-papaya smoothie each meal, snorts brussel sprout flakes, and works out for three hours before even wiping their ass in the morning, we assume they’re achieving this through straight-up self-abuse—that there is some insatiable inner demon driving them like a slave to do everything right, no matter what.
But this isn’t true. Because, if you actually know anybody like this, you’ll notice something really frightening about them: they actually enjoy it.2
Seeing self-discipline in terms of pure willpower fails because beating ourselves up for not trying hard enough doesn’t work. In fact, it backfires. And, as anyone who has ever tried to go on a diet will tell you, it usually only makes it worse.
The problem is that willpower works like a muscle, if you work it too hard, it becomes fatigued and gives out. The first week committing to a new diet, or a new workout regimen, or a new morning routine, things go great. But by the second or third week, you’re back to your old late-night, cheeto-loving ways.
The same way you can’t just walk into a gym for the first time and lift 500 pounds, you can’t just start waking up at 4 AM on a dime, much less do something ridiculous like an Uberman sleep schedule. To have a chance of success, your willpower must be trained steadily over a long period of time.
But this leaves us in a conundrum: if we view self-discipline in terms of willpower, it creates a chicken-or-the-egg situation: To build willpower, we need self-discipline over a long period of time; but to have self-discipline, we need massive amounts of willpower.
So, which came first? What should we do? How do we start? Or, more importantly, where the fuck is the Ben and Jerry’s?
Viewing self-discipline in terms of willpower creates a paradox for the simple reason that it’s not true. As we’ll see, building self-discipline in your own life is a completely different exercise.
Why Pure Willpower is Bad
Our behaviors are not based on logic or ideas. Logic and ideas can influence our decisions, but ultimately, our feelings determine what we do.
We do what feels good and avoid what feels bad. And the only way we can ever NOT do what feels good, and do what feels bad instead, is through a temporary boost of willpower—to deny ourselves our desires and feelings and instead do what was “right.”
Throughout history, virtue was seen in terms of this sort of self-denial and self-negation. To be a good person, you had to not only deny yourself any pleasure, but you also had to show your willingness to hurt yourself. You had monks hitting themselves and locking themselves in rooms for days and not eating or even speaking for years on end. You had armies of men throwing themselves into battle for little or no reason. You had people abstaining from sex until marriage, or even for life. Shit was not fun.
This classical approach is where our assumption that “willpower = self-discipline” originally comes from. It operates on the belief that self-discipline is achieved through denying or rejecting one’s emotions. You want that taco? BAD MARK! YOU DON’T WANT SHIT! YOU ARE SHIT! YOU DESERVE TO STARVE YOU INGRATE!
The classical approach fused the concept of willpower—i.e., the ability to deny or reject one’s desires and emotions—with morality. Someone who can say no to the taco is a good person. The person who can’t is a failure of a human being.
THE CLASSICAL APPROACH TO SELF-DISCIPLINE Self-Discipline = Willpower = Self-Denial = Good Person
This fusion of willpower and morality had good intentions. It recognized (correctly) that, when left to our own instinctive desires, we all become narcissistic assholes. If we could get away with it, we would eat, fuck, or kill pretty much anything or anyone within a ten-meter vicinity. So the great religious leaders and philosophers and kings throughout history preached a concept of virtue that involved suppressing our feelings in favor of rationality and denying our impulses in favor of developing willpower.
And the classic approach works! …kind of. Well, okay, while it makes a more stable society, it also totally fucks us up individually.
The classic approach has the paradoxical effect of training us to feel bad about all the things that make us feel good. It basically seeks to teach us self-discipline through shaming us—by making us hate ourselves for simply being who we are. And the idea is that once we are saddled with a sufficient amount of shame about all the things that give us pleasure, we’ll be so self-loathing and terrified of our own desires that we’ll just fall in line and do what we’re told.
In Case You Didn’t Know: Shame Fucks You Up
Disciplining people through shame works for a while, but in the long-run, it backfires. As an example, let’s use perhaps the most common source of shame on the planet: sex.
The brain likes sex. That’s because a) sex feels awesome, and b) we’re biologically evolved to crave it. Pretty self-explanatory.
Now, if you grew up like most people—and especially if you’re a woman—there’s a good chance that you were taught that sex was this evil, lecherous thing that corrupted you and makes you a horrible, icky person. You were punished for wanting it, and therefore, have a lot of conflicted feelings around sex: it sounds amazing but is also scary; it feels right but also somehow so, so wrong. As a result, you still want sex, but you also drag around a lot of guilt and anxiety and doubt about yourself.
This mixture of feelings generates an unpleasant tension within a person. And as time goes on, that tension grows. Because the desire for sex never goes away. And as the desire continues, the shame grows.
Eventually, this tension becomes unbearable and must resolve itself in one of two ways.
The first option is to overindulge. The tension has become so great that we feel the only way to resolve it is by going all out in a spectacular way. Hooker orgies. Compulsive masturbation for days on end. Rampant infidelity. And, sadly, often sexual violence.
But indulgence doesn’t really resolve the tension. It just kicks the can down the road. Because after you put the cock rings away and the hookers have gone home, the shame and guilt come back. And they come back with a vengeance.
So, if indulgence doesn’t work, what about the other option?
Well, the only other option to escape that internal tension is to numb it. To distract oneself from the tension by finding some larger, more palatable tension. Alcohol is a common one. Partying and drugs, of course. Watching 14 hours of television each day can be another option. Or just eating yourself half to death.
Sometimes, people do find productive ways to distract themselves from their shame. They run ultra-marathons or work 100-hour work weeks for years on end. These are, ironically, many of the people we come to admire for having inhuman willpower. But self-denial comes easy when, deep down, you fucking hate yourself.
Because shame can’t be numbed away. It just changes form. The person who exercises religiously to escape their self-loathing will eventually find ways to loathe themselves for their exercise habits. And soon, what started out as a remarkable work ethic in the gym morphs into some form of body dysmorphia, like those guys who inject synthol into their arms to make themselves look like Popeye.
Similarly, the businessman who transmutes his shame into stellar work at the office eventually develops shame about his productivity to the point where he literally can’t go home. He’s terrified to do it. Any non-productive minute feels like an untenable failure. And while the rest of his life falls apart around him, he’s only worrying about spreadsheets and quarterly numbers.
This is why the most hardcore, uncompromising people are usually the ones who are most compromised. It’s why the most fundamentalist religious leaders who rail against the immorality of the world are always the same leaders who are ordering fuckboys off Craigslist.3 It’s why the most “spiritually enlightened” gurus are also the ones blackmailing and extorting their followers. It’s why the politicians most vocal about party loyalty and patriotism are always the ones shooting up meth in the airport bathroom. They are running away from their demons. And one way to do that is to create shinier, more socially acceptable demons.
Self-discipline based on self-denial cannot be sustained in the long-run. It only breeds greater dysfunction, and ultimately results in self-destruction.
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE CLASSICAL APPROACH Self-Denial = Emotional Dysfunction = Self-Destruction = -(Self-Discipline)
Here’s the problem with all this—and it’s so obvious once you hear it, I can’t believe we have to say it. You can will yourself to go to the gym if you don’t feel like it for a few days. But unless the gym ends up feeling good in some way, you will eventually lose motivation, run out of willpower and stop going. You can will yourself to stop drinking for a day or a week, but unless you feel the reward of not drinking, then you will eventually go back to it.
This is why my polyphasic sleeping nightmare consistently ended in disaster. Staying up all night and sleep-depriving myself produced no tangible benefits. It produced no good feelings |
centers, technical centers and engineering R&D centers in both Munich, Germany and Shanghai, China, which are made up of top designer and engineer teams from all over the world.
At present, Qoros Auto has four major models: the Qoros 3 Sedan, Qoros 3 Hatchback, Qoros 3 City SUV and Qoros 5 SUV. Qoros also unveiled the Qoros 3 Q·LECTRIQ EV concept car at the Beijing Motor Show with plans for release in 2017.Copyright by WHTM - All rights reserved Photo courtesy: Tracy Wanda
Copyright by WHTM - All rights reserved Photo courtesy: Tracy Wanda
WHTM Staff - HERSHEY, Pa. (WHTM) – Multiple crews responded to the scene of a brush fire in Dauphin County during an Independence Day fireworks display.
Attack-48 working The brush fire on Pat's Hill. #hersheyfire pic.twitter.com/axSgW2ImKx — Hershey Fire Dept (@HersheyFire) July 5, 2017
According to the Hershey Fire Department, the fireworks display was stopped around 10:30 p.m. while crews got water on the fire. The remainder of the display was then cancelled.
A short time later, the fire was marked as controlled.
Copyright by WHTM - All rights reserved Photo courtesy: Peyton Donohue
Copyright by WHTM - All rights reserved Photo courtesy: Peyton Donohue
No injuries have been reported.Hello and welcome to the 166th instalment of the SWD.
Military events/news are listed below by the governorates:
Raqqa:
Today SDF repelled a large-scale counter-attack on Nazlat Shehade neighbourhood south-west of Raqqa city. The ISIS counterattack resulted in 41 ISIS member killed and a large quantity of arms and ammunition seized by the SDF. The US-backed SDF control half ISIS’ self-declared capital city. The situation looks as follows:
The Islamic State attacked US-backed SDF east of Raqqa city resulting in clashes and an unknown number of people being abducted by the terrorist organisation, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Casualties can be found between both SDF fighters and displaced people. The Islamic State also claimed a suicide bombing on SDF forces in Raqqa.
Meanwhile, the Raqqa-Deir ez-Zor Tiger Forces Field Commander reported Syrian forces and allies to have reached the Sabkhah Axis south-east Raqqa governorate. Although, advances are mainly on close hills that establish fire control over the surrounding areas.
The Islamic State announced a counterattack against SAA and allies south of Rasafa in Raqqa governorate, no further information has been provided.
Idlib:
HTS released a decree announcing that the forming of any new factions in the Idlib area is forbidden under any name from the 27th of July 2017 onwards and that any individual or group which breaks off any current existing factions including HTS should leave without any weapons. The statement also warns all HTS branches that the judges’ decisions are final and any failure to comply will be punished.
Homs:
The SAA and allies had captured Um Khasm hill and al-Qulaylat mountain on al-Hayl field in the Sukhnah axis north-east of Palmyra city. Government forces are now closer to fully capture Al-Sukhnah, one of the last towns in the road to Deir ez-Zor. According to some sources, government troops launched a powerful attack on the Western outskirts of the aforementioned town.
Syrian Army also took control of the village of al-Bagilia in eastern Homs governorate killing dozens of ISIS fighters and destroying several vehicles. Skirmishes also took place in the surrounded areas and hills.
The following information must be considered a rumour until more reliable prooves are provided. The US-backed Maghawir al-Thawra commander called “Abu Housse” has reported defecting to government forces and stole several weapons and machine guns when defecting.
Damascus:
Clashes and air strikes occurred today in Eastern Gouta pocket as the SAA launched an assault on Zariqiyah front after shelling the area. Furthermore, a new front will probably be oppened by government forces in Irbeen after some airstrikes.
Hasaka:
ISIS propaganda announced, with a bunch of images and videos, what apparently looks like a successful raid on a Kurdish base in south Hasaka governorate.
Iraq
Anbar:
An IED destroyed a pro-government vehicle killing its 3 fighters in Sakaar Rutbah according to Amaq news agency. Also, the Islamic State claims 3 suicide bombing north-west of Heet city.
Salah al-Din:
The Islamic state claims a 2-man suicide raid on police headquarters in Al-Amiriyyah, south-east of Fallujah city. The suicide attack was carried by teen-fighters
Nineveh:
A 12 vehicle ISIS convoy was targeted by Iraqi forces south of Tal Abta killing multiple fighters, among them there were foreign fighters.
Amaq
Yemen
Islamic State claims to have broken the Houthis siege of Al-Zuhra area in south-west Al-Bayda governorate.
CJTF-OIR :
On the 27th of July 2017, CJTF-OIR has conducted 17 strikes in Syria. CJTF-OIR ‘s main focus in Syria is Raqqa region where they did eight strikes supporting SDF‘s operations against IS destroying six fighting positions, a supply cache, an ISIS communication headquarters, and an anti-air artillery system.
Other areas where nine airstrikes occurred are Abu Kamal (Al-Bukamal), Al-Shadaddi and Deir al-Zour, destroying 19 oil refinement stills, four well-heads, two oil storage tanks, two oil trailers, an ISIS tunnel, and suppressed a supply route. The full report on CJTF-OIR strikes conducted in both Syria & Iraq can be found here.
Other:
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For those of you interested, you can follow me on my personal, controversial twitter @alextorrell where I constantly tweet about different issues and conflicts.
AdvertisementsLoyal A. Goff, Ph.D presents his research on: Genetic Analysis of the Physiological Roles for lncRNAs in Development
Abstract: Many studies are uncovering functional roles for long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs), yet few have been tested for in vivo relevance through genetic ablation in animal models. To investigate the functional relevance of lncRNAs in various physiological conditions, we have developed a collection of 18 lncRNA knockout strains in which the locus is maintained transcriptionally active. Several of these lncRNA mutant mice demonstrated lethal phenotypes with varying degrees of penetrance, while others exhibited significant growth and/or developmental defects. This study, in parallel with several others, represents the first steps towards a more detailed understanding of lncRNA biology, physiological relevance, and mechanism. We will discuss the importance of in vivo genetic analysis for lncRNA characterization and describe some of the recent successes and challenges for these types of studies. lncRNAs play critical roles in vivo and we will outline a framework and impetus for future large-scale functional investigation into the roles of lncRNA molecules.Can you believe it’s three decades since Van Halen’s 5150 album was released?
Launched in 1986, the seventh studio album by Van Halen hit number 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. It was the first of the four albums to be recorded with Sammy Hagar, the new lead singer.
The album had its 30th anniversary on 24 May, 2016. More than 10 million copies have been sold in the U.S. alone over the last three decades. Its popularity could be due to the fact that Van Halen have always tried to reinvent their style and sound from album to album.
5150 was named after Eddie Van Halen’s home studio. Before its release, the band had a hard time finding a singer to replace David Lee Roth. In 1985, they were introduced to Sammy Hagar, the former Montrose singer.
Sammy was quite popular on his own but he proved to be a phenomenon once he joined Van Halen. Everything went well, so the band began to work on the new album.
Van Halen 5150 features popular songs like Love Walks In, Dreams, Why Can’t This Be Love, and Good Enough. Summer Nights, Get Up, and Best of Both Worlds are on the album too.
Even though fans criticized Hagar for bringing the band too much into the pop realm, never in the history of rock and roll has a band has so much success with a new album after replacing their lead singer. The only exception is AC/DC’s “Back In Black” album, which featured Brian Johnson. All in all, Sammy Hagar and Van Halen have proven to be a winning combination.
From their cool music to the reckless attitude, this band had all the ingredients needed for success.
Somehow they were an odd mix of a party guy and a party band. The slow tunes gave the album variety and style. Described as laid-back, confident, and sophisticated, the songs featured on this album inspired generations. Today, they are just as popular as they were 30 years ago.
What’s your thoughts?
Leave a comment below. Popular posts like this
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commentsAfter more than a year of waiting, Congress has finally okayed a piece of legislation that, if signed by the president, will stop companies from using so-called “non-disparagement” or “gag” clauses to prevent or discourage customers from writing honest reviews.
The Consumer Review Freedom Act gives the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general the authority to take enforcement actions against businesses that attempt to step on customers’ First Amendment rights by requiring that they sign a non-disparagement agreement.
These gag clauses generally threaten to punish the customer with financial penalties if they say anything negative about their experience with the company — even if it’s completely honest. Some companies have gone even further, fining customers for merely saying they intend to write something negative, or even encouraging others to give negative feedback.
Perhaps the most famous of these instances involves online retailer Kleargear, which tried — unsuccessfully — to slap a $3,500 penalty on a customer for complaining online about a transaction gone wrong; a transaction that she says occurred long before Kleargear even had a non-disparagement clause in its user agreement.
More recently, a Texas petsitter sued a couple for $1 million over an unfavorable Yelp review, using a gag clause that was strikingly similar to the one in the Kleargear agreement. That case was dismissed in August.
The Consumer Review Freedom Act was initially passed by the Senate in late 2015, with support from both parties and no need for roll call vote.
An identical bill in the House — the Consumer Review Fairness Act — took a little longer. That bill, in spite of bipartisan support, did not pass until Sept. 2016.
Even though both the House and Senate had passed virtually identical bills, they hadn’t technically signed off on the same bill yet, so lawmakers needed to figure out who would get credit for the bill that eventually ended up on the desk in the Oval Office.
Of course, that process was delayed by the whole election thing, but now that the Senate is back in session they unanimously voted yesterday to send the Consumer Review Freedom Act on to the White House, where President Obama is expected to sign it into law.
“By ending gag clauses, this legislation supports consumer rights and the integrity of critical feedback about products and services sold online,” said Sen. John Thune (SD), sponsor of the Senate version of the bill and Chair of the Senate Commerce Committee. “I appreciate the bipartisan efforts of my Senate and House colleagues to get this legislation over the finish line.”RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct 10 (IPS) - Agricultural losses are no longer the most visible effect of the drought plaguing Brazil's most developed region. Now the energy crisis and the threat of water shortages in the city of São Paulo are painful reminders of just how dependent Brazilians are on regular rainfall.
The heat island generated by São Paulo draws rainfall away from the water sources the city depends on. Credit: Rafael Neddermeyer/Fotos Públicas
Nine million of the 21 million inhabitants of Greater São Paulo are waiting for the completion of the upgrading of the Cantareira system, made up of six reservoirs linked by 48 km of tunnels and canals, which can no longer supply enough water.
For the past four months, the water that has reached the taps of nine million residents of Brazil's biggest city has come from the "dead" or inactive storage water in the Cantareira system – the water that cannot be drained from a reservoir by gravity and can only be pumped out. These supplies will last until Mar. 15, 2015, according to the state government.
"If rainfall in the summer is only average, we will have another complicated autumn; and if it rains less it will mean a collapse," architect Marussia Whately, a water resource specialist with the non-governmental Socioenvironmental Institute (ISA), told Tierramérica.
There is no possible replacement system, she said, because Cantareira supplies water to 45 percent of the metropolitan area, distributed by Sao Paulo's state water utility Sabesp, while other water sources are also low due to drought and pollution.
Whately said the intensification of extreme weather events, such as this year's drought in southeast Brazil, preceded by two years of below normal rainfall, is one of the causes of the water crisis in the state.
To that is added poor management, which has mainly sought to increase supply by tapping into distant sources that require infrastructure to transport water long distances, without adequately combating losses and waste, she said. But in her view, the main reason is "the lack of dialogue and social participation" regarding water supply.
Droughts have become more frequent and intense this century. "The first alert came in 2001, when the system was reduced to 11 percent of capacity in August," said journalist and activist Isabel Raposo, who has lived for 30 years in the Sierra da Cantareira, a forested mountain range north of the city with a huge state park. Water piped in from far away flows through the hills.
"The current crisis could have been avoided" if the large-scale reuse of water had been adopted after the crisis 13 years ago, Ivanildo Hespanhol, a professor of hydraulic engineering at the University of São Paulo, told Tierramérica.
The Jacareí reservoir, part of the Cantareira supply system, has begun pumping inactive storage water to São Paulo, Brazil's largest city, which is stricken by drought. Credit: Vagner Campos/Fotos Públicas
The five sewage treatment plants in the metropolitan region provide primary processing of 16,000 litres per second. But with further treatment the wastewater could be prepared for a wide range of uses, and could even be made potable, said the renowned expert.
That could increase the total amount of water available in the city by one-quarter – enough to relieve the pressure on the water sources and make it possible to replenish them, even with lower than normal levels of rainfall.
"Unfortunately decision-makers don't plan, but only manage the crisis," said Hespanhol, who is confident that the situation will give a boost to "the concept of water treatment and reuse."
Industrial companies already use these techniques, reducing their water consumption by up to 80 percent and recuperating their investments in under two years, he said. Political will and a "realistic legal framework" are lacking, as well as a better understanding of the issue by the environmental authorities, he added.
The emergency now requires more urgent measures, said Whately, such as reducing waste, which leads to losses of up to 30 percent according to different institutions; incentives for saving water; and better use of existing water resources.
Given the "failure of the current model of water management," with regulatory agencies lacking authority and basin committees that are ignored, ISA is trying to identify and mobilise concerned experts and institutions to discuss a diagnosis and solutions for the water crisis, she said.
"More than 90 proposals for short-term measures have been presented," she added.
The 2001 drought led to a power shortage and blackouts that forced Brazilians to reduce electricity consumption for nine months starting in June of that year. The drop in the water level in rivers hurt the hydropower plants, which produced 90 percent of the electrical energy consumed in Brazil at the time.
As a result, the energy sector was restructured, with an expansion of thermoelectricity, which is more costly and more polluting because it uses fossil fuels, but provides a measure of energy security. Hydropower's share of the country's installed capacity thus fell to 67 percent.
For that reason, this year's drought, even though it has been more severe in many basins, did not create an energy deficit, but drove up the price of electricity due to the full use of thermal power plants, generating insolvency problems for energy distributors, which were bailed out by the government, and exacerbating the difficulties suffered by the most energy-dependent industries.
The vast sugarcane fields of the state of São Paulo have also suffered from the persistent drought, which cut short the harvest and aggravated the crisis in the sugar and ethanol industries. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS
Even worse, because it affects millions of people, is the water supply problem in São Paulo and the surrounding areas. At least 30 cities have implemented mandatory water restrictions in the past few months.
In Itu, a city of 160,000 located 100 km from São Paulo, local inhabitants have held demonstrations and occupied the city council building in September, to protest supply problems that were worse than what the local water company had announced.
In São Paulo, people in the neighbourhoods supplied by the Cantareira system complain that water has been rationed, without any officially announced measures, for several months. Sabesp, the main water supplier throughout the state of São Paulo, admitted that it had lowered the water pressure in the pipes at night to prevent leaks and waste.
"We had no water for three or four days in August," said economist Marcelo Costa Santos, who lives in an 18-story building in Alto Pinheiros, a quiet neighbourhood on the west side of São Paulo. He told Tierramérica that the low water pressure made it impossible to pump water up to the higher floors.
And climate change threatens to aggravate the situation. A good part of the rain that falls in southeast Brazil comes from the Amazon rainforest, where deforestation has reduced humidity levels.
It can be inferred that São Paulo is receiving less water from the Amazon, said Antonio Nobre with the National Institute for Space Research (INPE).
Deforestation, the researcher told Tierramérica, also weakens the "flying rivers" - currents of air that carry water vapor resulting from evapotranspiration in the rainforest to the interior of Brazil. Rainfall in the centre and south of the country depends on the Amazon "water pump".
Another local phenomenon aggravates the situation. The "heat island" formed by the increase in urban temperatures in Greater São Paulo attracts rain away from water sources, said Raposo.
Recent studies found that rainfall is generally more intense in the city of São Paulo than in the nearby mountains that feed the reservoirs of the Cantareira system. Twofold damage is the consequence: cities suffer constant flooding even though it is raining less than necessary, the activist said.
This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.
Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes
© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved Original source: Inter Press Service
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Digg del.icio.usMOBILE, Alabama -- University of South Alabama President Gordon Moulton is recovering after he underwent brain surgery Sunday, according to university officials.
Surgeons removed a tumor from the left front side of Moulton's brain, USA Director of Public Relations Keith Ayers said.
According to the Stanford Brain Tumor Center, the front of the brain controls emotions and reasoning and creates a person's personality. The left side of the brain handles verbal skills.
Due to privacy concerns, Ayers would not comment on the size of the tumor.
Doctors have not pinpointed exactly when Moulton will be able to return to work, but Ayers said the surgery was successful.
"He did very well," Ayers said, adding that the tumor appears to be benign and "isolated to the single location."
Moulton will continue to communicate with his staff while he recuperates, according to Ayers.
Doctors expect Moulton to make a full recovery.Call centers like the one in Drake's "Hotline Bling" may soon be a thing of the past. VEVO
-Over the next few years, chatbots will become a ubiquitous component of the customer service experience.
-Phone centers may become a thing of the past as customer service switches to digital interactions. Chatbots will enhance chat conversations by helping humans with micro-tasks and automatic replies, though it's unlikely that bots will replace humans entirely.
-New features like natural language processing are improving chatbots everyday, but engineers are still trying to find ways to make artificial intelligence learn quicker with less data.
As more companies come to embrace chat functions to complement or reduce human phone centers, rudimentary human-to-human chat conversations will soon be a thing of the past, according to experts in the field. In the next three to five years alone, chatbots will become nearly ubiquitous, and work seamlessly with human customer support agents to provide customers with efficient, personalized responses.
Though chatbots have been around since the release of ELIZA in 1966, vast amounts of data and enhanced artificial intelligence capabilities have pushed the technology into the mainstream commercial space in the last few years, creating a hybrid experience between human customer service agents and bots.
Salesforce first launched an SMS chatbot product in 2014, and has since expanded it to include Facebook Messenger. The company also offers a product called Live Agent Chat, which facilitates human-to-human interactions.
"Salesforce believes fundamentally that bots are going to be complementing your live staff," said Meredith Flynn-Ripley, vice president of mobile messaging at Salesforce. "We really see bots as changing the job description and turning agents into intelligent problem solvers."
Flynn-Ripley described a future in which bots take over in "micro-moment exchanges" to relieve agents from doing tasks that "they don't even like doing." This could be as simple as information gathering, like asking a customer for their name and account number. But it could also look more like a conversational assistant, who gets smarter over time and can provide suggestions based off of data.
While the majority of customer service interactions are still over the phone, Flynn-Ripley said that call centers could soon undergo big changes as more companies embrace chat as the most natural way to interact.
"We often see the voice calls go down in a matter of weeks, and customer satisfaction go up," Flynn-Ripley said of new customers. "There's now an expectation that there should be automated bots."
A'seamless' experience
A typical Facebook Messenger conversation with Sephora's customer service bot. Facebook Leveraging its vast amount of user data, Facebook opened up its messenger platform to developers and businesses in April 2016.
It's since added functions like in-chat payment, built-in natural language processing (NLP), and what it calls Handover Protocol. NLP is the code that helps automated bots understand human messages more easily; Handover Protocol is Facebook's system the lets customer service agents and bots work within the same customer conversation.
Though still in beta mode, some companies like the beauty retailer Sephora implemented the protocol this summer.
It's not yet seamless, but that's the goal.
For messages that come in through Facebook, Sephora uses Assist, a business messaging platform, to evaluate which customer messages can be dealt with by a bot. If a bot can't respond, the message will be passed along to a human agent using the customer service platform Sprinklr.
On the customer side, the bot generates a button which prompts the user to request a human customer service agent.
Soon, however, AI might be used to augment human conversations by suggesting responses to commonly asked questions, which the agent can send to customers without having to type anything out.
"We have a lot of potential to make that seamless, either by making the process smooth, or by providing humans powers like quick replies," Kemal El Moujahid, the lead product manager for Messenger Platform and M at Facebook, told Business Insider.
Like Salesforce, Facebook already has a lot of data about its users. Since artificial intelligence and chatbots are only as smart as the data they have access to, chatbots built on top of Facebook's system will likely have more advanced conversation abilities than chatbots built from scratch.
"The promise of chatbots is personalization at scale," El Moujahid said, describing a world in which every company has a chat function which can use artificial intelligence to quickly address customer concerns tailored to the data available about that customer.
"The most important thing for humans is for their expectations to be managed. As long as it's really clear what the agent is able to do — whether bot or human — then the users are fine with that," El Moujahid said. "You don't need to have a bot that can talk about its holiday with you for you to have resolution for your cable problem."
Outside of the text box
Fitzpatrick thinks personality-driven brand mascots like Progressive's Flo could one day automatically handle customer service concerns over Alexa. Progressive Many consumers would rather handle customer service issues by chat than over the phone phone — 56% according to a Nielsen study commissioned by Facebook. But this doesn't mean the future of chatbots is limited to words.
While Flynn-Ripley wouldn't reveal much about Salesforce's developing projects, she did suggest that in the next few years chatbots might find a use for something like Salesforce's Einstein Vision — a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) which allow programmers to integrate pre-trained image classifiers, or to train their own image recognition software.
It's not hard to imagine a function in which chatbots can read barcodes, or analyze photos to better help customers with their needs. Image recognition is already a common feature with content management systems like Box, which partnered with Google Cloud Vision to allow users to search untagged images, or automatically sort images by their content.
The data and capabilities appear to be there. It just hasn't been widely adopted.
Elsewhere in the space, companies like PullString are working on creating more interesting forms of audio chatbots. PullString started creating interactive voice features for children's toys, but it's since expanded to work on software and creative services that power the development of audio-based chat functions for skills on Amazon's Alexa platform.
Now, PullString focuses on developing personality-driven characters on Alexa, whose voice and word choice personify the brand as a whole.
Michael Fitzpatrick, president of PullString, said that brand identity is key when it comes to digital customer service, and chatbots can provide a level of continuity and brand messaging that live agents can't.
"One opportunity, I think, is to spend time designing interactions and model them to reflect truly what the brand's persona is," Fitzpatrick said, mentioning as examples that both Progressive and Geico insurance companies have done well with development of Flo and the Gecko, their respective mascots. After years of TV commercials focused on these characters, it would only seem natural to speak to one of them over Alexa to file an insurance claim or sign up for a new offering, Fitzpatrick said.
Technological barriers
Things didn't go so well with Microsoft's bot Tay. Microsoft Though the adoption of customer service chatbots has increased in recent years, there are still some technological barriers that need to be overcome before the technology is as seamless and helpful as its engineers dream it could be.
"The biggest hurdle at the moment is data," Fitzpatrick said. "I think that's true of artificial intelligence more broadly."
Fitzpatrick said that while there is a lot of data out there, it's not always applied in the best manner. Twitter-trained artificial intelligence like Tay, Microsoft's notorious xenophobic chatbot, highlight the need for smarter systems which can tell the different between good and bad inputs.
El Moujahid agreed that data is at front of mind, saying that the biggest limitation right now is the speed at which artificial intelligence can process data, and how much data it requires to accurately train a bot.
"Right now there's a lot of potential with the existing technology," El Moujahid said. "NLP is still in its early days, so we're seeing really interesting stories from around making it faster with less data. There's a notion that those algorithms are powerful but require a large amount of data to train."
Once these hurdles are overcome, however, chatbots could have a much bigger role in our day-to-day lives than they do now. El Moujahid said that it's not hard to imagine a world in which individuals have their own personal assistant-style bots to help with mundane tasks, like calling the cable company.
"There's no reason to imagine at some point you won't have your assistant interacting with the brand's bot," El Moujahid said.North Dakota’s sparse geography has long made it a natural frontier: Pioneers here pushed the boundaries of westward expansion, then agriculture, and recently domestic oil drilling. Now the state finds itself on the leading edge of a new boom that it never would have chosen: Alzheimer’s disease.
Cases are climbing across the United States, and especially in North Dakota, which has the country’s second highest death rate from the disease. While Alzheimer’s is the sixth leading cause of death nationally, it already ranks third here.
“Everybody knows somebody” affected by the disease, said Kendra Binger, a program manager with the Alzheimer’s Association of Minnesota and North Dakota. As public awareness rises along with the numbers of cases, “it’s hard to ignore anymore.”
This makes the state an ideal laboratory to glimpse at the future of Alzheimer’s in America, and to identify strategies that could help the rest of the country cope. The devastating disease has strained families and the state budget. So North Dakota — a place that prides itself on personal independence and financial parsimony — has found new ways to support its residents and a new consensus to spend money on prevention.
The state’s primary strategy is to assist family caregivers — the estimated 30,000 North Dakota spouses, siblings, sons, and daughters looking after loved ones with dementia. A half-dozen consultants roam the state to evaluate families’ needs, train caregivers, connect them to services, and offer advice. Studies show the program has helped families keep their loved ones out of nursing homes and save the state money.
“We are not well-prepared, to put it mildly,” to respond to the growing Alzheimer’s crisis across the country, said Marc Cohen, clinical professor of gerontology and director of the Center for Long-Term Services and Supports at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Since the burden of caring for dementia patients falls heavily on family members, he added, strategies like North Dakota’s are “exactly what is needed.”
Betty Mahlke, a retired bookkeeper, discovered the impact of North Dakota’s approach two years ago, when her husband, Larry, started forgetting everyday details — a troubling symptom of the Alzheimer’s diagnosis he’d received years before. It’s lonely enough caring for a loved one with dementia in the heart of a city, surrounded by service organizations and care options. But like Betty, many of North Dakota’s growing ranks of family caregivers are doing it in far lonelier places: on isolated farms or in small towns across 350 miles of the Great Plains.
The Ormistons’ farmstead sits among a grove of trees near Nekoma, N.D. Like Alan, many of the state’s growing ranks of family caregivers are living on isolated farms or in small towns across 350 miles of the Great Plains.
The Mahlkes lived in Jamestown, a city of 15,000 halfway between Fargo and Bismarck, a hundred miles from each. Jamestown is hardly the state’s most remote community; it is home to the National Buffalo Museum, a stock car racetrack, and high school football games that Larry Mahlke loved to frequent. But it has limited support services compared to a big city. So when a visiting consultant, Beth Olson, came to give a presentation on dementia at the local senior center in March 2015, Betty seized the chance.
“Every little hint” about how to care for Larry resonated, Betty recalled. “I was just grasping for anything that could help.”
Soon after, Olson visited the Mahlkes at home, and that began a relationship that would carry Betty through the deepening challenges to come. At first, Olson suggested puzzles and games that could help Larry, a retired furnace installer and insurance salesman, keep his mind active. When he later stopped recognizing his own home, she coached Betty on the best response. Instead of arguing, Betty would invite him into the car, drive a few blocks, drive back, and say they were home. Sometimes the gambit worked, Betty said. “Other times he’d say, ‘This is not my house,’ and we’d have to drive around some more.”
Olson’s personalized support of the Mahlkes is North Dakota’s model for easing the burden of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. Olson is a care consultant with the state’s Dementia Care Services Program, established in 2009. Republican state Senator Dick Dever proposed the program after discovering personally the difficulty of caring for a family member with Alzheimer’s. The state Legislature approved it with overwhelming support in both houses. Michigan is now piloting a similar program in three counties and working to expand it statewide.
“I was just grasping for anything that could help.” Betty Mahlke, whose husband had Alzheimer's
What makes North Dakota such an Alzheimer’s hot spot? Like much of the rest of the Midwest, it’s graying. Rural counties are emptying out as young people depart for better job prospects elsewhere, leaving an earlier, aging generation behind. This is a familiar story for Betty Mahlke, whose four grown sons all settled out of state (in Minnesota, Nevada, and Idaho) for the sake of work.
The youth exodus has been countered in North Dakota by a flood of young arrivals coming to work the oil fields — but only in a fraction of the state’s counties, and not enough to divert the overall trend. The state still has a high ratio of elderly residents. Especially large is the group called the “oldest old,” those age 85 and over, who are dramatically more likely to die from Alzheimer’s than the group age 65 and over. In the latest US Census, only Rhode Island had a larger portion of its populace in the “oldest old” range.
Still, that explanation doesn’t satisfy Dr. Donald Jurivich, chair of geriatrics at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences, who believes there’s more at play than migration patterns. When he shows his colleagues North Dakota’s high dementia numbers, he said, “People have pretty much been stupefied.” Why wouldn’t Rhode Island, with its higher ratio of “oldest old,” match North Dakota in dementia deaths? And why not Iowa, whose population of “oldest old” is nearly as high? The only state with a comparable ratio of the very elderly whose dementia death rate surpasses North Dakota is neighboring South Dakota.
Jurivich and his colleagues have speculated on a host of possible causes, none yet proven: Perhaps North Dakota’s high Alzheimer’s death rates could be explained by radon exposure, a meat-heavy diet, genetic predispositions among the northern Europeans who settled this part of the Midwest, or simply state-by-state differences in record keeping. He’s applying for grants to fund further study to solve the mystery.
The Dementia Care Services Program, meanwhile, has to cope with the realities on the ground. The program, run by the regional Alzheimer’s Association, substantially expanded the shoestring work that the association was doing before 2009. Previously, two consultants had covered the entire state, counseling families one-on-one (including Dever’s family) and raising their own funds. Thus stretched, they couldn’t range far beyond Fargo and Bismarck, the two largest cities.
Alan Ormiston stays close to Jo at the couple’s home. They married in September 1959 and raised four children together.
Now, six care consultants do the job, dividing the state into eight zones. As Olson did with the Mahlkes, the consultants assess patients’ needs, teach caregivers what to expect and how to respond, refer them to services, lead support groups, and answer questions by phone and in person. Importantly, they often visit patients’ homes, even those in the remotest corners of the state. Between January 2015 and this February, nearly three-quarters of the 2,602 consultations were done in person.
Deaths from Alzheimer’s have jumped 74 percent since 2000 in North Dakota, and the program’s caseload has similarly exploded. The number of families served has risen steadily since 2011, from about 500 in every two-year period to a current pace that could double that. The program costs the state $600,000 a year.
The program’s main purpose is to help families keep loved ones with dementia at home, rather than in a nursing facility, for longer. With average nursing home costs running over $8,000 a month per patient, and the state’s share of Medicaid paying half the price, even a few weeks’ delay can make a dent. For families, having the knowledge and support to keep a loved one at home can also make a big emotional impact, relieving the bewilderment and burnout that often afflicts caregivers and preventing costly, avoidable medical care for patients and caregivers alike.
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That’s what it did for Betty Mahlke. Though the caregiving exhausted her, she couldn’t stomach the idea of moving her husband into a care facility. When Larry eventually couldn’t recognize even her, Olson had already prepared her for how to respond.
“We’d be sitting in the living room and he would look at me strangely, and you could see that fear in his eyes, that this lady is not anybody he knows,” Betty recalled. “There were times when we’d go to bed at night and he’d lay on the edge of the bed, stiff as a board.” When Larry said, “Where’s Betty?” |
more expensive option is sometimes preferred over a thriftier bus.
Why do cities want streetcars?
Advocates have a whole list of arguments for why cities should build streetcar lines. Here are a few of them.
Tourists like them
"The ride quality and accessibility of a streetcar is an advantage over buses," says Ethan Mellone, rail transit manager of Seattle's streetcar. He adds that tourists prefer streetcars to buses because streetcars tend to be less intimidating and more understandable for a newcomer.
"[On a streetcar], riders are not going to wind up where they didn't expect to be. They attract more riders than a comparable bus line," he says.
Portland is one example of this: Bus lines near the streetcar line saw ridership drop by 20 percent, and the streetcar's ridership more than made up for it, Politifact reports.
Developers like them
It's hard to find hard evidence on this, as the Atlantic Cities noted last year, but advocates argue that putting in a streetcar draws economic development because streetcars are more permanent than a new bus line: Once the track is laid, it's not going anywhere.
"When you have that route in place, and it's going to stop here for a long time because they spent some time putting that infrastructure in and putting that station in, [entrepreneurs say], 'Here's a good place to build our business or our restaurant,'" says Art Guzzetti, vice president for policy at the American Public Transportation Association.
The Atlanta Journal Constitution recently reported that more than $700 million in development was either underway or would be completed by the end of 2014. And one 2008 study found the Portland streetcar would spur $778 million in development. Tucson has reported similarly booming development.
The environment
Streetcars are electric, and many buses still operate on diesel or gasoline. For cities trying to go green, this can make a streetcar line look attractive. Then again, the question is what you're comparing streetcars to. After all, buses are already a green alternative to cars (think one bus carrying 20 people versus 20 cars carrying 20 people).
The Obama administration likes them
The Department of Transportation under President Obama changed the formula for how funds for different projects are allocated. Rather than focus purely on cost-effectiveness, says a department spokesperson, the DOT has been focusing on other factors, like boosting economic development.
Though the new DOT focus has given a boost to streetcars, it's important to recognize that this money never funds a streetcar fully, says one expert.
"[The streetcar] has been an emphasis of the current administration in their policy view, and yes they have directed funds to degrees toward these projects," says Guzzetti. "But the regions themselves are putting forth the bulk of the investment."
Cities appreciate the investments and say that Washington has seen the light when it comes to transit.
"The feds realize that if they want to rebuild cities... that as a kick-start or jump-start, federal funds are the way to go," says Tim Borchers, executive director of the Atlanta streetcar.
Jobs
Buying a regular city bus means, well, just buying a regular city bus and putting it into service. Starting a streetcar line means all sorts of building, like tracks and stations. Yes, it's expensive, but those expenses can create local jobs, not to mention earn political support from labor groups and contracting firms.
Je ne sais quoi
One other common argument is that streetcars just add a special something to a neighborhood.
"What makes an urban lifestyle attractive is there's a sense of place, a sense of activity, and you can see it. And that's part of what streetcars are," says Guzzetti.
Are streetcars just a fad?
While there's no way of really knowing, one thing that bodes well for streetcars is the overall growth in public transit usage. In 2013, US public transit had its highest ridership since 1956, according to the American Public Transportation Association. But since then, public transit ridership has climbed considerably, meaning a growing potential customer base for streetcars.
In addition, streetcars are built specifically to not be fads. Putting rails in roadways takes time and effort and money, and they're hard to get out. This is one of the streetcar's advantages relative to a bus, advocates say, as it signals to businesses that they'll want to build along a transit line that will be around for years to come.
However, given some of streetcars' weaknesses as a transportation method — they're not terribly fast, they have to navigate traffic — and the growth in the use of public transit, it's possible that cities that build the systems will one day wish they had gone for either costlier grade-separated light rail or cheaper and more practical buses.
What else should I be reading?
The American Public Transportation Association has a site where it keeps all sorts of information on modern streetcars and heritage trolleys. There are also many good public transit-focused blogs out there. Human Transit and the Transport Politic are two good ones.
In addition, the Atlantic Cities — while covering all sorts of urban planning-related news — often writes thoughtful articles on transportation policy.
Many cities that have a streetcar under consideration or under construction also have blogs or sites dedicated to those streetcars where progress updates are posted. A few examples are Washington, DC's site, Milwaukee's, and Seattle's.
How have these cards changed?
This is a running list of substantive updates, corrections, and additions to this card stack. These cards were last updated on April 22, 2014.MOSCOW, March 21 (Reuters) - Russia will pay off an outstanding foreign debt of the Soviet Union in full by transferring $125.2 million to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak said on Tuesday.
“Bosnia and Herzegovina remained the only country among the former Soviet Union’s creditors before whom (Russia) had an unpaid debt,” Storchak said in an emailed statement.
Storchak said that Russia and Bosnia and Herzegovina signed an inter-government agreement under which Sarajevo will receive Moscow’s payment within 45 days.
After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Russia took the responsibility to redeem outstanding debt to USSR’s creditors. While defaulting on its own debt in 1998, Russia managed to start paying back Soviet foreign debt in the 2000s when prices for oil, Russia’s key export, were high.
Bosnia and Herzegovina is owned the money as one of the legal successors of Yugoslavia. (Reporting by Andrey Ostroukh; Editing by Christian Lowe)A Towering Vision At HPU
A string of fortuitous opportunities has seen John Gotanda through a prosperous career. Starting off as a musician in high school, he eventually went to business school before going into law and finally joining the world of academia. As Hawaii Pacific University’s incoming president, the man with a storied career is now guiding HPU toward the next phase of the university’s own evolution. With a new, waterfront campus, and plans to soon bid farewell to its campus at the foothills of the Ko‘olau mountains, Gotanda arrives at the school during a time of major change. He finds this period of transformation particularly promising.
It’s been 30 years since Gotanda left Hawaii to pursue a lively career on the Mainland. Born and raised in Manoa, he attended Manoa Elementary, Stevenson Middle School and Roosevelt High School. Perfectly content at home in the Islands, and playing keyboard for various bands professionally, Gotanda had no plan to ever leave Hawaii.
“By the time I got to the end of high school I realized, to the relief of my parents, that I wasn’t very good,” he laughs.
With his musical dreams over, he began working as a baker at Dunkin’ Donuts. Nevertheless Gotanda did go on to produce records and write songs, and one was even nominated for a Na Hoku (Song of Love, performed by Nohelani Cypriano and Danny Couch).
Ever-industrious, Gotanda was soon the manager at Dunkin’ Donuts before transferring to become manager of a prominent Ala Moana food establishment of the time, Lyn’s Delicatessen, where he worked while simultaneously earning his undergrad degree in business at University of Hawaii. Then he enrolled in law school at UH.
“In the final year of law school, I had the chance to take a job in Washington, D.C., at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit,” says Gotanda. “I thought I’d do that for two years and then come right back and start my career practicing law in Hawaii.”
Fate intervened and found Gotanda signing on with a job at Covington & Burling law firm in D.C., practicing international law.
“A lot of my work was helping American clients resolve disputes with foreign governments — fascinating cases that had me fly all over the world,” he says.
After 10 years of law, an opportunity to go into academia materialized. After 20 years in academia, moving up from professor to dean at Villanova University law school in Philadelphia, “The opportunity to come home and join the HPU community came up, and it was too terrific to pass up,” says Gotanda, who at the opening of the month officially replaced five-year president Geoffrey Bannister. “The mission of the university is one that fit in line with my vision of what an educational institution, particularly in Hawaii, should be doing — bringing students from all over the world to educate them and train them to be leaders in a global society. And HPU does it in a way that is different from many other institutions.”
The three things that most drew him to take up the university’s helm are its innovative academic programming, the student body and the overall HPU community. The academic programs provide personalized attention to each student both inside and outside of the classroom, including through hands-on training, internships and online courses.
“One professor told me that she customizes her class to fit the students who are in that class. The professors work on providing an individualized, academic experience, which promotes an active-learning environment.”
HPU boasts a student body that is an even mix of international, Mainland and local students.
“They come together in this unique setting to learn. It really is a student body and mix that you won’t find anywhere else.”
As for the community aspect, says Gotanda, students, faculty and alumni all focus on personally making a visible difference in society.
His own goal for the college is to highlight programs that are, as he says, “market-aligned and student-centered,” offering programs that give students the tools and experiences that employers and graduate schools are looking for.
“We want to provide the knowledge, skills and values for our students to be successful,” he says. “We offer varied degree programs with particular strengths in business and nursing — real growth areas.”
Ocean sciences is another specialty area particularly suited to Hawaii, and HPU’s Oceanic Institute (adjacent to Sea Life Park) tackles issues that affect the community at large. Gotanda describes sustainability-centered research out of the Waimanalo facility to grow disease-resistant shrimp. And successfully breeding yellow tang in captivity, which is something no one else has been able to do, meaning that all those sunshine-bright fish in aquariums have been depleting the ocean’s harvest … until now.
What’s most kept HPU, a 50-year-old institution, in headlines lately is its acquisition of Aloha Tower Marketplace and the release of its Kaneohe campus to Castle Medical Center. The Aloha Tower campus, the school’s “crown jewel,” as Gotanda refers to it, is comprised of classrooms, a student learning center, student commons, retail spaces and waterfront lofts that function at 100 percent occupancy, with a wait list.
“Aloha Tower has evolved from a traditional marketplace that welcomes people to Hawaii from all over the world, to a marketplace of ideas. Students come from all over the world to live and learn here.”
The waterfront space is only in its earliest stages of development, with plans in the coming years to transition HPU’s Kaneohe presence to a consolidated downtown campus.
Speaking of transitions, Gotanda has been visiting his native home over the years, with wife Brenda and their middle school children William and Kayla. Now the family has actually moved here. He notes that leaving their life on the East Coast had its expected challenges, but they’ve come to be enthusiastic about their new home. HPU’s new president looks forward to fishing with his son, catching up on the latest with Hawaii’s music scene, and revisiting a pastime he enjoyed while growing up: surfing. He’s planning to introduce his kids to the sport as well.
Meanwhile, Gotanda is making plans for HPU to expand its community presence.
“HPU has evolved over the years in a way that has made it an integrative part of the community,” he says. “I envision HPU playing an even bigger role in the downtown community, and in the overall local community too. I envision HPU partnering with the local community to find win-win situations to move all of us forward. I’ll be reaching out to the community to find and develop those partnerships.
“It’s an exciting time to be at HPU,” adds Gotanda. “HPU is a terrific institution, providing unique opportunities for students. And it’s an institution on the move. You will see exciting things from us in the future.”What is FreeCalypso?
The primary mission of our family of projects is to give a second life to a certain GSM baseband chipset+software solution that was once upon a time developed, then later abandoned, disowned and discarded in the trash by Texas Instruments (TI). Once upon a time, in a distant era long gone by, TI were in the business of making GSM (2G) and UMTS (3G) cellular baseband chipsets and the software that goes with them — but then they fully exited this business in 2009, and have since destroyed every trace of ever having been in it. All of the intellectual property associated with this business went into the trash dumpster — as we understand it, TI tried to sell that business unit, but failed to find an interested buyer.
However, some GSM cellphone and modem engineers who have worked extensively with TI's Calypso chipset have developed a deep love for this chipset and the software solution associated with it, and we are not willing to let it die. Therefore, we have taken it upon ourselves to give a second life to this chipset and its associated software post-TI. We buy TI-made Calypso and RF chips on the Chinese surplus market (they are still available in very large quantities despite having been out of production for many years), we design and build our own reference boards with these chips, and we strive to provide the same level of support for this chipset to the worldwide free and open source community as TI once provided to their customers.
What's in the name?
Calypso is originally a Greek mythology character, and it is also the informal but commonly used nickname of TI's GSM baseband processor chip formally known as HERCROM400G2. TI also made other GSM chipsets prior to exiting that line of business, most notably LoCosto, but the Mother who started the FreeCalypso family of projects has a strong personal liking specifically for the Calypso chipset (as opposed to LoCosto), hence the project name.
The Free part of our name refers to our use of the methods and principles taken from the world of free and open source software. It should be obvious that the historical Calypso chipset has no mainstream commercial value: it only supports the ancient GSM/2G technology with no possibility of ever supporting anything newer, and even for GSM/2G the newer chips made by MediaTek and Spreadtrum are much cheaper, more integrated and more powerful than the Calypso. Instead the only people for whom our TI-based FreeCalypso solution can possibly be of interest are free and open source enthusiasts and tinkerers, hence they are the audience for which our family of projects is targeted.
What makes the Calypso more free
From the viewpoint of the free and open source community, one major defect of all current (as opposed to historical) cellular baseband chipsets made and sold by companies like Qualcomm, MediaTek and Spreadtrum is that they are very closed: they don't provide detailed technical documentation for their chips, and the software (firmware) that is required for these chips to perform their useful function is available only as binaries without source code.
We don't know what TI's policies on such matters were back in the days when they were actively involved in this business — those days were before our time — but what practically matters in the present day, almost a full decade after TI's complete exit from that business, is that we were able to find many of TI's chip datasheets and other technical documents on Chinese mobile phone developer forum sites and elsewhere on the Internet, presumably posted there by various Chinese, Taiwanese and other Asian manufacturers of TI-based cellular phones and modems.
We have also been able to reconstruct the complete software suite for the Calypso chipset from the numerous fragmented bits and pieces which we have found on the Internet. The original bits and pieces which we found on the net were highly fragmented and incomplete, and it took the Mother several years of painstaking work to reconstruct the complete original solution in its full glory, but it has now been done: the software (firmware) that runs on our FCDEV3B modem board is built by us from source which we maintain — see our software page for more information.
What we offerWhen Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) bid farewell to his presidential aspirations at the Democratic National Convention in the summer, he instructed his lefty legions to press on. He would not be occupying the White House, but the change his supporters believed in could still be achieved through persistent pressure on the Democratic Party.
“Our revolution continues,” Sanders declared. “This election is not about, and has never been about, Hillary Clinton, or Donald Trump, or Bernie Sanders or any of the other candidates who sought the presidency … This election is about, and must be about, the needs of the American people.”
Sanders was rejecting the idea that his campaign’s popularity had been due to the unique charismatic power of a 74-year-old Vermonter to entrance the millennial hordes. Instead, Sanders had given voice to a grassroots movement both unsatisfied with the political status quo and resistant to the thuggish white nationalism of Trump, he argued.
The biggest test for the future political viability of the Sanders revolution is playing out in upstate New York, where populist insurgent Zephyr Teachout is taking on former state assemblyman John Faso. The lobbyist is backed by two billionaire Republican megadonors: Paul Singer and Robert Mercer, who have each plowed more than half a million dollars into a Faso Super PAC. Teachout and Faso are vying for the state’s 19th Congressional district, a significantly rural and working-class stretch of counties between Manhattan and Albany.
Teachout has everything Democratic leaders could ask for in a candidate ― personal charisma, policy acumen and an assload of money. She’s raised over $1.6 million for her campaign this year. Her average donation amount in the second quarter of 2016 was about $15 ― well below Bernie’s famed $27 figure.
As 'Bernie!' chants broke into his speech, Sanders countered playfully: 'That ‘Bernie!’ has now gotta be transferred to Zephyr!’
She’s running in a district that both parties are capable of winning. President Barack Obama carried it twice, but retiring Rep. Chris Gibson (R-N.Y.) has occupied its Congressional seat since the Tea Party wave of 2010.
Teachout is running as a hardline wonk-populist. Her economic platform bashes the North American Free Trade Agreement, calls to bust up cable monopolies and force big banks to lend to small businesses. She invokes former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s rural electrification project as the precedent for her plan to expand broadband internet access. Teachout’s book, Corruption In America: From Benjamin Franklin’s Snuff Box To Citizens United, is a serious scholarly take-down of the American campaign finance system. She uses the word “antitrust.”
Her PR effort has been pugnacious. One ad calling to clean up the Hudson River ties Faso to Wall Street financiers and Albany sell-outs. Instead of challenging Faso to a debate, she called on his hedge fund Super PAC donor Singer (she suggested topics including NAFTA, fracking and the effect of climate-change on flooding). Last week, Teachout deployed the biggest weapon in her arsenal, hosting Sanders at a rally in her district.
“There are 435 members in the House of Representatives,” Sanders declared to an enthusiastic crowd. “You are about to elect the most outstanding member. A leader in a time where we need leaders... This race is one of the most important congressional races in America.”
As “Bernie!” chants broke into his speech, Sanders countered playfully: “That ‘Bernie!’ has now gotta be transferred to Zephyr!’”
Teachout held her own as the headlining act, zinging Faso as a lobbyist for payday lenders and fracking pipelines, and touting her debate challenge to Singer. “If you wanna buy a Congressional seat, we wanna know why,” she said. “So far, he hasn’t answered.”
This stuff is all gravy to the American left that hailed Sanders in his primary challenge to Clinton. But Sanders lost, and both he and Teachout recognize there is a lot on the line for the American progressive movement in her race. The electorate is obviously hungry for outsider candidates in 2016, but successful campaigns always involve some cult of personality element ― and it is hard to focus the energy of a nationwide presidential race on individual districts. Teachout trounced her opponents in the Democratic primary, but other Sanders-backed efforts haven’t faired as well. Tim Canova was unable to dethrone former Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), despite the disastrous headlines she cultivated while running the Democratic National Committee. Sanders proved that a small-dollar-donation fundraising strategy can be competitive at the national level, but can it work in a Congressional district, where the price tag for billionaires is much lower?
Progressives have argued for decades that they can win districts like New York’s 19th by appealing to populist economics and attacking political corruption. That thinking violates the traditional Beltway ideological calculus, where a candidate who supports same-sex marriage and abortion rights can make herself more moderate by supporting federal favors to major corporations. Democrats in swing districts have typically taken this approach. Raise money by going easy on big corporations, and keep Democrats on board with social issues.
It does keep the billionaires off your back. But progressive activists have long noted that it doesn’t work with voters. Democratic candidates in rural districts do indeed take a hit with social conservatives for toeing the party line on abortion and gay rights. But it’s hard to see how they can absolve these perceived sins by binding themselves to big banks and oil companies.
Teachout’s campaign is serving as a real-world test of the progressive counter-strategy. Polling data in the district is thin, but a recent survey conducted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee gave Teachout a 5-point lead among likely voters, with 11 percent undecided. The race will depend on whether Teachout’s lead can hold up during the barrage of Super PAC ads that will hit district in the final weeks of the campaign.
But the benefits for progressives from a Teachout win would be tremendous. Teachout said she wants to serve on the House Agriculture Committee if elected, to help serve local farmers. Through a quirk of history, the Ag Committee also shares jurisdiction over Wall Street trading in derivatives, which would give her a platform to assail the financial establishment ― something Singer and Mercer are no doubt aware of. The similarities between Teachout and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) aren’t exactly hard to identify ― both are economic populists, law professors and women with a knack for breaking down complex issues into voter-friendly arguments. Warren changed Congress with her election in 2012. Sanders thinks Teachout could do the same in 2016.
“You need a leader who will stand up to the billionaire class and tell them they cannot have it all,” Sanders said. The first step is winning.
Sign up for the HuffPost Must Reads newsletter. Each Sunday, we will bring you the best original reporting, longform writing and breaking news from The Huffington Post and around the web, plus behind-the-scenes looks at how it’s all made. Click here to sign up!“It’s a sad state of affairs when the federal government and the state government place the main water testing responsibility on a group of volunteers, but that’s what happens here."
That quote is from an U.S. Army Corps of Engineers official — he's talking about how the chicken processors' environmental impact is regulated in Georgia, in that often the processors regulate themselves. The state has just two inspectors overseeing industrial storm water pollution permits at some 3,000 sites; some of the most aggressive testing is done by volunteers.
Those concerns were validated this year when surprise inspections found that two companies were failing to do enough to prevent waste and manure from washing into a Georgia creek that empties into Lake Lanier. Sometimes after rains, Flat Creek is so choked with garbage you can barely see the water, one volunteer said.
But one poultry official said the plants are not the only ones to blame for high levels of bacteria.
Click here to see our complete investigation into the state of chicken plant regulationGet the biggest daily news stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
A woman has been arrested amid accusations her serial bear-feeding has led to a number of the creatures menacing her neighbours.
Jo Ann Medina, 62, is suspected of giving food to at least six of the giant mammals outside her home in Colorado.
Footage captured by a neighbour appears to show the animal-lover leaving snacks out, standing near a large bear and cleaning up faeces left by the animals, according an arrest warrant.
Medina was released from the El Paso County jail yesterday, reports The Gazette.
Wildlife experts are now trying to trap the bears Medina is said to have lured to the area.
(Image: CPW)
Three of the beasts are tagged, meaning they will probably be killed if caught.
Medina has been warned for a string of bear-feeding incidents dating back to 2007 with neighbours often complaining about her behvaiour.
One woman complained that a bear "charged" her and another counted at least 10 bears visiting Medina's house seeking food in 2012.
Wildlife spokesman Matt Robbins said it had been "going on for years".
He added: "It's not only illegal, it's extremely dangerous. Bears can become aggressive around food and they lose their desire to forage."
(Image: CPW)
Luring and feeding bears is barred by a Colorado state law, but arrests are extremely rare.
When suspected of feeding bears in 2009, Medina told an officer that "it was the will of God for her to continue feeding the bears" to help them survive, another citation said.
Medina told The Gazette the bears were "just getting ready for winter" and feeding them was "not a big issue."
Michael Tassler, who moved next door to Medina six weeks ago, said: "They're awesome creatures, but they don't need to be fed by human beings."This is part two of a four-part series by Charlie O'Connor describing and evaluating the penalty kill of the Philadelphia Flyers during the 2015-16 season. Yesterday, we outlined and defined the different formations that the Flyers' penalty kill used in their forechecking and defensive zone strategies. Today, we've delve into the manually-tracked forechecking metrics.
Yesterday's breakdown of the specific formations used by the Philadelphia Flyers on the penalty kill was, in many ways, meant to be an introduction to this entire series. In order to delve into tactics, it was necessary to make sure that every reader possessed a base level understanding of penalty kill X's and O's, which hopefully I was able to provide.
But the real core of this series is a deep dive into the statistics behind those formations, all of which were manually tracked by myself. Today, the focus is on the forechecks. First, we'll evaluate which forechecking schemes were used most by the Flyers during the entirety of the 2015-16 season. Then, we'll look at their usage over time, to check if the coaching staff made tactical adjustments throughout the year. We'll close out our analysis of the Flyers' forechecks by using metrics to evaluate which types were most and least successful in helping Philadelphia to execute an effective penalty kill.
Which forechecking schemes did the Flyers use the most in 2015-16?
We previously defined four main forechecking formations -- the Tandem Pressure, Same-Side Press, Passive 1-3, and Retreating Box. I was able to track 80 of the Flyers' 82 regular season games during the 2015-16 season (January 7th and January 13th were unavailable on NHL.tv), noting each time a specific formation was used by the team during a 4-on-5 penalty kill situation.
The Flyers primarily utilized the Passive 1-3 as their base formation. As I noted yesterday, their version of the Passive 1-3 gives the second forward (F2) extra freedom to "step up" in the middle of the ice, but it still fits the regular parameters of the forecheck.
As noted yesterday as well, the Passive 1-3 and the Same-Side Press are very similar in their initial formations. If you look at the former as the "safe" version and the latter as the "aggressive" version of the same general forechecking concept, then it becomes fair to say that the Flyers were clearly a base 1-3 penalty killing team in 2015-16. The Passive 1-3 and the Same-Side Press were used a combined 56.63 percent of the time, a solid majority over any other tactic.
The Retreating Box and the Tandem Pressure were Philadelphia's secondary tactics, with the former coming in at 24.57% of all forechecking situations and the latter at 11.04%. The "Other" category primarily consisted of situations such as slow line changes and quick entries off neutral zone faceoffs, when a proper neutral zone forecheck could not be executed.
Did the Flyers' forecheck usage change over the course of the season?
We've now established how often each of the four main forechecks were used during the entirety of the 2015-16 season. But what the full-year percentages don't tell us is whether tactics changed in the neutral zone as the year progressed.
To answer that question, we'll look at the usage percentages by month to see if there were any significant spikes or declines in the the four individual forechecks. One look at the below chart answers that question quickly.
The predominant usage of the Passive 1-3 stays relatively stable throughout the season, ranging from the low-30% region in February to north of 50% in January. Regardless, the Passive 1-3 was always first or second in the rankings. It's the dramatic increase in usage of the Retreating Box forecheck that is the real eye-opener. Corresponding with a drop in dependency on the Same-Side Press and Tandem Pressure, the Retreating Box formation was a real rival to the Passive 1-3 over the final three months of the season.
The aggressive Tandem Pressure's high point came in October, and only to be used less and less as the year progressed. On the other hand, the Same-Side Press seemed to be a consistent tool in Philadelphia's arsenal until February, when it became a second thought beside the Passive 1-3 and Retreating Box. When the Flyers used the 1-3 formation late in the year, they generally backed up through the neutral zone rather than let their forwards attack.
Which forechecks were most effective for the Flyers?
Before we jump into this section, let's first ask an obvious question: how can we measure the effectiveness of a forecheck? Or in more basic terms, what should an effective forecheck be trying to accomplish?
To start, let's look at possible outcomes. Just like at even strength, there are three potential results when an opponent tries moving the puck through the neutral zone against a forecheck. The first is that they successfully navigate the middle of the ice and carry the puck into the offensive zone with control. The second sees them enter the offensive zone, but are forced to relinquish possession (or dump the puck) in order to get there. The third and best possible outcome for the defense is that the rush is broken up entirely, and no offensive zone entry occurs.
At even strength, it's been repeatedly proven that controlled entries (carry-ins) generate more shot attempts on average than uncontrolled entries (dump-ins). But does that hold for power play situations as well? Luckily, Corey Sznajder tracked every 5-on-4 power play entry for the 2013-14 season, giving us a decent sample size to determine the league average outcome for PP controlled and uncontrolled entries.
Outcome 5v4 Power Play Even Strength (5v5) Controlled Entry 0.66 unblocked shot attempts 0.66 unblocked shot attempts Uncontrolled Entry 0.41 unblocked shot attempts 0.29 unblocked shot attempts
Just like at even strength, controlled entries are more valuable than uncontrolled ones, though the gap does shrink on special teams. This make sense -- puck retrievals on power play dump-ins should be easier to execute against an opponent with a man in the penalty box over an opponent at full strength.
A full breakup of the rush is obviously the best case scenario for the penalty kill. But armed with this data, we can be confident that a neutral zone forecheck capable of forcing a high percentage of dump-ins is also an effective one.
A second method we can use to judge penalty kill efficiency comes from the great work of Arik Parnass this past season via his Special Teams Project. Parnass was able to determine that the best current way to measure the efficiency of power plays was to evaluate them based upon their ability to quickly enter the offensive zone and set up to prepare for a dangerous attack.
His new statistic, ZEFR Rate, measured the percentage of zone entry attempts that either resulted in a scoring chance off the rush or a successful offensive zone formation by the power play. Most importantly, Parnass found that it was the most predictive measure yet in determining future power play scoring efficiency.
We can also use ZEFR to judge Philadelphia's penalty kill. If it is the best stat yet in determining future power play effectiveness, it most likely will serve the same purpose in helping us to judge a team's penalty kill prowess. To that end, I tracked the ZEFR rate for Flyers' opponents against each of the four main forechecks, in addition to each forecheck's percentages for breakups created, and controlled/uncontrolled entries allowed. The final metrics are below.
Forecheck Type Breakup Percentage Dump-In Percentage Carry-In Percentage ZEFR Against Percentage Tandem Pressure 39.29% 17.86% 42.86% 38.10% Retreating Box 28.34% 34.76% 36.90% 44.39% Passive 1-3 23.00% 27.00% 50.00% 46.00% Same-Side Press 24.43% 37.40% 38.17% 48.85%
We'll do a deep dive into the implications of these percentages in a second, but let's start with some high-level analysis. To start, the Tandem Pressure was both the most effective forecheck in forcing full breakups, and had the lowest ZEFR Against Rate, meaning that opposing power plays only were able to successfully set up in the offensive zone (or generate a rush scoring chance) 38.1% of the times it was employed by the Flyers.
Retreating Box comes in second in both Breakup Percentage and ZEFR Against Percentage, and it was actually the most stingy in preventing carry-ins. The variations of the 1-3 come in third and fourth, as the Same-Side Press did a better job of preventing controlled entries while the Passive 1-3 posted a more efficient ZEFR rate, implying that forecheck was more successful in thwarting structured formations from the zone entries it allowed.
What does this data teach us about the forechecks?
Armed with these metrics, we can now develop more informed theories on the strengths and weaknesses of each forecheck than we were able to do in Part One of the series.
The Tandem Pressure grades out just as it looks on tape -- a high-risk, high-reward forecheck. Its Breakup Percentage blows the competition out of the water, usually due to the cycling forwards forcing a turnover deep in enemy territory. But if those forwards fail in their mission, the ensuing rush will almost certainly be of the controlled variety. Still, this data implies that the risk might be worth the reward, as not even a 42.86% Controlled Entry Against Percentage could hold back the Tandem Pressure from achieving the best ZEFR rate among our forechecks.
Retreating Box comes out as the most balanced forecheck here. It breaks up a fair amount of entry attempts (second highest Breakup Percentage) while also allowing relatively few carry-ins. As was noted in Part One, this forecheck functions as a middle ground between the safety of the Passive 1-3 and the aggressiveness of the Same-Side Press, and the numbers bear that out.
But it's the comparison between the Passive 1-3 and the Same-Side Press that proves most intriguing. Looking at their respective Dump-In and Carry-In Percentages, it seems to be a sure thing that the Same-Side Press would be the more effective forecheck by ZEFR. Instead, the Passive 1-3 wins out. Why?
One theory is that the Passive 1-3 -- while weak in the neutral zone -- is at its most effective structurally in preventing power plays from setting up once in the offensive zone. After all, the forecheck puts three penalty killers right across the team's blue line, cutting down on the distance necessary to travel for any of the three to meet the puck carrier post-entry.
The Same-Side Press, on the other hand, expends its most deadly bullets in the neutral zone. If the puck carrier can make it past F2, who is charging forward rather than retreating, then the power play only faces two penalty killers in the first few seconds of their zone entry. In theory, that makes it much easier to set up in formation than in a scenario facing three penalty killers.
Data lends credence to the theory. Now, we'll not only look at overall ZEFR Against Rate, but also ZEFR Against Rate on entries. Essentially, this new stat measures what percentage of successful entries by the opposition actually turned into full power play formations.
Forecheck Type Overall ZEFR Rate Against ZEFR Rate Against on Successful Opponent Entries Passive 1-3 46.00% 59.74% Retreating Box 44.39% 61.94% Same-Side Press 48.85% |
non-Muslims she grew up with as worthless enemies.
There is no indication that Mahmood has taken part in combat or terrorist operations.
But she tweeted with warm approval about witnessing the executions of two captured Syrian soldiers and leaves no doubt about her ringing endorsement of ISIL violence.
Mahmood appears to be precisely the sort of convert to extremism that Mr Cameron had in mind on Monday when he announced plans to tackle both the outward flow of recruits to militant groups, and their return as possible security threats to the UK.
Among other young female recruits in recent months have been Salma and Zahra Halane, 16-year-old twins from Manchester, also promising students, who disappeared from home in May.
They telephoned their parents from Syria to tell them they were “not coming back”.
Among a stream of tweets bearing witness to her radicalisation, Mahmood encourages Islamist attacks in western countries.
She praises last year’s Boston marathon bombing, a mass shooting that left 13 people dead at the Fort Hood United States military base in Texas in 2009 and the murder of Lee Rigby, a British soldier stabbed and hacked to death by two Islamist extremists in a south London street near the Woolwich barracks last year.
Using the name Umm Layth, she tweeted in June: “Follow the example of your Brothers from Woolwich, Texas and Boston etc. Have no fear as Allah swt [Subhanahu Wa Ta’Ala or Glorified and Exalted be He] is always with the Believers.”
Openly advocating atrocities in the US, the UK, France and elsewhere, she wrote in successive messages: “Jihad is not limited to Shaam [Syria], Khurasan, East Africa, Yemen, etc. It is a worldwide battle against Kufr. If you cannot make it to the battlefield then bring the battlefield to yourself.”
Mahmood’s Twitter account profile – now deactivated – carries a picture of ISIL’s black flag. She makes no obvious attempt to rationalise the organisation’s brutality.
Friends in Scotland are said to be horrified that this intelligent and previously warm young woman could now be happily associated with a movement known for its savagery, from ISIL fighters’ self-proclaimed genocide against Christians and Yazidis in northern Iraq to the massacre of captured Syrian soldiers or beheading of civilian hostages.
But she rails against whoever leaked information that led to media reports of her case.
In a two-part message sent last month, she wrote: “By the Lord of the Kabah, know that whoever it is that gave away my details and initially have affected my families security – I have an appointment with you on the Siraat [a bridge over hell].”
In a perhaps more vulnerable moment, at her Tumblr blog in May, Mahmood showed lingering sentimentality when she reproduced another writer’s words.
“I miss my mother. I want this to be a reminder to all of you, to recognise the worth and value of your mother, because once you lose her, nothing will be the same again.”
And she retweeted a message offering a militant’s apologies to his mother: “I know I upset you by leaving for jihad.”
Mahmood’s parents have declined to comment but are described in British media reports as devastated by their daughter’s disappearance.
A police statement said: “A 19-year-old woman from Scotland was reported missing to Police Scotland by her family in November 2013. Inquiries are continuing in relation to her whereabouts and we are supporting her family.”
Police are satisfied she is in a conflict zone.
Mahmood is now 20. Her father developed successful businesses after emigrating from Pakistan and his daughter was sent to one of Glasgow’s top private schools, Craigholme, where fees are £3,720 (Dh22,514) a year.
A former school friend told the Daily Mail newspaper Mahmood loved make-up, clothes and teenage gossip.
“She wasn’t different,” the friend said. “She got on with everybody. As soon as she decided to do something she would never change her mind. I guess that was something that was amazing about her, but also one of her downfalls.”
Mahmood was in her fifth year at her independent school when her interest in Islam noticeably deepened. She took to wearing a hijab, and later abayas, bought religious books and avidly studied aspects of Islam.
Her academic studies appear to have suffered and her higher examination results were disappointing.
She switched to Shawlands Academy, a mixed state school in Glagsow, where she was also regarded, according to another friend quoted by the newspaper, as “just the usual Asian Muslim girl”, bright with many friends and able to communicate with anyone.
Mahmood gained admission to Glasgow’s Caledonian University for a course she left last year to travel to Syria.
It is clear she became steadily interested in politics. At least one friend has spoken of her expressing a desire to help fight the Syrian regime of Bashar Al Assad.
But as recently as two years ago, answering questions on the ask.fm social network, she was still outwardly a cheerful, open-minded teenager.
To one reader who praised her “pretty” hijab, she replied: “Thank you! :) it’s actually so simple, takes like a few minutes.”
In other answers, she spoke of intending to complete her pharmacy studies, nominated her father as the “best cricketer” and described herself as a “true Scot” who preferred the kilted Craigholme school uniform to that of Shawlands.
She dealt briskly with a reader who posted a salacious message, saying: “This reminds me why I tried staying away from ask.fm.”
There was, in those online comments, no indication of what lay ahead.
As media interest in Mahmood grew this week, belated action was taken to block her Twitter activity.
A Police Scotland spokeswoman said she could not say whether any request had been made to Twitter. The company did not respond to questions.
But it is known that British police forces regularly seek the cooperation of social media providers when there is suspicion of criminal activity, which in this case would include incitement to violence.
It is still possible, however, to read many messages from Muslims condemning her actions.
“You’re an absolute embarrassment,” wrote another young Glaswegian, Fahdi Bari. “You don’t know the definition of Islam. Disgusting.”
newsdesk@thenational.aeHamas militants in the Gaza Strip have executed 18 Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel.
Witnesses say that in one incident, the militants lined up seven men outside a mosque in one of Gaza's main squares. The gunmen shot the suspects, whose heads were covered by bags, in front of hundreds of people.
A note posted on a nearby wall said the men had leaked information about the location of tunnels, fighters and weapons that were later struck by Israel.
The executions took place one day after Israel killed three top Hamas military commanders.
Also Friday, Hamas claimed responsibility for kidnapping and killing three Israeli teenagers in June - the incident that led to the current war in Gaza.
Hamas leader Saleh Arouri told a conference in Turkey that Hamas' military wing carried out the operation with the goal of starting an uprising.
Speaking in Arabic at the International Union for Muslim Scholars in Istanbul, Arouri said Hamas aimed to "ignite an intifada" by Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem. He said that effort "reached a peak in the heroic operation that the Al-Qassam Brigades carried out by capturing the three settlers in Hebron."
Al-Qassam Brigades is Hamas' military wing. Until Arouri's comments Friday, Hamas had not said directly that it staged the kidnapping and killing of the three young Israelis.
In Israel, government spokesman Mark Regev said the Hamas leader has shown his group has "no qualms whatsoever about targeting innocent civilians."
In fighting Friday, Palestinian officials say Israeli airstrikes Friday killed at least four Palestinians and wounded at least 40 others.
Israeli officials say a 4-year-old boy was killed after a mortar hit near a kindergarten in southern Israel. They say he is the first Israeli child to die from the violence that started July 8.
An Israeli defense spokesman, Peter Lerner, said the mortar in that attack was fired from a site next to a Hamas-run shelter for displaced people. The Israeli military had earlier said the site was next to a U.N. school and said it had sent a protest to the U.N. refugee agency, UNRWA.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed Hamas will "pay a heavy price" for the attack on the Israeli child. The U.S. ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro condemned what he called the "outrageous terrorist attack" in strongest terms.
In another development Friday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal held a second day of talks in Qatar to "follow up" on Thursday's three-hour meeting. Qatar's emir Sheikh Tamin bin Hamad al-Thani hosted the discussion.I don’t want to think about Robin Williams’ death. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to read the eleventy other opinions out there on the Twitters and the blogs. I don’t want to look at all the ‘life in pictures’ articles. I lost a friend yesterday, and for most of you, I bet you did too.
No, most of us never got the chance to meet him (lucky devil Stephen Kruiser shared his brief story on Facebook, which did make me smile); but he not only made us laugh, or cry, depending on the role (sometimes both at once), but he made us think.
A lot of the people my age were shaped by the characters Robin Williams played. I remember thinking about how people were different, and what we looked like to outsiders, back in the days of ‘Mork and Mindy.’ Each report Mork would make back to his planet held some interesting observation about people on Earth, and each made us examine the way we acted, even if only a little bit. Seeing the way we looked to an alien helped some of us see ourselves more clearly, especially in our formative years.
From ‘Moscow on the Hudson’ we got a look at communism, and at the yearning of people across the world to come to America and be free. I remember the real-life stories at the time, Godunov and Baryshnikov and so many others, thinking ‘Good, one more got out.’ The coffee aisle scene never fails to move me, as I get to experience the joy of a man so unused to having choices that he melts down. And I don’t know if many of my generation feel this, but one reason ‘glasnost’ didn’t impress me was because I didn’t trust Soviet leaders, even when they became Russians. But I always loved Russian people.
From ‘Good Morning, Vietnam’ we got a look behind the scenes at a war most people my age hadn’t experienced, M*A*S*H episodes notwithstanding. (M*A*S*H was always explained to me as Vietnam set in Korea, so it counts) Williams also demonstrated, with great ebullience and poignancy, the need to challenge authority, as well as the cost of doing so.
‘Dead Poet’s Society’ was made in the same vein, in a totally different setting and time period. How else were we going to be made to read Walt Whitman? We grappled with suicide then, too, on the screen with the other characters, and counted the cost of conformity and individuality. In Mr. Keating, we found a voice telling us to try, to reach, to dream. Some of us took that advice to heart, and for some of us, those words resonate to this day in Williams’ voice.
And for our kids, Genie was the embodiment of all things fun, but also a very stern warning about power, and what it can do to people. Dig just below the surface of ‘Aladdin’ and you find so many great lessons, conservative lessons even, that impressed themselves upon our children. Honor. Honesty. Faithfulness. Humility. Self-sacrifice. With his voice, Williams helped put those things into our children’s lives in a way that a Sunday School sermon might never reach.
There are too many films to list, and so much of his work informed our culture. Many of his performances are so iconic, and many of the lines so memorable, that it’s difficult to imagine what entertainment would be without Robin Williams’ many contributions. But more than that, it’s difficult to imagine what type of people we would be, had we not had so many challenging and uplifting and thoughtful resources at our disposal over the life of his work.
I can definitely say his performances shaped me, and influenced how I think about many things, from family to politics to work. And as a drama teacher, I’m awed and amazed at his reach, his versatility, his depth, his skill, and his work ethic.
No, I don’t want to talk about his death. I want to remember his life, and how much he meant to me and so many other people. How he gave so much of his time, how he entertained troops during military actions with which he disagreed. How he helped make us what we are. I want to honor his life, and the skill he had in telling a good story. The stories he told shaped us.
And no matter what, we are blessed that they will continue to do so.Psystar just got what's coming to them in the California case. Here's the order [PDF]. It's a total massacre. Psystar's first-sale defense went down in flames. Apple's motion for summary judgment on copyright infringement and DMCA violation is granted. Apple prevailed also on its motion to seal. Psystar's motion for summary judgment on trademark infringement and trade dress is denied. So is its illusory motion for copyright misuse. There are still issues remaining for trial, despite Psystar's attempt to present everything now as being moot. Here's what's left to be decided at trial: Apple's allegations of breach of contract; induced breach of contract, trademark infringement; trademark dilution; trade dress infringement; and state unfair competition under California Business and Professions Code § 17200; and common law unfair competition. See anything on that list that will be helpful to Psystar? So that means damages ahead for Psystar on the copyright issues just decided on summary judgment, at a minimum. The court asked for briefs on that subject. In short, Psystar is toast. Psystar's only hope now is Florida, and frankly I wouldn't bet the house on that one. Judges notice if you were just found guilty of a similar cause of action in another state. You're surprised? I told you, I told you, I told you. So, to those who feel crushed at the moment, there could be an appeal, I suppose. And if you want freedom for your code, you certainly can find it on Planet Earth. Look in the right direction. You'll be happy you did, because you can hack away to your heart's content, and it's perfectly legal. The court's message is clear: EULAs mean what they say; if you don't want to abide by its license, leave Apple's stuff alone. We have the order for you as text.
On the first sale defense, you'll find it in the section on distribution right and Section 109: Apple contends that Psystar has violated its distribution right by offering and selling Mac OS X on Psystar computers to the public. Psystar admits that it has distributed Mac OS X (Chung Exh. 17 at 4). But Psystar responds that its conduct is protected by the Section 109 first-sale doctrine. Section 109 provides that "the owner of a particular copy or phonorecord lawfully made under this title, or any person authorized by such owner, is entitled, without the authority of the copyright owner, to sell or otherwise dispose of the possession of that copy or phonorecord." 17 U.S.C. 109. This provision is a limitation on the distribution right. It applies only to an owner of a copy. The parties spill much ink on whether Psystar was the owner or a licensee of the copy (i.e., the tangible copy) of Mac OS X that it purchased. Even assuming arguendo that Psystar was the owner of a copy, the first-sale defense fails here. Section 109 provides immunity only when copies are "lawfully made." The copies at issue here were not lawfully manufactured with the authorization of the copyright owner. As stated, Psystar made an unauthorized copy of Mac OS X from a Mac mini that was placed onto an "imaging station" and then used a "master copy" to make many more unauthorized copies that were installed on individual Psystar computers. The first-sale defense does not apply to those unauthorized copies. See Microsoft Corp. v. Software Wholesale Club, Inc., 129 F. Supp. 2d 995, 1006 (S.D. Tex. 2000) ("the first-sale doctrine does not apply to an admittedly counterfeit unit"); see also 2-8 NIMMER ON COPYRIGHT § 8.12 ("if the manufacture of a copy or phonorecord constitutes an infringement of the reproduction or adaptation right, its distribution will infringe the distribution right, even if this is done by the owner of such copy or phonorecord"). Catch that? Even if Psystar were the lawful owner of the copy, it still can't do what it did. The court quotes from Microsoft Corp. v. Software Wholesale Club, Inc.: "the first-sale doctrine does not apply to an admittedly counterfeit unit". So, no, you can't buy a copy and use it to go into a counterfeiting business, in effect. Terekhov's theory has bitten the dust and then had to eat some. Just like Daniel Wallace's anti-GPL theory did. Whoever is relying on their legal theories might want to buy a vowel and try to figure this puzzle out. I know. They'll say, but, but, but... what if they hadn't used the master and just used each copy, then would it work? Sons, why do you think Psystar used the master copy? Because it's a business, and in a business, efficiency is money. That's why businesses set themselves up, to make money. The whole world is not with you on a holy war to destroy EULAs and the GPL. Even this rinkydink business wanted to make money. Theoreticals belong on message boards, not in business and definitely not in courtrooms, and even on message boards, everyone told you for years that this wouldn't work out if someone tried it. It's been tried. It didn't work out. And to those who argue that all that matters is that open source is a better way to develop code, let this case be a warning message. Apple makes fabulous code. Of course, the BSD community did a lot of it for them, but Apple makes it all just work for end users, and they do that beautifully. So no one can argue that for end users it is not fabulous code. It is. So here is my question: is that enough? Or isn't the message of this case that what you really want with your fabulous code is freedom for the code? If you answer yes, I want freedom to do what I want with code on my home computer, then why use proprietary code? Proprietary vendors are happy to sell you the best code in the world, if they have it. But they won't sell you freedom to use it any way you want. That's not the business they are in. So, if freedom matters to you, don't sell out the goal of a completely free operating system, without any proprietary blobs at all. There is a purpose to that goal, because proprietary blobs mean restrictions on use. That is a given. There are other negatives, but that one is the one this case highlights. So work for drivers that are not proprietary. Stay away from code that you believe has potential patent infringement claims. Why? Because a short-term seeming advantage can block the end result you want. It will provide a Brand X solution that takes you on a detour away from your goal. So when folks tell you that all that matters is that the code be open source or that end users should have the right to put proprietary code together with free and open source code if they want to, or that partnering with Microsoft will work out well, or that what matters is that end users use more free software by using proprietary-free mixtures, ask yourself, is that really true? No matter who says it, is it true? Look at the Apple v. Psystar case. Freedom matters. Some things are just obvious. Use what you want, but think it through more deeply than just thinking about what you want this minute or what's more convenient. Why do you think Stallman started trying to create Free Software? Because he knew how to fix a printer but the license wouldn't let him. He already saw what you are seeing with this Psystar case. Proprietary means restrictions on use. It does. Here's the docket; the order is the final one on the list: 11/13/2009 - 207 - ORDER GRANTING REQUEST TO SEAL PORTIONS OF APPLE'S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT by Judge Alsup (re 178 Motion to Seal). (whalc1, COURT STAFF) (Filed on 11/13/2009) (Entered: 11/13/2009) 11/13/2009 - 208 - ORDER GRANTING REQUEST TO SEAL PSYSTAR'S OPPOSITION TO APPLE'S MOTION TO SEAL by Judge Alsup (re 186 Motion to Seal). (whalc1, COURT STAFF) (Filed on 11/13/2009) (Entered: 11/13/2009) 11/13/2009 - 209 - ORDER GRANTING REQUEST TO SEAL PORTIONS OF APPLE'S OPPOSITION TO PSYSTAR'S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT by Judge Alsup (re 190 Motion to Seal Document). (whalc1, COURT STAFF) (Filed on 11/13/2009) (Entered: 11/13/2009) 11/13/2009 - 210 - ORDER GRANTING REQUEST TO FILE UNDER SEAL PSYSTAR'S RESPONSE TO APPLE'S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT by Judge Alsup (re 193 Motion to Seal). (whalc1, COURT STAFF) (Filed on 11/13/2009) (Entered: 11/13/2009) 11/13/2009 - 211 - ORDER GRANTING REQUEST TO FILE UNDER SEAL PORTIONS OF APPLE'S REPLY IN SUPPORT OF MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT by Judge Alsup (re 199 Motion to Seal). (whalc1, COURT STAFF) (Filed on 11/13/2009) (Entered: 11/13/2009) 11/13/2009 - 212 - ORDER GRANTING REQUEST TO SEAL PSYSTAR'S MOTION FOR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTION by Judge Alsup (re 203 Motion to Seal). (whalc1, COURT STAFF) (Filed on 11/13/2009) (Entered: 11/13/2009) 11/13/2009 - 213 - ORDER GRANTING REQUEST TO FILE UNDER SEAL PORTIONS OF PSYSTAR'S REPLY BRIEF by Judge Alsup (re 201 Motion to Seal). (whalc1, COURT STAFF) (Filed on 11/13/2009) (Entered: 11/13/2009) 11/13/2009 - 214 - ORDER RE CROSS MOTIONS FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT by Judge Alsup (re 181 Motion for Summary Judgment and 182 Motion for Summary Judgment). (whalc1, COURT STAFF) (Filed on 11/13/2009) (Entered: 11/13/2009) Update: When Psystar began talking to the media by means of its first law firm, Carr & Ferrell, this is what then lead counsel for Psystar, Colby Springer, said at a press conference announcing that Psystar would defend itself with antitrust counterclaims: Springer took time to address both claims directly. He noted that Psystar does not make copies of the Mac OS to install on its machines. In fact, every copy installed is an individually purchased copy of the operating system from Apple or one of its authorized resellers. "There's no pirating going on," he responded. On claims of code modification, Springer said that the company had not made any modifications to the operating system. Any techniques applied to make Mac OS run on Psystar, he said, can be found in already available, open source software. Was that true? Compare his words with what the judge wrote, that Psystar made modifications and that it certainly did not buy a copy of MacOSX for each machine. In fact, it was using a master. Next question: Would the law firm know it was not true, as discovery eventually demonstrated to the judge? I don't know. But Psystar knew. They were the ones doing both things that Springer claimed they were not. ******************************** IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA APPLE, INC., a California corporation,
Plaintiff,
v.
PSYSTAR CORPORATION, a Florida corporation,
Defendant. No. C 08-03251 WHA ORDER RE CROSS MOTIONS
FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT
AND RELATED COUNTERCLAIMS. INTRODUCTION In this copyright-infringement action, plaintiff Apple, Inc. and defendant Psystar Corporation have filed cross motions for summary judgment. For the following reasons, Apple's motion is GRANTED and Psystar's motion is DENIED. STATEMENT Plaintiff Apple Inc. launched its Macintosh computer in 1984 and its Mac OS X operating system in 2001. Apple has manufactured an exclusive line of personal computers, including the Mac Pro, iMac, Mac mini, MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro. Mac computers have been sold with Mac OS X preinstalled. Mac OS X has also been sold as a DVD so customers can upgrade their Mac computers to another version of the operating system. 1 Mac OS X on both Mac computers and the DVD are covered by software license agreements that provided that the software is "licensed, not sold to [the user] by Apple Inc. ("Apple") for use only under the terms of this License" (Chung Exh. 26 at ¶ 1). Apple's license agreements restricted the use of Mac OS X to Apple computers, and specifically prohibited customers from installing the operating system on non-Apple computers. The license agreement stated (id. at ¶ 2): 2. Permitted License Uses and Restrictions. A. Single Use. This license allows you to install, use and run (1) copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time. You agree not to install, use or run the Apple Software on any non-Apple-Labeled computer or enable another to do so. * * * C. You may make one copy of the Apple Software (excluding the Boot ROM code and other Apple firmware that is embedded or otherwise contained in Apple-labeled hardware) in machine-readable form for backup purposes only.... Apple Boot ROM code and firmware is provided only for use on Apple-labeled hardware and you many not copy, modify or redistribute the Apple Boot ROM code or firmware, or any portions thereof. * * * F. Except as and only to the extent permitted by applicable licensing terms governing use of the Open Sourced Components, or by applicable law, you may not copy, decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble, modify or create derivative works of the Apple Software or any part thereof. It also restricted redistribution and modifications to the software (id. at ¶ 3): 3. Transfer. You may not rent, lease, lend, redistribute, or sublicense the Apple Software. Subject to the restrictions set forth below, you may, however make a one-time permanent transfer of all of your license rights to the Apple Software (in its original form as provided by Apple) to another party, provided that: (a) the transfer must include all of the Apple Software, including all its component parts (excluding Apple Boot ROM code and firmware), original media, printed materials and this License; (b) you do not retain any copies of the Apple Software, full or partial, including copies stored on a computer or other storage device; and (c) the party receiving the Apple Software reads and agrees to accept the terms and conditions of this License. You may not rent, lease, redistribute, sublicense or transfer any Apple Software that has been modified or replaced under Section 2D above. 2 In brief, customers were contractually precluded from utilizing Mac OS X on any computer hardware system that was not an Apple computer system. Besides the license agreement, Apple has obtained three copyright registrations for Mac OS X. It has used lock-and-key technological measures to prevent Mac OS X from operating on non-Apple computers. This involved the use of a "kernel" extension, which is software that is executed and becomes part of the operating system on an Apple computer. The kernel extension would communicate with other kernel extensions to locate the decryption keys in the hardware, which then would unlock the encrypted files. Defendant Psystar Corporation has made a line of computers called Open Computers (formally known as Open Mac and OpenPro). Psystar has modified Mac OS X to run on its computers and has sold them to the public. The following briefly describes the conduct at issue. Psystar first bought a copy of Mac OS X and then installed it on an Apple Mac mini. Next, Psystar copied Mac OS X from the Mac mini onto a non-Apple computer. This non-Apple computer was used as an "imaging station." Once on the imaging station, Mac OS X was modified. Psystar then replaced the Mac OS X "bootloader." The bootloader runs when a computer first comes on and locates and loads portions of the operating system into random access memory. Without a bootloader, Mac OS X would not operate. Psystar also disabled and/or removed Mac OS X kernel extension files and replaced them with other kernel extension files. Psystar's modifications enabled Mac OS X to run on non-Apple computers. The modified copy became the "master copy" that was used for mass reproduction and installation onto other Psystar computers. Apple also alleges that every time Psystar turned on Psystar computers running Mac OS X then another copy was made in random access memory. Apple contends that Psystar's reproduction, modification, and distribution of Mac OS X on non-Apple computers constituted copyright infringement under the Copyright Act and a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Psystar asserts a number of defenses. Both parties now move for summary judgment. 3 ANALYSIS 1. LEGAL STANDARD. Summary judgment must be granted under FRCP 56 when "the pleadings, the discovery and disclosure materials on file, and any affidavits show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." A district court must determine, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, whether there is any genuine issue of material fact. Giles v. General Motors Acceptance Corp., 494 F.3d 865, 872 (9th Cir. 2007). A genuine issue of fact is one that could reasonably be resolved, based on the factual record, in favor of either party. A dispute is "material" only if it could affect the outcome of the suit under the governing law. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 24849 (1986). 2. COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT. Apple contends that Psystar is liable for copyright infringement. "Plaintiffs must satisfy two requirements to present a prima facie case of direct [copyright] infringement: (1) they must show ownership of the allegedly infringed material and (2) they must demonstrate that the alleged infringers violate at least one exclusive right granted to copyright holders under 17 U.S.C. § 106." A&M Records v. Napster, Inc., 239 F.3d 1004, 1013 (9th Cir. 2001). Apple has two federally registered copyrights in Mac OS X. The validity of these registered copyrights is not contested. Thus, Apple has established ownership of Mac OS X.1 Apple asserts that Psystar has violated three of its exclusive rights in Mac OS X: (1) its reproduction right; (2) its distribution right; and (3) its right to create derivative works. This order next addresses each of these. A. Reproduction Right and Section 117. According to Apple, Psystar has violated its exclusive right to copy Mac OS X. Psystar admits that it has made copies of Mac OS X and installed those copies on non-Apple computers 4 (Def. Opp. 10). In addition, when Psystar turns on its computers running Mac OS X, another copy of the software is made to the random access memory. Psystar has thus infringed Apple's reproduction right. Section 117(a) permits the owner of a copy of a computer program to copy or modify the program for limited purposes without incurring liability for copyright infringement. See Krause v. Titleserv, Inc., 402 F.3d 119, 121 (2nd Cir. 2005). But the question is whether Psystar can rely on Section 117 to escape liability. It cannot. As Apple pointed out, Psystar waived any Section 117 essential step defense when it failed to plead it. Psystar counters that it has not waived Section 117 because that provision is a limitation on a copyright owner's exclusive rights rather than an affirmative defense. An earlier Ninth Circuit decision stated "Section 117 defines a narrow category of copying that is lawful per se" and "Section 107, by contrast, establishes a defense to an otherwise valid claim of copyright infringement." Sega Enters. v. Accolade, Inc., 977 F.2d 1510, 1521 (9th Cir. 1992). Since then, the Ninth Circuit has expressly referred to Section 117 as a defense. See Wall Data Inc. v. L.A. County Sheriff's Dep't, 447 F.3d 769, 776 (9th Cir. 2006) (referring to Section 117 as an affirmative defense); Asset Mktg. Sys. v. Gagnon, 542 F.3d 748, 754 (9th Cir. 2008) (referring to Section 117 as a defense). As such, this order treats Section 117 as an affirmative defense. Alternatively, if Section 117 is considered an affirmative defense, then Psystar argues it has pled it in its answer and raised the substance of its Section 117 argument in its interrogatory responses. Neither the answer nor interrogatory responses, however, refer to Section 117. And Psystar has not demonstrated any good cause for its failure to assert the defense after a year of litigation. Also, there has been no showing that its failure to do so will not prejudice Apple. As such, Psystar has waived the defense. At all events, the assertion of Section 117 is so frivolous 5 in the true context of how Psystar has used Mac OS X that a belated attempt to amend the pleadings would not be excused.2 Psystar briefly mentions a Section 107 fair use defense but does not even attempt to address the four factors used to determine fair use. See 17 U.S.C. 107. Psystar nonetheless contends that its production process and hard drive imaging are fair use. As stated, rather than loading Mac OS X separately onto individual computers, Psystar uses a mass production process. Arguing this is for efficiency, Psystar contends that "[s]uch incidental infringement is protected by the fair use doctrine to the extent that the infringement is not part of a greater scheme of infringement" (Def. Reply 6). To support this argument, Psystar cites the following passage in Wall Data Inc. v. L.A. County Sheriff's Dep't, 447 F.3d 769, 779 (9th Cir. 2006): To be clear, we do not hold that a fair use defense is not available simply because the infringer uses technology to make efficient use of its licenses. The problematic aspect of the Sheriff's Department's use is that it took in excess of what it bargained for, not that it was technologically efficient. Thus, for example, if the Sheriff's Department had saved time and money by hard drive imaging RUMBA software onto the number of computers for which it had licenses, its "efficiency" would not create a problem. Psystar's reliance on this quote is misplaced. In Wall Data, the Sheriff Department purchased 3,663 licenses to plaintiff's software, but installed the software onto 6,007 computers. To do this, the Department used hard drive imaging a single master hard drive containing the software was used to copy the contents onto many other computers. The Ninth Circuit held that this was not fair use and was in excess of the licensed use of the copyright software bargained for. While the process used for "efficiency" was not the problem, the Sheriff Department's unauthorized copying of the software beyond the number of licensed copies was problematic. Similarly, Psystar's use of Mac OS X has been in excess and has violated Apple's copyrights. 6 B. Distribution Right and Section 109. Apple contends that Psystar has violated its distribution right by offering and selling Mac OS X on Psystar computers to the public. Psystar admits that it has distributed Mac OS X (Chung Exh. 17 at 4). But Psystar responds that its conduct is protected by the Section 109 first-sale doctrine. Section 109 provides that "the owner of a particular copy or phonorecord lawfully made under this title, or any person authorized by such owner, is entitled, without the authority of the copyright owner, to sell or otherwise dispose of the possession of that copy or phonorecord." 17 U.S.C. 109. This provision is a limitation on the distribution right. It applies only to an owner of a copy. The parties spill much ink on whether Psystar was the owner or a licensee of the copy (i.e., the tangible copy) of Mac OS X that it purchased. Even assuming arguendo that Psystar was the owner of a copy, the first-sale defense fails here. Section 109 provides immunity only when copies are "lawfully made." The copies at issue here were not lawfully manufactured with the authorization of the copyright owner. As stated, Psystar made an unauthorized copy of Mac OS X from a Mac mini that was placed onto an "imaging station" and then used a "master copy" to make many more unauthorized copies that were installed on individual Psystar computers |
of different ways of opting out of pain or trauma, neutralizing it or through hypnosis, not experiencing it. In a social-historical way, this sort of loss can be re-experienced as repression that comes back. There seems to be somewhat of a theme within the archive of an attempt to repress that.
I think the opposite of that is the discourse of natural childbirth. That it’s empowering and self-actualizing for a woman to be fully present in that experience of pain, that that’s a really desirable state. To me that’s really problematic.
Well, it’s punishing.
We’re talking about incredibly intense pain! So I guess for me, one of the animating questions going into this project was, Is natural childbirth really that great? Is it empowering? Is it self-actualizing? I don’t think women were always speaking that way about pain.
The film makes clear that it is not at all natural, the experience of pain.
What pain is is also very mysterious. The film starts where the history starts, and it could’ve gone back much further in history. But I chose to start the film in the late 19th century when anesthesia was discovered. Anesthesia comes into fashion, and that’s the first moment where there’s a conversation about pain because suddenly pain can be taken away. Pain is no longer inevitable but something you can choose to experience or choose not to experience.
That brings up all these really big questions about pain: Where does it come from? What does it mean? Is it wrong to take it away? There’s an argument in 19th century medical discourse against anesthesia that says if you amputate a limb without anesthesia and a patient screams, that’s really valuable information for a surgeon. Intense pain is important information for a doctor, and getting rid of it is a huge problem for medical practice.
We’ve all moved very far away from that moment, but it’s the first moment where there can be this conversation. If you can take pain away, what is the point of it?
The film doesn’t go into this that much, but this early conversation about pain is a very Christian conversation. There’s centuries and centuries of thinking and writing about labor pain, which is that it originates with God’s punishment of Eve. Grantly Dick-Read is the British obstetrician who coined the term natural childbirth and wrote the first books about it. His writing is a very explicitly Christian appeal to the experience of being inside the pain as a form of spirituality. It’s a Christian thing to do. That history has also been erased. It’s kind of ironic that the space feminists occupy now is a redeployment of this incredibly Christian and misogynist argument about women’s bodies.
The film also tells a narrative about the commodification and marketization of childbirth, culminating in these birthing centers. You say that in these centers “the messiness of birth is excised from this perfectly appointed home away from home. The image of the cache of medical supplies behind the domestic facade is the image of an era in conflict; an unresolved historical moment suspended between two ideas.” What is that unresolved historical moment?
The birth center is this phenomenon that’s on the rise where hospitals are building this kind of—it looks like a Super 8 Motel or something. I first saw a birth center when I was on a hospital tour. I was pregnant and it immediately struck me as this incredibly weird unresolved, compromised space that’s trying to be home, but it’s not home. It’s homey, and homey is signified by chintz bedspread and floral art. So it’s not a home birth, it’s a home-like birth. They have all this furniture where they’ve hidden equipment behind mirrors and picture frames.
The effort to erase the trace of the medical, erase the idea of pain … it’s this kind of neutral hotel-like space, but the whole thing is that it’s in a hospital, or it’s next to the hospital, so you can go to the hospital if you have an emergency. It’s a very uneasy space of negotiating these two different ideologies or discourses around childbirth. It does feel like a space that’s very uncomfortable, where all the emergency equipment is there, but it’s behind a picture of Monet’s water lilies.
There was something so right about that image as saying something in particular about the way in which the home is brought within this unnatural sterilized space and then renaturalized.
It’s such an unnatural home, right? Nobody’s home actually looks like that.
You continue in that passage, “The archive tells us that childbirth is both natural and pathological: two opposite things inside of one that intertwine through history.”
People have asked me about the word pathological. People think of that as a very bad word, but it comes directly out of earlier writings about childbirth. There’s a huge body of writing from the mid-20th century that precisely describes childbirth as pathological or a pathological process, a destructive process. It comes out of doctors struggling with incredibly high maternal mortality rates and high infant-mortality rates, incredibly high rates of vaginal tearing and bad maternal side-effects from birth, prolapse and all these things that still happen, actually.
Joseph DeLee, who was a big obstetrician in Chicago in the 1920s and ’30s—he uses the word. His basic position is that childbirth is pathological, it’s a medical situation, it’s one that requires intervention, it’s one that requires doctors. That position is really rejected now, especially in this pro-natural childbirth space, but it’s complicated. There are still women who die in childbirth, there are still things that happen that require medical intervention; the birth center is straddling the precise intersection of that really uneasy in-between space of not wanting to be aware of the medical, but it’s still there hidden. It’s true that there are also a lot of unnecessary C-sections. I don’t know what the statistics are, but there’s probably equal numbers of medical C-sections that save babies and save mothers, so I think disavowing this completely in a conversation about childbirth is problematic.
It was interesting to me also as a luxury experience.
Well, class is the other thing that we haven’t talked about, but all of this is incredibly class-bound.
I think it’s class-bound, and it’s to give this middle-class experience. You bring out the normative fantasy: It’s not exactly just for the middle class, and at the same time it’s—
It’s an aspirational experience.
Yeah, or like a honeymoon experience.
You give birth, and you have the celebration meal afterward!A father-of-three is raising money to safeguard the future of an activities group for fellow dads and their children.
Lee Emmanuel launched the Single Dads’ Society in Cricklewood last February, but needs £2,500 to ensure its future in 2014.
Mr Emmanuel told the Times Series: “As a single parent myself I soon realised there wasn’t much out there for dads to do, and I didn’t know what I was entitled to in terms of things like benefits.
“I set up this group to create a safe environment for dads to socialise and kids to play and interact. I also want to set up training sessions with teachers and lecturers so that dads can learn new skills.”
Training sessions would be held for skills such as brick laying, hairdressing and IT, as well as activity days for families including trips to history and art museums.
Money will be used to hire halls for the society as well as pay for the training and activity days.
To help make a donation to the Single Dads’ Society contact Mr Emmanuel on 07889 766 335 or send an email to singledadssociety@mail.comSnowden documents published today by Der Spiegel give new insight into the British GCHQ's efforts to track targets through their iPhones. Previous leaks have revealed specific NSA exploits used to compromise the famously malware-resistant iPhone software controls, but the new documents show that even when the device itself hasn't been compromised, any data on the phone can be pulled when the phone syncs with a compromised computer. Other techniques allow GCHQ researchers to surveil targets by following a device's UDID across different services.
The report is dated to November of 2010, before Apple began deprecating the UDID system, but the documents show how useful the system was for surveillance while it was still operational. By watching for the target's UDID number, the GCHQ could follow the same device as it synced with a compromised machine, browsed the web (exposing it to the agency's Safari exploit), or sent data to a broader tracking system like AdMob. In each case, the device's UDID would be exposed, allowing researchers to identify the person using it. Previous leaks have shown the NSA using similar tactics, compromising ad cookie networks as a way of tracking users across the web, effectively coopting any user-identification method as a surveillance tool. Luckily for iPhone users, Apple has already recognized the potential dangers of UDID and moved towards more privacy-friendly methods.NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Within 2 years of having sex for the first time, half of teenage girls may be at least one of three common sexually transmitted infections (STIs), according to results of a study published today. Often, those girls are infected by the age of 15.
Researchers followed 386 urban adolescent girls aged 14 to 17 for up to 8 years. Within 2 years of becoming sexually active, half of the girls were infected with at least one of three common sexually transmitted organisms: Chlamydia trachomatis, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, or Trichomonas vaginalis — the organisms that cause chlamydia, gonorrhea and trichomoniasis, respectively.
The researchers found that a quarter of the women had acquired their first STI by age 15, most often Chlamydia.
“Repeated infections were very common,” study investigator Dr. Wanzhu Tu, of Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis told Reuters Health by email. “Within 4 to 6 months (depending on the organism) after treatment of the previous infection, a quarter of the women were re-infected with the same organism.”
Tu said young women are at risk of STIs as soon as they become sexually active, but recommendations are lacking about when it is appropriate to begin screening.
“These young women are vulnerable to STIs, but because of their younger age, they may not be perceived by health care providers as having STI risk, and thus are not screened in a timely manner.”
The current findings, Tu said, highlight the importance of early STI screening and treatment. “For urban adolescent women, STI screening (especially for chlamydia) should begin within 1 year after first intercourse and infected individuals should be retested frequently, preferably every 3 to 4 months,” the researcher said.
“To my knowledge, this study provides the first data on the timing of the initial STI and subsequent STIs following the onset of sexual activity in urban adolescent women,” Tu added.
The study findings appear in the latest issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, published by the American Medical Association.
A companion paper in the journal details a program that proved successful in curbing risky sexual behavior among 15- to 21-year-old African American adolescent girls and young women.
The participants, all of whom where visiting a sexual health clinic in Atlanta, took part in two group counseling sessions and received telephone support and vouchers to give to their partners to encourage them to get tested and treated for STIs.
This study is “exciting” for several reasons, Dr. Bonita Stanton from Wayne State University in Detroit wrote in a commentary. First, the program reduced first and recurrent chlamydia infections and led to higher rates of self-reported condom use, she points out.
Second, it got the teen girls cut back on douching, which has been linked to increased risk of STIs.
But perhaps “most intriguing,” Stanton wrote, is that the young adolescent girls who participated in the program were able to convince their sexual partners to get tested for STIs.
SOURCE: Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, December 2009.Estimated Costs Drive Debate As Florida Weighs Medicaid Expansion
Enlarge this image toggle caption J. Pat Carter/AP J. Pat Carter/AP
Florida and several other states are wrestling with a decision: whether to expand Medicaid.
When the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act last year, the court said states could opt out of that part of the law. But it's key. It would provide coverage to millions of low-income Americans who currently have no health insurance.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott says he's concerned about how much expanding Medicaid would cost. But others charge the governor is exaggerating.
No governor fought harder against the Affordable Care Act than Scott. With President Obama's re-election, Scott says he now accepts that it is "the law of the land."
But in an interview this week with a Jacksonville TV station, Scott talked about the area that still troubles him: Medicaid expansion.
"Once you put somebody in a program, you can't undo it," he said.
Under the Affordable Care Act, more than 21 million people across the country currently without insurance could be covered by Medicaid. They "could" because the Supreme Court ruled that for states, expanding Medicaid is optional.
The Obama administration worked to make it an attractive option. Under the law, the federal government would pick up the entire cost of insuring new Medicaid recipients for the first three years and 90 percent of the costs after that.
Despite that, some states, like Texas, say they have no plans to expand Medicaid. That's also been Scott's position in Florida. He says that's because of its potential impact on the state's budget.
"The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration put out a report that said it's going to cost $26 billion over 10 years. There's going to be other studies. It's all tied to what assumptions you have," he says. "But here's what we know: It's not free."
But that estimate appears to be greatly inflated. Since the Scott administration first released those numbers last month, they have been panned by health care analysts and economists for ignoring the new, larger share of Medicaid costs being picked up under the Affordable Care Act by the federal government.
The governor's numbers are at least four times higher than estimates compiled by independent health care analysts and the Florida Legislature.
Karen Woodall, who heads the Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy, says that rather than costing the state $26 billion, some independent estimates show Medicaid expansion may actually help Florida save money.
"And that's because they are calculating the cost benefit of expansion of Medicaid in that we would be saving money that wouldn't have to be spent taking care of people who don't have insurance," she says.
According to a report this week in Health News Florida, Republicans in the state Legislature last month alerted Scott's staff that his Medicaid expansion numbers were faulty. But Scott continued to use them, even in a meeting this week with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
That's troubling to Rep. Mark Pafford, a Democrat who helps oversee health care spending in the Statehouse.
"To me, it suggests that the governor's not having an honest conversation — not only with the folks who are going to depend on the Affordable Care Act, but also with major officials in Washington, D.C.," he says.
At first, Scott's office stood by his numbers, saying they were one of a set of different cost estimates he would consider going forward. But on Wednesday, the Republican chairman of Florida's House Appropriations Committee joined the criticism. A few hours later, the Scott administration released a new study that downgraded the cost of expanding Medicaid to $3 billion over 10 years — only about one-tenth of his original estimate.
Ultimately, the decision about expanding Medicaid may be made, not by Scott, but the state Legislature. Florida's House and Senate have set up special committees to begin working on the issue.
Woodall says Medicaid expansion would bring $20 billion in federal health care funds to Florida over the next decade — a cash infusion that would help the economy, especially small businesses that rely on low-wage workers.
"So I think, ultimately, the Legislature is going to see that this is a benefit to Florida and they'll move forward with it," she says.
Scott's decision then would be whether to sign it.There are all kinds of "brain-training" programs out there that promise to help you stay smart even as you age. The problem is that there's little evidence that they work — but a lot of evidence that they are a waste of money.
The Benefits of Brain-Training
Neuroplasticity, or the ever-changing network of the nerve cells in your brain, is a trendy topic right now. It explains why people can learn new skills, come back from brain injury, and combat cognitive decline. It also gives us a sense of hope that we don't face an inevitable, depressing mental slide downhill. Instead, they can learn new skills and regain lost ground. And perhaps there are simple programs that can help them.
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One of the main complaints among older adults is losing the ability to multitask. This ability not only brightens everyday life — listening to music while filling out forms, or watching the news while making dinner — but is essential to activities like driving. And some studies show that active training can help with this.
One study had older adults either practice perform two tasks at once, or actively train with a specific program. They were to start out by devoting 80% of their attention to the first task and 20% to the second, then switch to splitting their attention equally, then put 20% of their focus on the first task and 80% on the second. By playing around with the way their focus was split, people in training were able to improve their ability to multitask, while those who simply practiced multitasking didn't improve as well. This kind of training can work for specific tasks as well as general skills. A computer simulation game trained older adults to speed up their reflexes and use better reasoning while driving, helping them avoid accidents.
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A similar program trained adults to pay attention to a single auditory cue while more and more distracting frequencies were added. Over time, they were able to screen out the distractions. If this task sounds too specific to lead to actual brain improvements, there are also other other auditory studies.
One study trained older rats to single out an odd note from a grouping of notes. After some training, the researchers found that the rats were able to suppress distracting background information and ignore false positive noises. A look at the rats' brains found that they had more inhibitory neurons than untrained rats their age, and that they had increased density in the myelin that sheathed their neurons. In human terms, these rats had re-learned how to distinguish the sound they were looking for from background noise.
Brain training can also help the young. One study showed that practicing 12 different cognitive skills gave young people a slight increase in their ability to reason, and their episodic memory. They managed to maintain this increase for two years.
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The Down Side of Plasticity
So neuroplasticity can be a great thing, allowing people to retrain themselves for certain skills and possibly — if we judge by rat brains — rejuvenate their brains. Now for the down side. There are plenty of programs that promise games which will exercise a person's memory and improve it over time. After a few weeks of training, people do get better at these memory games, but most of the time, their memory doesn't improve. They have learned a strategy for a specific game, not gained a general skill.
That's the problem with neuroplasticity. People can certainly improve... but much of the time they can only improve the specific skill they practice.
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That can be solved with better-designed games, right? Bad news. There are studies that indicate a battery of cognitive training exercises can improve general cognition. There are also studies that indicate they do nothing of the kind.
One study involved 55 student recruits who were given twenty days of brain-training exercises. The study authors paid them to improve their performance each day, so they were motivated to learn. Half of them were given a training regime designed to improve simple memory. This regime wasn't designed to improve their brain in any way. The other half of them were given complex tasks shown to be associated with high levels of working memory capacity, which, in turn, is shown to be associated with fluid intelligence. Fluid intelligence is the name given to the ability to think abstractly, solve problems, and figure out relationships. It may not be a perfect measure of intelligence, but it's what we have. And, although the students given the complex tasks improved their working memory capacity, neither group improved their intelligence.
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Let's say a brain-training regime has been tested and does work. For example, look at the attention-splitting exercise that helped people learn to multitask better. Although it worked, it did not take place in front of a computer. It took place in a lab, with technicians monitoring brain activity. This is how a lot of studies are conducted. A review, conducted by the University of Sydney, of brain training programs showed that, while working in a group with a trainer does sometimes improve cognition, working at home generally does not. So even if a program is effective and is teaching a skill that can be generalized, if it has been tested in lab conditions, it might be useless for someone at home.
Most importantly, there is no brain-training program that can prevent Alzheimer's or dementia. The one study of the effect of computer brain-training on patients with dementia found no statistically significant improvement in the computer-trained group over the control group. There was a slight tendency to do better on cognitive tests in the computer-trained patients with very mild dementia, but otherwise there was no difference whatsoever.
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What Else Could People Be Doing?
A group of neuroscientists at the Stanford Longevity Center responded to the "brain-training" industry by pointing out the costs of training programs. These costs aren't just financial. The best way to keep mentally fit is to exercise, have people in one's life, learn new skills, and have a variety of experiences.
Brain training is, essentially, practice. It's hearing practice, noticing practice, problem-solving practice, memory practice, and attention practice. If a person gets these things in their life, there isn't really any need to train with a game. Brain-training, if it is thoroughly tested, could be valuable for people who need special help with one skill, or who don't currently have the time, resources, or energy to get out into the world. If, however, it gives someone an excuse to not engage in social, intellectual, or even physical activity, it can do exactly the opposite of what it promises.
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[Via A Consensus on the Brain Training Industry from the Scientific Community, Adaptive Training Diminishes Distractibility in Aging across Species, IUGM, Brain Training Reverses Age Related Cognitive Decline, Can Mental Training Games Prevent Alzheimer's, Working Memory Training May Increase Working Memory Capacity But Not Intelligence, Computerized Cognitive Training in Cognitively Healthy Older Adults]The final Republican debate of the year featured sharp exchanges over national security, personal insults and regular interruptions, but in the end there were no outright winners. In that sense, it was an almost perfect reflection of the party’s unpredictable nomination campaign.
The two-hour session was as unruly as it was substantive. It dealt with some of the most serious issues of the moment but broke down in shouting and interruptions that seemed to underscore the determination of all the candidates to make their mark as the campaign heads into the holidays and a short respite before resuming in January.
Donald Trump, who dominates the national polls, came under repeated fire for proposing to bar the entry of Muslims into the United States and for saying he would go after the families of Islamic State terrorists. Though appearing flustered at times, he held firm on his positions and refused to concede any ground, seemingly confident that his harsh rhetoric continues to find support.
[Debate transcript, annotated: Who said what and what it meant]
Former Florida governor Jeb Bush, whose support nationally has eroded steadily through the fall, led the attacks against Trump, a sign of his resolve to make one more run at turning around a candidacy that has struggled for visibility. More than any other candidate, he got under Trump’s skin — but without a clear outcome.
Last night’s debate was only the penultimate lap for the GOP candidates, not the finish. The Washington Post’s Robert Costa talks about about which candidates were the strongest and which still have a long road ahead. (Alice Li/The Washington Post)
Sens. Ted Cruz (Tex.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.), who have been circling each other for weeks in anticipation of a final showdown sometime next year, argued over security, surveillance and the best strategy to defeat Islamic State terrorists. Cruz was thrown on the defensive over security issues, and both had to defend their positions on immigration. But neither candidate scored a truly telling blow on the other.
The debate was singularly focused on matters of war and terrorism, coming at a time of heightened security concerns and on a day when schools in Los Angeles were closed because of a threat of a terrorist attack.
The discussion enjoyed only one clear consensus: that President Obama and Hillary Clinton have left the country less safe. The conversation also revealed significant divisions within the Republican Party on issues that GOP voters now see as the most important for the coming election.
Everyone onstage seemed eager to make a mark.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, rising in New Hampshire, sought to belittle Cruz and Rubio, but he mostly attacked Obama and Clinton, while brandishing his credentials as a former prosecutor in the fight against terrorism.
Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) staked out his position as the least hawkish of the group, while effectively inserting himself into the back and forth between Cruz and Rubio. Carly Fiorina sought to highlight her private-sector experience. Ohio Gov. John Kasich called for a candidate who could unify the country. And retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson sought to counter impressions that his inexperience in foreign affairs makes him a poor candidate for the presidency.
At some moments, the debate delved into arcane, though important, details of how to combat terrorist threats — touching on Islamic State fighters abroad, the possibility of homegrown terrorists becoming radicalized without family or neighbors knowing, the proper vetting of Syrian refugees coming to the United States, and how best to secure the country’s borders.
At other points, the frustrations of a campaign that has defied predictions and expectations, one in which governing experience has proved to be no asset and outsiders have drawn significantly more support, spilled onto the stage.
The exchanges between Bush and Trump were particularly revealing as a measure of how the race has unfolded in ways the former governor never expected. Bush sought to cast himself as the grown-up and Trump as an unserious candidate. He called Trump’s proposals “crazy” and “unhinged.”
Trump, as has been his style all year, swatted back by talking about his strength vs. what he said was Bush’s weakness. In trying to dismiss Bush, he compared his front-running status in the polls with Bush’s single-digit support.
[Jeb Bush vowed that Donald Trump would be in decline by Dec. 15]
The back and forth between Cruz and Rubio was far more substantive but with a political edge. Rubio’s goal was to undermine Cruz’s effort to consolidate conservatives of all stripes — tea party, evangelical and libertarian — by questioning whether he is as conservative as he claims. Cruz’s rebuttals were designed to paint Rubio as an establishment conservative, out of touch with an electorate that includes many voters angry at the party’s leadership.
The exchange everyone was expecting — between Cruz and Trump — came and went with no points scored. Cruz had criticized Trump at a private fundraiser last week, suggesting that there were legitimate questions about whether the billionaire businessman had the judgment to be president.
When the issue was raised near the end of the debate, a smiling Trump mockingly warned Cruz not to attack. Cruz ducked the question, saying the voters will have to make judgments about all of the candidates’ qualifications, temperament and judgment. Once again, the two men — who have avoided going after each other — maintained their unusual alliance.
The debate marked the end of one of the most tumultuous and unpredictable years in American politics. Whether it was a harbinger of things to come or a false indicator of the state of the Republican Party is the question that will begin to be answered in seven weeks.
The lineup on the stage highlighted how, in 2015, grass-roots Republicans have rejected the governing class in favor of outsiders. Trump and Carson, two nonpoliticians, and Cruz, an anti-establishment senator, stood together as a symbol of the electorate’s fury with the established order.
Arranged farther out on the stage were a series of elected officials — among them two governors, a former governor and two senators — who have struggled to find their balance in a year when records in office, governing experience and policy white papers have been given short shrift by rank-and-file conservatives.
That’s been the theme of 2015: the establishment on the defensive and outsiders on the rise. But what comes next is the question all the candidates and many in the party leadership are asking.
Months ago, many Republican strategists assumed that the nomination contest would begin to revert to more familiar form as the primaries and caucuses neared. But that was before Trump survived one controversy after another, the latest coming in the past week with his proposal to temporarily bar Muslims from entering the United States. If the recent polls are correct, Trump has weathered that storm as he has survived others.
Now the uncertainty about what comes next seems greater than ever. Could Trump be the nominee? Will Republicans see a three- or four-person race into the spring, with Trump in the center of the action? Or will the campaign devolve to a two-person contest between Cruz and Rubio, as some have predicted recently? Will New Hampshire send one of the other establishment candidates into the later contests with enough momentum to become a force in the race?
Along with uncertainty comes a sense of urgency for all the candidates. When the campaign resumes in earnest after the holidays, Iowa’s caucuses will be only a month away and New Hampshire’s primary a short five weeks in the future.
Many of the candidates hope or assume that the polls will look different by late January and that Iowa or New Hampshire will deliver a surprise. History suggests that could be the case. But history has been an unreliable guide in this pre-election year. That’s why Tuesday’s debate looked and sounded the way it did.Australian Aaron Peter Jeremicjczyk, a 39-year-old Singapore permanent resident, has been fined S$3,000 for assaulting jazz singer Dawn Ho last year.
The incident happened at the Beach Station on Sentosa island at about 9.20pm on 9 March 2014.
35-year-old Ms Ho had seen Jeremicjczyk, his girlfriend and a friend arguing with a limousine driver about the price of a fare and told him to stop shouting, the court heard.
Ms Ho and her friend tried to calm Mr Jeremicjczyk down but as they were about to drive off, the latter approached the open passenger door window of their vehicle and punched Ms Ho on the nose, causing redness and swelling, the Straits Times reported.
Ms Ho later posted a photo of herself with bruises on social media and her story went viral.
Mr Jeremicjczyk later quit his job in the marketing department of The Exchange, an Australian-themed bar and eatery in Asia Square.
He was later reported to have found another job in the food and beverage industry.
Mr Jeremicjczyk’s lawyer argued in mitigation that Ms Ho had made “provocative, insulting and racist comments” about his client which had triggered the incident. However, Mr Jeremicjczyk makes no excuse for his actions, his lawyer said.
Mr Jeremicjczyk’s lawyer also said the incident, having been highlighted on social media had “tarnished [his client’s] image due to the comments made by the victim on various blog sites”.
His lawyer also said that Mr Jeremicjczyk had wanted to meet Ms Ho to apologise and compensate her but nothing came out of it despite discussions with her lawyers, according to the Straits Times.
For the offence of voluntary causing hurt, he could have been jailed up to two years and fined a maximum of $5,000.Before we begin...
This is the first and by far most important step! Before doing anything else back up your city(s) save files!
This is so that you don't accidently save the city while having transportation buildings and certain networks demolished which will be required to simplify the map making process.
Be forewarned; a certain degree of familiarity with image editing programs goes a long towards making the map making process somewhat easier and less time consuming. As for myself, I more or less learned on the fly so it was quite time consuming, but I was very highly motivated which is why I didn't give up until I finished the process.
Alright now that that's done the first step in the actually map making process is demolishing all transportation related buildings(not networks) in your city with the exception of ones which sit directly on top of roads and tracks, such as te-enabled bus & train stations.
Next you have several options on how to process after this point which depends on how complex your cities are and how complex you want to make your map.
If you have subway lines running through your city your going to want to destroy those subway lines. Don't worry this is only temporary afterall you're not going to be saving this city and even if you did that's ok, remember you made a backup of the city save file. Subway paths running underneath can obscure and confuse the actual surface routes on top which will make things more confusing when your drawing out the surface paths.
Next demolish any te enable none-network lots such as parking garages & pedestrian paths etc.
Now depending on how complex your surface transit lines are(rail, elevated rail, GLR, monorail, HSR, etc) you may want to demolish all these lines as well. This can be quite time consuming but it's probably less time consuming than having to double check later if that line on that map is actually a road or a railway. However if you feel like you know your network pretty well it's probably less time consuming to keep these networks in place and distinguish them later rather than to demolish them all now(I kept mine in). Or if your mass transit system is fairly simple or your just mapping out a small city than you can skip this step as well.
Open up the Date Views menu and click on transportation network.
Take a snapshot of the map, here's a screen shoot of me doing it. It doesn't matter how big or small your snapshot is as long as you include the entire traffic map within the Dataview;
Leave the game and open up the screenshot in an image editing program. The one I use happens to be called paint.net but I'm sure most programs will work for this next step.
All we need from the above image is the data map of the transit network seen here; Cut out the entire map from the snapshot.
Do not save as a jpg! It's important to save this in a lossless format like png. Otherwise it will make it more difficult for you to trace out the paths especially in areas with a high density of roads.
If you have a subway network and want to incorporate it into your map you can do it one of two ways. If you don't mind being somewhat imprecise you can simply draw the subway paths later on an their approximate routing. I more or less do this with rail tunnels through mountains especially when there are curves involved(see the very last map). The real tunnel path would be jagged which isn't very realistic, however I allow myself a little creative license when drawing out these paths because they cannot be seen in game in any case. Otherwise if you want to be precise the quickest way to add them is to literally demolish everything on the surface(goes without saying I think - but do not use the obliterate city option!) and then take another snapshot of the data view as shown above. You might need to run the game clock for a bit before the game registers that all the networks above ground have been demolished. And then follow all the steps below to create a system wide background dataview subway image.
The next question becomes do you just want to create a map of one city or the entire region? If you plan on making a map of multiple cities it's best to get the dataviews images for each and combine them into one image right away. Keep in mind that you'll have to resize the dataview map depending on the city size before combining them into one.
Here is a combined map for my entire region, this includes both road & rail networks. This was a map I made years ago before I rebuilt the entire highway system.
Just having a dataview map of your region like this alone is very helpful(and pretty cool!) in and of itself. It made me realize certain flaws/shortcomings, like how I needed to incorporate more smoother curves for networks and that I should add more FAR angles as well.
Next comes the most time consuming part, the actual map making and for this I'd recommend some better software. I personally use Inkscape as it was recommended to me years ago but the program has quite the learning curve. However any image editing program that will allow you to have seperate layers should work just as well.
Once you found the the right software to use now you can begin drawing out all the transportation network paths on top of the dataview screen shot. Unfortunately there is no quick way to go about this, you have to draw out a line which follows each and every single road on the map. Using 'fill' won't because your diagonal networks will end up being jagged lines. Not to mention the red spots on the network for the congested areas will stop the fill in its tracks.
It's best to work on each network individually - separate files for the shoreline, streets, roads, avenues, highways, railways, and any other networks you may want to incorporate into the map such as pedestrian paths, rail spurs, highway ramps(the most time consuming of the lines to draw for me ), hydro corridors, city boarders, abandon networks, etc. all of which I like to make use of.
This is what it looks like after removing the dataview image layer and combining several of the transit networks together. Do not combine any of the networks like this or remove the underlying dataview image until you've completed covering each individual type of network (streets/roads/etc) with lines. It's just an idea of what it looks like together without the dataview.
Updated image after coloring and sizing out the networks for Roads, Highways & Rail to the proper sizes and combining them together. You can easily add a border to all lines drawn in inkscape, this creates the red outline outside of the yellow filled zone for the roads seen below. Lines can also be dashed, as for the railways. And you can adjust the level of each individual line so as to control which one passes over the other for making under and overpasses on the map.
Going back to before you start combining the lines > Once you've completed the bare lines for each network then you can widen those lines and choose whatever color template you want for each network.
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formerly Lawman) is a Western-themed, first-person shooter video game. First released for Windows in 2006, it was ported to the Xbox 360 in 2007.[1][2] The PC version was one of the first games to use Microsoft's DirectX 10.
Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood [ edit ]
Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood is a Western-themed, first-person shooter video game set in the years of 1864–1866. It is a prequel to Call of Juarez. The game was released on PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360[3][4] on June 30, 2009.[5]
Call of Juarez: The Cartel [ edit ]
Call of Juarez: The Cartel is a first-person shooter video game set in modern-day Los Angeles and Mexico with up to three players taking the role of law enforcement agents, and adopts the themes of the Neo-Western genre.[6] The game was released on July 19, 2011 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and was released on September 13, 2011 on PC.[7] The game has received mixed to negative reviews.[8]
Call of Juarez: Gunslinger [ edit ]
Announced at PAX 2012, Call of Juarez: Gunslinger is an Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and PC title,[9] which sees the series returning to the old western style.[10] The game was released worldwide for PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 on May 22, 2013.[11]
References [ edit ]The cover of this month’s Wired promises "The Truth About Cancer" but the article inside is a tissue of misleading statistics and faulty logic. The article begins with fancy graphics telling us "If we find cancer early, 90 percent survive" but "If we find cancer late, 10 percent survive." And this:
Find the disease early "and the odds of survival approach 90 percent…This reality would seem to make a plain case for shifting resources toward patients with a 90 percent, rather than a 10 or 20 percent, chance of survival."
Thus, the opening block of text commands, "Scientists should stop trying to cure cancer and start focusing on finding it early. It’s the smart way to cheat death."
The fallacy in all of this is painfully easy to spot. If we measure survival, which these studies do, with a 5 or 10 year survival rate then obviously people whose cancers are detected early will survival longer than people whose cancers are detected late.
The key question is whether people who are treated early survive longer than people whose cancers are detected early but who are not treated. In Thomas Goetz’s long article there is not a single piece of evidence which demonstrates that this is true. Indeed, quite the opposite. About 9 pages into the article, after the jump, we find this about CT scans for lung cancer:
As with the Action Project, these studies found that, yes, CT scans detected a huge number of early cancers–10 times as many as they would expect to find without scanning. In that regard, the scans did their job as a screening test. And as expected, the number of surgeries based on those diagnoses jumped. But when Bach looked at the resulting mortality rates, he found essentially no difference between those who received a CT scan and those who had not. Despite the additional surgeries, just as many people were dying as before.
Nowhere does the author mentions that this finding invalidates just about everything he has told us in the first eight pages.
Addendum 1 : Do note that I have nothing against early detection and I am not claiming that it never works. My problem is with misleading statistical analysis.
Addendum 2: Careful readers will note that this is an almost perfect example of the economicitis fallacy that I blogged about late last year.Daniel Rotariu was blinded in the attack (Picture: Caters)
A man has spoken about the moment his face was melted by sulphuric acid by his girlfriend as he slept leaving him blind and with life-changing scars.
Daniel Rotariu, 31, was woken at 2am by a splash of liquid on his face that he soon realised was half a litre of sulphuric acid that would eventually turn the bed sheets underneath him black.
Coward, 25, left son and girlfriend in overturned car after crashing in police chase
He had argued with girlfriend Katie Leong hours before the attack with 96% sulphuric acid and it later emerged she had used sausages to test its effectiveness.
The 31-year-old who has been left badly scarred has spoken amid a rise acid attacks across London, that saw a 16-year-old charged last night.
He told the Mirror: ‘The acid took something from me that I’m never going to get back. I will never be the same.
Daniel Rotariu before the attack (Picture: Facebook)
Katie Leong threw acid into the face of Daniel Rotariu (Picture: Leicestershire Police)
‘I will never forget the shock, then the pain as the acid burnt through my skin and the helplessness of not being able to stop it.
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‘Then the realisation my life changed forever.’
Pair'murdered missing woman and claimed her benefits'
Leong was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to a minimum of 17 years in prison in March.
During the trial, Angela Clark from the Crown Prosecution Service said the defendant was fascinated by attacking someone using acid and owned a book written by an acid attack survivor.
Traces of acid were found on Leong’s clothing and forensic medical experts confirmed that a smaller dose would have been fatal, she said.
The bed sheets Daniel was sleeping on (Picture: Leicestershire Police)
Ms Clark added: ‘All this evidence clearly showed that she had planned and implemented the attack fully intending to kill, so she was prosecuted for attempted murder.’
The number of acid attacks rose to 454 victims last year up from 261 in 2015.
Lonely paedophile is allowed to befriend fellow sex offender because he feels isolated
There have been calls to toughen the law and to increase the regulation of sulphuric acid sales to combat the increase.
Daniel said: ‘Sulphuric acid shouldn’t be sold to the public without a licence. It’s so easy to buy, it’s scandalous.
‘How many lives need to be ruined before it’s banned?’
MORE: Teenager charged after five London acid attacks in 90 minutes
MORE: It just got harder to stalk your ex on FacebookHistory
German hunters spent generations crossing various breeds until they perfected this versatile bird dog sometime in the 1800s. They were so successful that, to this day, GSPs are among the top-winning breeds in competitive hunting events.
The German bird-dog tradition dates to at least the 1700s, with master breeders experimenting with tracking hound–pointing dog crosses in the quest for a quick but powerful hunter possessing plenty of nose and versatility. It comes as no surprise to learn that a key player in the early development of this breed of noble bearing was himself a nobleman, Prince Albrecht zu Solms-Braunfels.
The prince and his fellow enthusiasts succeeded beyond their wildest imaginings in creating a do-it-all hunting dog. Here, a breed historian ticks off the GSP’s credentials: “a staunchly pointing bird dog; a keen-nosed night trailer; a proven duck dog; a natural retriever on land or water, with pleasing conformation and markings, and great powers of endurance; and an intelligent family watchdog and companion.”
The GSP has been hunted with success on a variety of quarry: gamebirds, possum, rabbit, raccoon, and even deer. With his webbed feet and sleek but sturdy construction, the GSP burnishes his résumé as one of dogdom’s finest swimmers. Emblematic of the breed’s eager versatility was Marvin, a GSP from North Carolina, who in late 2013 achieved his 75th AKC title.In the previous post, I showed how you can get full listings of your execution plan costs. Knowing what the values you’re dealing with for the estimated costs on your execution plans can help you determine what the Cost Threshold on your system should be. However, we don’t want to just take the average and use that. You need to understand the data you’re looking at. Let’s explore this just a little using R.
Mean, Median, Range and Standard Deviation
I’ve used the queries in the previous blog post to generate a full listing of costs for my plans. With that, I can start to query the information. Here’s how I could use R to begin to explore the data:
library("RODBC", lib.loc="~/R/win-library/3.2") query <- "SELECT * FROM dbo.QueryCost;" dbhandle <- odbcDriverConnect( 'driver={SQL Server};server=WIN-3SRG45GBF97\\dojo;database=AdventureWorks2014;trusted_connection=true' ) data <- sqlQuery(dbhandle,query) ##data mean(data$EstimatedCost) median(sort(data$EstimatedCost)) maxcost = max(data$EstimatedCost) mincost = min(data$EstimatedCost) costrange = maxcost - mincost costrange sd(data$EstimatedCost) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 library ( & quot ; RODBC & quot ;, lib. loc =& quot ; ~ / R / win - library / 3.2 & quot ; ) query & lt ; - & quot ; SELECT * FROM dbo. QueryCost ; & quot ; dbhandle & lt ; - odbcDriverConnect ( 'driver={SQL Server};server=WIN-3SRG45GBF97\\dojo;database=AdventureWorks2014;trusted_connection=true' ) data & lt ; - sqlQuery ( dbhandle, query ) # # data mean ( data $ EstimatedCost ) median ( sort ( data $ EstimatedCost ) ) maxcost = max ( data $ EstimatedCost ) mincost = min ( data $ EstimatedCost ) costrange = maxcost - mincost costrange sd ( data $ EstimatedCost )
The mean function is going to get me my average value, which, in this case, is 0.8755985. If I just accept the average as a starting point for determining my Cost Threshold for Parallelism, I guess I can just leave it at the default value of 5 and feel quite comfortable. This is further supported by the median value of.0544886 from my data. However, let’s check out the costrange value. Knowing an average, a mean, or even a median (literally, the middle number of the set), doesn’t give you an indication of just how distributed the data is. My costrange, the max minus the min, comes out to 165.567. In other words, there is a pretty wide variation on costs and suddenly, I’m less convinced that I know what my Cost Threshold should be.
The next value that matters is the Standard Deviation. This gives you an idea of how distributed your data is. I’m not going to get into explaining the math behind it. My standard deviation value is 8.301819. With this, I know that a pretty healthy chunk of all my values are less than a cost estimated value of 8, since a single standard deviation would be 8.301819 on top of my average value of.8755985.
With this knowledge, I can start to make informed choices. I’m not relying simply on an average. I can begin to think through the process using statistics.
Just to help out with the thought process, let’s plot the values too.
Histogram
My first thought for any kind of data is statistics, so let’s see what a histogram would look like. This is really easy to do using R:
hist(data$EstimatedCost) 1 hist ( data $ EstimatedCost )
The output looks like this:
Clearly, this doesn’t give me enough to work on. Most of my data, nearly 1500 distinct values, is at one end of the distribution, and all the rest is elsewhere. I can’t use this to judge any kind of decision around my Cost Threshold.
Scatter Plot
The histogram isn’t telling me enough, so let’s try throwing the data into a Scatter plot. Again, this is silly easy in R:
plot(data$EstimatedCost) 1 plot ( data $ EstimatedCost )
The output is a lot more useful:
Now I can begin to visually see what the standard deviation value was telling me. The vast majority of my costs are well below two standard deviations, or approximately 16. However, let’s clean up the data just a little bit and make this as clear as we can.
Density Plus Values
Instead of just plotting the values, let’s get the density, or more precisely, a kernel density estimation, basically a smooth graph of the distribution of the data, and plot that:
plot(density(data$EstimatedCost)) rug(data$EstimatedCost,col='red') 1 2 plot ( density ( data $ EstimatedCost ) ) rug ( data $ EstimatedCost, col ='red' )
I went ahead and added the values down below so that you can see how the distribution goes as well as showing the smooth curve:
That one pretty much tells the tale. The vast majority of the values are clumped up at one end, along with a scattering of cost estimates above the value of 5, but not by huge margins.
Conclusion
With the Standard Deviation in hand, and a quick rule of thumb that says 68% of all values are going to be within two standard deviations of the data set, I can determine that a value of 16 on my Cost Threshold for Parallelism is going to cover most cases, and will ensure that only a small percentage of queries go parallel on my system, but that those which do go parallel are actually costly queries, not some that just fall outside the default value of 5.
I’ve made a couple of assumptions that are not completely held up by the data. Using the two, or even three, standard deviations to cover just enough of the data isn’t actually supported in this case because I don’t have a normal distribution of data. In fact, the distribution here is quite heavily skewed to one end of the chart. There’s also no data on the frequency of these calls. You may want to add that into your plans for setting your Cost Threshold.
However, using the math that I can quickly take advantage of, and the ability to plot out the data, I can, with a much higher degree of confidence, make choices on how I want my Cost Threshold for Parallelism to be set on my servers. From there, I measure the affects of my choices and adjust as necessary.
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EmailOn August 19, 2004, Google went public in a highly anticipated initial public offering that valued the six-year old company at what seemed to be an astronomical $23 billion, with a price-earnings ratio of 80, a mere six years after its founding. The company was already generating annualized revenue of $2.7 billion and profits of $286 million. Today, Google’s market cap is $390 billion, with annualized revenue of $64 billion and profits of $13 billion. Google’s market cap is the third highest of any U.S. company, with only Apple and Exxon Mobil being bigger. Public market buy-and-hold investors have scored a “ten-bagger”, earning a return of more than 1,000% over the decade. I didn’t buy at the IPO, but I have bought GOOG since then, and continue to hold shares today.
Google’s IPO was unconventional, starting with a registration statement stating that the company was planning to raise $2,718,281,828, a number that confused the many journalists who hadn’t memorized the number “e” to the ninth decimal place, as any serious quant would have. Famously, the Letter from the Founders contained in the prospectus stated a corporate goal of “Don’t be evil.” Several years later, the company decided to honor this commitment by pulling out of China rather than agreeing to facilitate government censorship of search results.
Google bargained with its investment bankers to lower the fees that are charged, and paid 2.8% rather than the more normal 4% that a multi-billion dollar deal would normally face. Most IPOs, and almost all of those that raise $50-200 million, pay their bankers 7% of the proceeds.
Unlike most IPOs, the company used an auction to sell shares. Close to two years before the IPO, I had met with Google’s founders to discuss the merits of using an auction versus the more traditional way of selling shares, known as bookbuilding. I was not involved in the details of the actual offering, however.
An auction, at least in theory, should deliver the highest possible price for the company while giving individual investors, rather than just the fund managers who dominate the bookbuilding approach, the opportunity to buy shares. But by the time Google launched the IPO, it had scaled back the size of the stock sale and lowered the offering price in the face of weak demand. After setting a price range of $108-135 per share, Google went public at only $85 per share, selling just 22.5 million shares and raising just $1.9 billion. Adding insult to injury, the stock rose 18 percent on the first day of trading to close at $100.34 -- suggesting that the auction failed to achieve its purpose of setting a price as close as possible to the value investors would award the stock on the open market. The IPO was largely viewed as a fiasco.
Part of the reason that the offering raised less money than expected was simply bad luck: In the weeks leading up to the IPO, both the technology-laden Nasdaq market and shares of Yahoo, Google’s top rival at the time, had been drifting downwards, sending a chill through the IPO market.
Two other factors, however, were even more important. The first factor was that the “road show” did not go well. When a company goes public, in an attempt to stimulate demand, the top managers and the investment bankers hired to take the company public typically spend up to two weeks going from city to city making presentations to institutional investors and answering questions. Google’s management, however, refused to answer many of the questions that were asked. As a result, investors were less willing than normal to give the company the benefit of the doubt about its future profitability.
The second factor that lowered the offer price was the desire of the lead underwriters, Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley, to sabotage the auction. Underwriters find the bookbuilding system to be very profitable, and most feel threatened by auctions. With an auction, the underwriters no longer have the power to allocate underpriced shares to their favorite customers. Consequently, the lead underwriters didn’t want the auction to be viewed as a success. They didn’t want it to be a complete failure, however, since they were the lead underwriters. The underwriters told many institutional investors that they were likely to receive shares if they bid $85 per share. Not surprisingly, there were a huge number of bids for shares at $85, and relatively little demand at a higher offer price. Google was forced to accept just $85 per share.
Google and the selling shareholders thus raised less money than they could have in the IPO. But the offer was selling only 8% of the company, and the employees and others who held their shares were amply rewarded as the stock rose, and rose further, as profits increased from $286 million per year to $13 billion per year. Google has proven that targeted search advertising can be an enormously profitable business, which is why Facebook was able to get a valuation of $104 billion when it went public in 2012.In the weeks leading up to his second birthday, Elijah Nealey's fascination with Spider-Man -- a superhero the tot fondly called "Piderman" -- had just become an obsession. He and his dad wore matching dinosaur shirts, and they hung pictures in his room as the big day drew near.
But that birthday never came.
The Virginia boy was killed by his babysitter, 22-year-old Jessica Fraraccio, two years ago. And while that pain will never go away, it was only magnified on Monday, when the woman sentenced for the felony murder got slapped with a five-year sentence.
Mike Nealey, 40, of Prince William County, spoke to The Huffington Post just days after the sentencing. He and his family had hoped for a 50-year sentence, and expected at least 40 years. Charges also included child abuse.
What they got, instead, left Nealey dizzy with disbelief.
"Once the verdict was read, I didn’t even fully comprehend it until after I’d left the courtroom and it all started sinking in," Nealey said. "The anger has started to really build up since Monday. It still doesn't make sense."
Fraraccio was entrusted to take care of the 23-month-old toddler. For seven months, she came over and spent time with Elijah. Nealey described her as a very nice person, who was mostly introverted and quiet.
In August 2012, Fraraccio killed the boy. Fourteen months later, she pleaded guilty, after initially saying the toddler had slipped in a bathtub and hit his head.
Jessica Fraraccio
Fraraccio later admitted that while Elijah was eating lunch, she kicked the chair out from under him because he wouldn't stop crying. The boy hit his head on the table, then the floor.
As Elijah wailed harder, Fraraccio became frustrated, then enraged, and picked the boy up with one arm as if he were a football. She covered his mouth with her hand and slammed his head on the stair railing.
When she finally put the boy down, his body was limp. Fraraccio had smothered the child to death.
When Judge J. Howe Brown sentenced Fraraccio, audible gasps were heard in the courtroom, The Washington Post reports.
“Nothing I can do brings back Elijah or makes [his parents] feel better,” Brown said in open court. “Likewise, nothing I can do to punish [Fraraccio] is more important than her memory of what she did.”
Nealey said he just can't comprehend why Brown made the decision he did.
"His decision shows no respect whatsoever for me, my family, or the life of my son," Nealey said.
Defense attorney Sandra Drewniak told The Huffington Post that Fraraccio had a mental health break and "just kind of snapped."
"Ms. Fraraccio in my opinion had what is very similar to shaken baby syndrome," Drewniak said. "It was a terrible accident and she had no intention of hurting Elijah."
But Nealey, who is still grasping for justice, called the defense attorney a liar and said he didn't believe a word she said.
"They keep saying 'accident'," he said. "It was no accident."
Despite that, Drewniak said Brown agreed with her assessment.
"[Brown's] exact words were that Ms. Fraraccio is not a monster, that's exactly why he went that way," she said.
Fraraccio, who Drewniak said is a devout Catholic with a "submissive personality," had no prior criminal history. Drewniak said her client never had so much as a traffic ticket, was a great student, and very active in her church and in the community, all possible reasons why she received a shorter sentence.
Along with her five-year sentence, Fraraccio will be required to donate one dollar to any charity of her choice every year on the anniversary of Elijah's death upon her release.
"I know no punishment is going to bring my son back," Nealey said. "I know that. I definitely know that. But five years? That is not a punishment. And it will be even less time, because she’s already been in jail for nine months."
The day of Elijah's death, Nealey said he was planning the boy's upcoming birthday party. He had called the local Chick-fil-A where he and his family had often visited. They had become good friends with the owners who were receptive to throwing Elijah a party.
Instead of a party, the restaurant posted a photo of the little boy up on the playroom wall in memory of him. Instead of celebrating, employees were stopping by the Nealey's home to deliver them food while the family grieved.
"Elijah was just really becoming a little boy," he said. "He was slowly starting to come into his own. Everybody he met was his best friend. He was tough, he didn’t fear anybody. He was coming into his own...it's really hard."
One of Nealey's best memories of his son was taking him to a dinosaur-themed park. It bored Nealey at first, until he saw the wonder in Elijah's eyes as he gazed up on the life-size statues made of shining fiberglass.
"I was really happy to be able to take him there because I went there when I was his age," he said.
That day, father and son bought dinosaur shirts to remember the experience. Nealey wore his shirt to his son's funeral.
When Fraraccio eventually gets out of prison, Nealey will one day be tasked with explaining to his two daughters, ages 6 and 7, the truth of what happened. For now, the two girls believe their brother died after slipping in the tub.
"That’s the story we’ve told them and we haven’t changed it," he said. "They’re not old enough to really comprehend it yet. We’ll tell them one day, but not anytime soon."
Nealey said the continued anguish he and his family feel lies on Brown.
"I want to get the word out to as many people that will listen, what kind of injustice [Elijah] received from the courts. To me, it’s a total failure of our justice system. I want everyone to know what the judge thought my son’s life was worth...which is pretty much nothing, according to him."
In 2011, Brown overruled a jury's recommendation in a 2009 malicious wounding case. While the jury wanted to give 23-year-old Anthony Lee Perry Jr. five years in prison, Brown instead gave him just two.
“[He deserved] five years," stabbing victim Aragon Olievar told the Loudoun Times at the time of the sentencing. "I don’t know why the judge made that decision.”
An online petition has started in an effort to permanently remove Brown from the bench.
As Nealey searches for answers and some kind of retribution, his son's toys that still litter their house are a constant reminder of what he and his family have lost.
"We think about him every day, every moment."
The father of two said he will never forgive Fraraccio.Charlie Magee
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From the April 2016 issue
Pop quiz: The yellow diamond-shaped sign on the side of the road says you should take the upcoming curve at 35 mph. At what speed can you actually travel through the bend? 45 mph? 55? Can you double it?
Depends on the car, right? It’s no surprise that the suggested speeds through curves fall well below what the average BMW can manage. Traffic engineers design for trucks, inclement road conditions, inept drivers, and ambulance-chasing lawyers, not P Zero–shod sports coupes. But it also depends on the curve, and how reasonable that suggested speed actually is. We looked into how recommended cornering speeds are set, and we found a mishmash of malleable procedures that are inconsistently applied. That’s why a 45-mph curve in Happyland, Oklahoma, often looks nothing like a 45-mph bend on SoCal’s Angeles Crest Highway. To no one’s surprise, research indicates that these curve advisory speeds are among the most disregarded signs on the road.
Even as the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has formalized its procedures in recent years, there’s still wide latitude for how state, county, and municipal agencies determine the curve advisory speeds on the roads they manage. The FHWA’s 35-page guidance document, published in 2011, offers sanctioned methods that fall into the three following fundamental categories, but engineers aren’t obligated to abide by them.
ROADWORK AHEAD Finally, Congress Gets Something Right. (Sort Of.) In a fleeting moment of governmental competence, America’s elected officials approved a five-year, $305 billion road-funding plan this past December. The sensible, bipartisan action is known as the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act. No transportation bill in the past decade has covered more than two years. The bulk of the FAST Act money—$207 billion—will be distributed to states for road and bridge improvements, where the stability of a five-year plan could encourage local authorities to take on more ambitious, longer-term infrastructure programs. But it doesn’t provide much headroom for growth. The Department of Transportation contends that the 11-percent increase in spending from 2016 through 2021, primarily intended to offset inflation, isn’t enough to reduce congestion or keep pace with technology. The Obama administration had originally proposed a 45-percent increase. As usual, finding the money that legislators have decided to spend remains a problem. Rising fuel efficiency means gas-tax revenues are falling and the Highway Trust Fund, which will pay for most of the FAST Act, already runs a deficit of $16 billion per year. With oil currently at unimaginable lows, it’s difficult to envision a better time to raise the gas tax or at the very least to index it to inflation. The current federal tax of 18.4 cents per gallon has been unchanged since 1993. The good news is that the FAST Act contains a provision to increase road funding in the unlikely event that our nation’s legislators grow a spine between now and 2021. Any additional revenue brought in to the Highway Trust Fund will automatically be authorized for highway spending.
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♦ Direct
While it’s not common, highway planners are free to eyeball curves, drive through them, and set a conservative speed based on their seat-of-the-pants impressions. The FHWA would prefer that traffic agencies trust the driving public’s instincts instead. On the list of approved procedures, engineers can measure free-flowing traffic as it travels through the curve without any signage. In 2003, the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices—the traffic engineer’s instruction manual—recommended setting curve advisories using the speed that 85 percent of vehicles do not exceed. The more modern FHWA manual backpedals, encouraging engineers to use the average speed of trucks, which typically correlates with the 40th percentile of passenger-car speeds.
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♦ Accelerometer
Another approach requires engineers to drive through the curve at 5-mph increments while tracking lateral acceleration. This technique was popularized in the 1950s with the ball-bank indicator, a sort of crude accelerometer, and it remains one of the favored methods. When a true accelerometer is used, the FHWA suggests a speed yielding between 0.26 and 0.30 g of lateral acceleration.
If that seems comically low in a world where even the most ungainly heavy-duty pickups manage more than double that grip, it’s because the manual accounts for the fact that drivers typically exceed the recommended speed by 7 to 10 mph. The FHWA acknowledges that ambivalence to these advisory speeds is problematic. As drivers learn that they can disregard curve-speed signs on their regular routes, they become desensitized to the yellow diamond-and-square duo wherever it appears. But in some jurisdictions, the numbers are grounded in reality. Despite the abundance of modern traffic data, much of the research on driver behavior and curve speeds dates to the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s. If the research had kept pace with the technological advances of the car, maybe our signage would be relevant today.
Charlie Magee
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Cars that can better a full 1.0 g on the skidpad are becoming common. This Corvette Z06 managed 1.19 g’s, about four times a curve’s recommended lateral acceleration limit.
Charlie Magee
R = Radius of curve, feet
V = Average truck speed
MARK BRAMLEY, A.J. MUELLER, ROY RITCHIE, MARC URBANO, THE MANUFACTURER
MARK BRAMLEY, A.J. MUELLER, ROY RITCHIE, MARC URBANO, THE MANUFACTURER
B = Banking of curve, percent S = Curve speed, mphR = Radius of curve, feetV = Average truck speedon straight leadinginto curve, mphB = Banking of curve, percent
♦ Design
Traffic planners can also calculate recommended curve speeds based on the road’s geometric parameters. This complex-looking formula does so based on fairly simple variables such as the radius of the curve, the banking of the pavement surface, and the speed of traffic as it approaches the bend.Introduction
This low carb bread makes a great sandwich for breakfast or lunch. Quick and easy, too.
This low carb bread makes a great sandwich for breakfast or lunch. Quick and easy, too.
Minutes to Prepare: 3 Minutes to Cook: 2 Number of Servings: 1
Ingredients
1 large egg
2 tbsp flax seed meal
1/2 teas. baking powder
1 packet Splenda
1/4 cup Cheddar Cheese, shredded
1 teas. butter, melted
Tips
Add a pinch of parsley to the mix for a different flavor.
Directions
Melt butter in 15 oz oval ramekin or flat bowl. Add & mix egg, flax meal, baking powder & splenda. Add cheddar cheese and mix. Put in microwave 1 minute, flip bread over and microwave another 10 seconds if no done in middle. Makes one slice of bread. Cut in half, top half with desired sandwich filling. Suggestions: mayo or cream cheese, turkey, lettuce, tomato, etc. Then top with other half of bread. Serves one.A transgender woman has filed a lawsuit against Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, and several prison officials, alleging she suffered repeated harassment and sexual assault after being housed with male inmates.
Jules Williams said in the suit that she was placed with male inmates despite being asked to be placed into protective custody at the county jail. The incidents occurred over a period of years during stays in jail for nonviolent offenses in 2015, 2016, and this year.
Williams said that she was verbally harassed, made to shower in front of male guards and inmates, and strip searched and patted down by male guards. In 2015, she said she was raped over the course of four days, despite her cries for help, including through use of the cell’s emergency call button.
“She suffered severe physical and emotional harm,” said Alec Wright, one of her attorneys. “It’s not just the male inmates that engage in this practice, but the staff, as well.”
“If the individual identifies as transgender, the health care professionals then notify leadership,” said Allegheny County Jail Warden Orlando Harper. “Within 72 hours of admission to the facility, the individual appears before a transgender committee which makes a recommendation on housing after interviewing the individual. Their recommendation on housing is made to the warden.”
Wright said none of that occurred with his client, instead placing her with male inmates without thinking twice.
“Here, the jail’s practice is something much different than its policy,” he said.
“Ms. Williams has suffered trauma that few of us can imagine,” said Reggie Shuford, executive director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, also part of her legal team. “Her situation was completely mismanaged by administrators at the jail, and they must be held accountable. No one deserves to experience what she’s been through.”
This Story Filed UnderJune 11, 2014
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - Indiana head football coach Kevin Wilson announced on Wednesday afternoon that junior quarterback Tre Roberson will not return to the Hoosiers program in 2014, planning to transfer.
"We appreciate and thank Tre for his contributions to our football program both on and off the field," Wilson said. "He is an outstanding player and a great young man. We wish him well as he moves forward with his career."
"I want to thank the coaching staff, my teammates and Indiana University for all of their support over the last three years," Roberson said. "My time in Bloomington will always hold a special place in my heart. I wish everyone at IU all the best as I move on to the next chapter in my life."
Roberson became the first Indiana true freshman to start at quarterback in 2011. He started five games, played in nine overall, threw for 937 yards and rushed for 426 yards.
After suffering a broken leg in the second game of 2012, Roberson bounced back with four starts and 12 appearances last season. He completed 83-of-138 (60.1 percent) for 1,128 yards with 15 touchdowns, four interceptions and a 158.9 pass efficiency rating. Roberson added 423 rushing yards on 85 attempts (5.0 average) with five TDs.Listen
More Hear the original spoken revelation: playpause Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin Download (right-click to download) As revealed to God’s Messenger
Marshall Vian Summers
on January 29, 2009
in Boulder, Colorado About this Recording What you are hearing in this audio recording is the voice of the Angelic Assembly speaking through the Messenger Marshall Vian Summers. Here, the original communication of God, which exists beyond words, is translated into human language and understanding by the Angelic Assembly who watch over the world. The Assembly then delivers God’s Message through the Messenger. In this remarkable process, the Voice of Revelation is speaking anew. The Word and the Sound are in the world. For the first time in history, the recording of the original spoken revelation is available to you and to the world to experience. May you be the recipient of this gift of Revelation and may you be open to receive its unique Message for you and for your life. Volume 1 > The New Life > Chapter
We shall speak today on the power of recognition.
You are destined to meet certain people in life. You have a rendezvous with them. They will be guided to meet you as you are being guided to meet them.
These relationships are really not based upon past worldly experience, but upon a Plan that was established before you came into the world, a Plan that has been created to make it possible for you to discover higher purpose |
Interlude" (No. 3)> -- He Got Game
Orchestral Variations -- He Got Game
Our Town -- The Faculty
The Red Pony --> <Dream March and Circus Music" (No. 3) and "Grandfather's Story" (No. 5)> -- He Got Game
Rodeo <Hoe-Down> -- He Got Game
Shaker melody ("Simple Gifts") from Appalachian Spring -- Communion
Corelli
Concerto Grosso Op.6 No.8 <Adagio> -- Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Violin Sonata "La Follia", Op. 5 No. 12 -- Jefferson in Paris
Couperin
Leçon de Ténèbres du mercredi <Manum suam misit hostis> -- The Pelican Brief
Crumb
Black Angels <Threnody I: Night of the Electric Insects> -- The Exorcist
de Beriot
Concerto 8 in D, op. 99 -- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Debussy
Arabesque No. 1 in E -- The Birds
Petit Suite for Two Pianos -- Bicentennial Man
Petite Suite <Ballet> -- Henry and June
La Plus que Lente -- Henry and June
Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune -- Nijinsky
"Préludes" Book 1 <La cathédrale engloutie" (The Engulfed Cathedral)> -- Escape from New York
Préludes Book I <Les Sons et Les Parfums Tournent Dans L'air du Soir> -- The Usual Suspects
Préludes, Book 1 -- OTHER VOICES OTHER ROOMS
Rêverie -- Best Seller
Six Epitaphs Antiques <Pour l'égyptienne> -- Henry and June
Sonata for Violin and Piano, 1st movt -- Henry and June
String Quartet in G minor -- Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
String Quartet in G minor, 1st movt -- Six Degrees of Separation
Suite Bergamasque <Clair de lune> -- Bloodsport 3 -- Castaway -- Dog Soldiers -- Frankie and Johnny -- The Game -- Ocean's Eleven -- The Right Stuff -- Seven Years in Tibet
Suite Bergamasque <Clair de Lune> Orchestral version -- Ocean's Eleven
Delibes
Coppelia <Waltz> -- My big fat Greek Wedding
Lakmé <Viens, Mallika... Dôme épais" (Flower Duet)> -- The American President -- Carlito's Way -- The Hunger -- I've Heard the Mermaids Singing -- Meet the Parents -- Pret-a-Porter -- Someone to Watch over Me -- True Romance
Sylvia <Pizzicato> -- Babe
"Viens, Mallika... Dôme épais" (Flower Duet) from Lakmé -- Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life
di Capua
O sole mio -- Marius et Jeannette
Donizetti
"Appressati, Lucia... Il pallor, funesto", "Che fia?" -- Bats
L'Elisir d'amore <"Dell'elisir mirabile"> -- Heaven
L'Elisir d'amore <Una furtiva lagrima> -- Lorenzo's Oil -- A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999) -- Prizzi's Honor -- Yes, Giorgio -- You Belong To Me
Finale from La Fille du Régiment -- Any Given Sunday
Lucia di Lamermoor <Spargi d'amaro pianto" (Mad Scene)> -- Where Angels Fear to Tread
Lucia di Lammermoor <Chi mi frena> -- Man on the Moon
Lucia di Lammermoor <D'immenso giubilo> -- Cape Fear
Lucia di Lammermoor <Il dolce suono> -- The Fifth Element
Maria Redowa -- Little Women
Dukas
The Sorcerer's Apprentice -- Fantasia -- Fantasia 2000
Duphly
Courante in C minor -- Jefferson in Paris
Dvorák
Biblical Songs, Op. 99 <The Lord is my Shepherd> -- Kolya
Cello Concerto in B minor, 2nd movt -- Hilary and Jackie
Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra, 1st movt -- The Witches of Eastwick
Gypsy Songs, Op. 55 <Songs my mother taught me> -- Kolya
Humoresque -- Fanny and Alexander -- Humoresque
Humoresque, Op. 101 No. 7 -- Alex and Emma -- Hatari! -- Head Office -- The Joy Luck Club
Rusalka <Festival music (Polonaise)> -- The People vs Larry Flynt
Rusalka <Song to the Moon> -- Bicentennial Man -- Driving Miss Daisy -- Strange Luck
Serenade for Strings in E -- Carried Away
Serenade for Strings Op. 22, 2nd movt -- Kolya
Serenade in D minor, Op. 44 -- Jumanji
Slavoic Dance No. 15 in C -- Kolya
"Stabat Mater" <Stabat mater dolorosa> -- The People vs Larry Flynt
String Quartet in F "American", 1st movt -- Julien Donkey Boy -- Kolya
String Quartet No. 12 -- The Last Dance
Symphony No. 4 -- When Night is Falling
Symphony No. 9 "From the New World" -- Elvira
Symphony No. 9 "From the New World", 2nd movt -- Clear and Present Danger -- Kolya -- Paradise Road -- Shooting Fish -- Underground
Elgar
La Capricieuse - morceau de genre, Op. 17 -- Schindler's List
Cello Concerto -- Hilary and Jackie -- A Judgement in Stone
Cello Concerto, 2nd movt -- Lorenzo's Oil
The Dream of Gerontius -- Lord of Illusions
Enigma Variations <Nimrod> -- Chop Suey -- Crush -- Dumb and Dumber -- Elizabeth
Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 - 4 -- Fantasia 2000
Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 -- Brassed Off! -- A Clockwork Orange -- Forrest Gump -- High School High -- Hope and Glory -- If Looks could Kill -- Jack -- The Lizzie MacGuire Movie -- Mrs. Miniver -- Reality Bites -- True Crime -- The Whoopee Boys
Pomp and Circumstance March No. 4 -- A Clockwork Orange -- Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes
Symphony No. 1, 1st movt -- Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes
Fauré
Cantique de Jean Racine -- Babe
Requiem -- The Slab Boys
Requiem <In Paradisum> -- Copycat -- Legend of Bagger Vance -- The Lost Son -- S1mOne -- The Thin Red Line
Requiem <Libera me> -- Beyond Bedlam
Requiem <Pie Jesu> -- Honest -- S1mOne
Flotow
Martha -- OTHER VOICES OTHER ROOMS
Martha <M'Appari> -- Analyze This -- The Grey Fox
Franck
Sonata in A, 4th movt -- Hilary and Jackie
Fucík
Entry of the Gladiators -- Big Fish -- Octopussy
Gade
Tango Jalousie 8.550995 -- Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!
Gauntlett
Once in Royal David's City -- Shadowlands
Gershwin
An American in Paris -- As Good as It Gets -- As Good as It Gets
"Girl Crazy" <I Got Rhythm> -- Mr Holland's Opus
"Oh, Kay!" <Someone to Watch Over Me> -- The Cider House Rules -- Mr Holland's Opus -- Return to Me
Porgy and Bess <Summertime> -- Hart's War
Rhapsody in Blue -- Fantasia 2000 -- Gremlins 2: The New Batch -- Manhattan
Gilbert and Sullivan
"A British Tar" from HMS Pinafore -- Raiders of the Lost Ark
The Gondoliers <Take a pair of sparkling eyes> -- Topsy Turvy
The Grand Duke <As o'er our penny roll we sing" (Habanera), "My Lord Grand Duke, farewell" (Dance) and "When you find you're a broken down critter> -- Topsy Turvy
HMS Pinafore <A British Tar> -- Star Trek: Insurrection
HMS Pinafore <My gallant crew", "I am the Captain of the Pinafore", "Sir Joseph's barge is seen" and "Hardly ever...> -- The Hand That Rocks the Cradle
Iolanthe <He loves if in the bygone years> -- Topsy Turvy
The Merchant of Venice <Danse Grotesque> -- Topsy Turvy
The Mikado <Our great Mikado" and "The sun, whose rays are all ablaze> -- Topsy Turvy
Overture; "If you want to know who we are" -- Foul Play
Patience <The Soldiers of the Queen" and "So go to him and say to him> -- Topsy Turvy
The Pirates of Penzance <Ah, leave me not to pine> -- Wilde
The Pirates of Penzance <Climbing over rocky mountains> -- Topsy Turvy
The Pirates of Penzance <Excerpts> -- Pret-a-Porter
The Pirates of Penzance <Oh dry the glistening tear" and "Poor wandering ones> -- The Hand That Rocks the Cradle
The Pirates of Penzance <When the foeman bares his steel> -- Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead
Ruddigore <Overture and "I once was as meek> -- Topsy Turvy
school are we" from The Mikado <Three little maids> -- Chariots of Fire
"With Cat-Like Tread" from The Pirates of Penzance -- Up Periscope
The Yeomen of the Guard <Overture, "'Tis said that joy in full perfection" and "I have a song to sing, O!> -- Topsy Turvy
Giordano
Andrea Chénier <La mamma morta> -- Philadelphia
Glinka
Fantasy Waltz -- Onegin
Gluck
Dance of the Blessed Spirits from Orphée et Eurydice -- And God Created Woman
Iphigénie en Tauride <ô malheureuse Iphigénie!> -- Dangerous Liaisons
Orfeo <Dance of the Blessed Spirits> -- Heartbreakers -- Maid in Manhattan
Orfeo <Excerpts> -- Janice Beard 45 WPM
Górecki
Symphony No. 3 -- Basquiat -- Police
Symphony No. 3 "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs", 2nd movt -- Wit
Symphony No. 3, 1st movt -- Fearless
Gould
American Salute -- Die Hard with a Vengeance
Gounod
Faust <Ah! je ris" (Jewel Song)> -- The Age of Innocence
Faust <Ballet music> -- The American President
Funeral March of a Marionette -- Urban Legends: Final Cut
Grainger
Bridal Lullaby -- Howards End
Country Gardens <Handkerchief Dances> -- Paradise Road
County Derry ("Danny Boy") <Irish Tune> -- Brassed Off! -- The Matchmaker -- Memphis Belle -- Once Upon a Time in the West -- Return to Me
County Derry (Londonderry Air) <Irish Tune> -- Paradise Road
Mock Morris -- Howards End
Granados
Spanish Dance, Op. 37 No. 5 -- Kika
Grieg
I Love but Thee -- Lola + Bilidikid
In the Hall of the Mountian King from Peer Gynt Suite No. 1 -- M
Lyric Piece Book IV <Spring dance> -- Babe
Lyric Piece Op. 12,7 -- Of Freaks and Men
Peer Gynt <Death of Åse> -- Affliction -- Sin compasión
Peer Gynt Suite <In The Hall of the Mountain King> -- Detroit Rock City -- Films That Suck -- Needful Things -- Rat Race -- Scratch
Peer Gynt Suite <Morning> -- Love, Honor and Obey -- Raising Cain
Piano Concerto in A minor, 1st movt -- EDtv
Handel
"Cara selve, care, care selve" from Atalanta -- Funny Games
Concerto Grosso in B minor Op. 12 No. 6, 3rd movt -- Pirates of the Carribean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Coronation Anthem No. 1 <Zadok the Priest> -- Johnny English -- Looking for Alibrandi -- The Madness of King George
Fireworks Music <Overture ; Rejouissance> -- The Madness of King George
Fireworks Music <Rejouissance> -- The Affair of the Necklace -- Greenfingers -- Johnny English -- A Smile Like Yours -- The Wog Boy
"Harp" Concerto No. 6 in B-flat, Op. 4/6 -- Interview with the Vampire
Harpsichord Suite No. 11 <Sarabande> -- Barry Lyndon
Harpsichord Suite No. 5, "The Harmonious Blacksmith" <Air and Variations> -- Bean
Israel in Egypt <Sing Ye to the Lord> -- Eat Drink Man Woman
Judas Maccabaeus <See the conqu'ring hero comes!> -- FairyTale: A True Story -- Out of Africa
Julius Caesar <Priva son d'ogni conforto> -- Alien Resurrection
Messiah <Hallelujah Chorus> -- Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice -- Bridget Jones's Diary -- Bruno -- Contact -- Dumb and Dumber -- Face/Off -- The Ladies' Man -- Look Who's Talking Too -- Man on the Moon -- Meatballs -- My Kingdom -- National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation -- Only You -- Out on a Limb -- The Right Stuff -- Runaway Bride -- Scrooged -- Spice World
Organ Concerto in F "The Cuckoo and the Nightingale" <Allegro> -- Dangerous Liaisons
Ptolemy <Stille amare, già vi sento> -- Emma
Recorder Sonata No. 3 -- Heaven Can Wait
Recorder Sonata, Op. 1 No. 11 -- Autumn Sonata
Rinaldo -- Love Lessons
Rinaldo <"Lascia ch'io pianga> -- The Monkey's Mask
Rinaldo <Overture, "Cara Sposa" and "Lascia ch'io pianga> -- Farinelli: Il Castrato
Semele <Where'er you walk> -- Orlando
Serse <Ombra mai fù di vegetabile" (Largo)> -- Dangerous Liaisons
Solomon <Arrival of the Queen of Sheba> -- Forces of Nature -- Four Weddings and a Funeral -- Heartburn -- Set It Off
Terpsichore <Suite> -- Interview with the Vampire
Water Music -- Jump tomorrow
Water Music Suite No. 1 in F <Hornpipe ; Andante> -- Moll Flanders
Water Music Suite No. 3 in D <Alla Hornpipe> -- Forces of Nature
The Water Music Suite No. 3 in D <Allegro> -- Dead Poets Society
Hanson
Symphony No. 2 "Romantic", 2nd movt -- Alien
Haydn
Cello Concerto in C, 3rd movt -- Hilary and Jackie
Piano concerto no. 11 -- Catch me if you can
Sonata No. 33 <Menuet> -- Runaway Bride
Sonata No. 59 in E-flat <Adagio e cantibile> -- Interview with the Vampire
String Quartet in B-flat "Sunrise", Op. 76/4 -- The Relic
String Quartet in C, Op. 76 No. 3 "Emperor", 2nd movt -- A Hard Day's Night
String Quartet in D, Op. 20 No. 4 -- Sensation
String Quartet No. 1, 3rd movt -- Mad Love -- Simpatico
String Quartet No. 15 -- The Cemetery Club
String Quartet No. 5, Op. 64 "Lark", 3rd movt -- Star Trek: Insurrection
String Quartet Op. 54 No. 1 "Tost", 3rd movt -- Boomerang
String Quartet Op. 64 No. 1 -- Minority Report
String Quartet Op. 64 No. 5 "Lark" -- House of Mirth
String Quartet Op. 76 No. 2 "Fifths" -- Demon Seed
String Quartet Op. 76 No. 3 "Emperor", 2nd movt -- Bulworth -- Casablanca -- The Cheap Detective -- The Dirty Dozen -- Victory
String Quartet Op. 76 No. 5 -- The Alamo -- The Pianist
String Quartet, Op. 33, No. 1 -- George of the Jungle
Symphony No. 101 "Clock", 2nd movt -- The Prince of Tides
Symphony No. 104, 3rd movt -- Prince of the Tides
Symphony No. 73 "The Hunt", 2nd movt -- Bicentennial Man
Trumpet Concerto, 1st movt -- The Big Hit
Haydn <attr.>
String Quartet in F "Serenade", Op. 3 No. 5 -- An American Tail: Fievel Goes West -- Crazy in Alabama -- Senior Trip
Henry, Pierre
Le Voile d'Orphée -- Altered States
Henze
Fantasia for Strings -- The Exorcist
Herbert
Cello Concerto No. 2 -- Short Cuts
Hindemith
Piano Sonata No. 3, 3rd movt -- Thirty-two Short Films About Glenn Gould
Holst
3 Hymns for the English Hymnal <In the Bleak Midwinter> -- In the Bleak Midwinter -- A Midwinter's Tale
The Planets <Jupiter> -- Annie Hall -- Shooting Fish
The Planets <Mars" and "Jupiter> -- The Right Stuff
Ippolitov-Ivanov
Procession of the Sardar from Caucasian Sketches Suite No. 1 -- The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb
Ivanovici
Donauwellen -- The Great Caruso -- Men of Boys Town
Ives
The Unanswered Question -- Run Lola Run -- The Thin Red Line
Janácek
Idyll for Strings, 5th movt -- The Unbearable Lightness of Being
In the Mist, 2nd movt -- The Unbearable Lightness of Being
On the Overgrown Path Set I <Good night!"; "A Blown-away leaf"; "The Bird of ill-omen lingers on> -- The Unbearable Lightness of Being
On the Overgrown Path Set II, 4th movt -- The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Pohádka (Fairy tale), 3rd movt -- The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Sonata for Violin and Piano, 4th movt -- The Unbearable Lightness of Being
String Quartet No. 1 "Kreutzer Sonata", 3rd movt -- The Unbearable Lightness of Being
String Quartet No. 2 "Intimate Pages", 4th movt -- The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Joplin
Easy winners; The Entertainer; Gladiolus Rag; Pine Apple Rag; Rag Time Dance; Solace -- The Sting
Peachtime Rag -- The Legend of 1900
Kabalevsky
Waltz from The Comedians -- Ice Age
Kapsberger
D'Involantura di Chiatone from Libro Quarto -- Dangerous Beauty
Libro Quarto <D'Involantura di Chiatone> -- D3: The Mighty Ducks
Ketèlbey
In a Chinese Temple Garden -- The Curse of the Jade Scorpion
In a Persian Market -- New York Stories
Khachaturian
Gayane <Sabre Dance> -- One, Two, Three -- A Simple Wish
Gayaneh Suite No. 1 <Adagio> -- 2001: A Space Odyssey
Gayaneh Suite No. 1--> <Adagio> -- Alien Resurrection
Gayaneh Suite No. 3 <Sabre Dance> -- Blues Brothers 2000 -- The Hudsucker Proxy
Sabre Dance from Gayaneh Suite No. 3 -- National Lampoon's Vegas Vacation -- Radioland Murders
Spartacus Suite No. 2 <Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia> -- The Hudsucker Proxy
Kodaly
Sonata for Cello <Allegro Maestoso ma Appassionato> -- The End of the Affair
Korngold
Die Tote Stadt (The Dead City) <Glück das mir Verlieb> -- The Big Lebowski
Kreisler
Liebesfreud -- The Secret of my Success
Liebesleid -- Humoresque
Praeludium and Allegro for violin -- The Prince of Tides
La Femme en bleu (1972)
-- The Woman in Blue
Lalo
Le Roi d'Ys <Vainement, ma bien-aimée> -- The Myth of Fingerprints
Lassus
"Come falda di neve" (No. 10) from Lagrime de San Pietro -- The Exorcist III
Lehár
"An der grauen Donau" waltz -- Dark Eyes
Giudetta <Meine Lippen sie küssen so heiß> -- Schindler's List
Land des Lächelns <"Dein ist mein ganzes Herz"> -- U-571
Merry Widow <Waltz> -- Heavenly Body
Waltz from The Merry Widow -- Shadow of a Doubt
Leoncavallo
Pagliacci <Vesti la giubba> -- Action Jackson -- Backstreet Dreams -- The Great Caruso -- Moonraker -- The Untouchables -- Urban Ghost Story
"Vesti la giubba" from Pagliacci -- Welcome to Death Row
Liadov
Kikimora -- The Price of Milk
Ligeti
Atmosphères -- 2001: A Space Odyssey
Cello Concerto -- Heat
Fontana -- The Shining
Lux Aeterna -- 2001: A Space Odyssey -- 2010: Odyssey Two
Musica Ricercata II: Mesto, Rigido e Cerimonale -- Eyes Wide Shut
Requiem for soprano, mezzo-soprano, 2 choirs and orchestra -- 2001: A Space Odyssey
Liszt
"Hohe Liebe" (No. 1) and "O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst" (No. 3) from Liebesträume, S 541 -- Tomcats
Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 -- A Day at the Races -- Delirious -- The Majestic -- Moscow on the Hudson -- Shine -- Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
Liebesträume, S 541 -- All About Eve
Liebestraum No. 3 -- Colonel Redl -- Rhapsody -- Sweet and lowdown -- Two sisters from Boston
Nuages Gris -- Eyes Wide Shut
Piano concerto No. 1 -- Above suspicion
Preludes -- Two sisters from Boston
Sospiri -- Shine
Lully
Au Clair de Lune -- Quills
Marche -- Total Recall -- Tous les Matins du Monde
MacDowell
Woodland Sketches <To a Wild Rose, Op. 51> -- Paradise Road
Mahler
"Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen" from Rückert Lieder -- Bride of the Wind
Kindertotenlieder <Nun will die Sonn' So hell aufgehn> -- Bright Lights, Big City
Symphony No. 3, 4th movt -- Death in Venice
Symphony No. 5, 4th movt -- Death in Venice -- Lorenzo's Oil -- Scorchers
Symphony No. 5, Adagietto -- Love Lessons
Symphony No. 6 -- Velvet Goldmine
Symphony No. 9, 1st movt -- Husbands and Wives
Marais
3e Livre de Pieces de Viole <Muzette 1 in A minor> -- Restoration
The Bells of St Genevieve -- Total Recall
Tombeau - Le Badinage - Sonnerie etc -- Tous le Matins du Monde
Marcello
Oboe Concerto in D Minor -- House of Mirth
Oboe Concerto in D Minor, 2nd movt -- Anonimo Veneziano -- The Firm
Mascagni
Cavalleria Rusticana <Drinking Song> -- The Great Caruso
Cavalleria Rusticana <Easter Hymn> -- The Godfather III
Cavalleria Rusticana <Intermezzo> -- Godfather III -- A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999) -- Raging Bull -- Villa des Roses
Cavalleria Rusticana <Preludio ; Siciliana ; A Casa Amiche ; Preghiera ; Intermezzo ; Finale> -- The Godfather III
Massenet
Hérodiade <Dors, ô cité perverse> -- Marathon Man -- Milk and Money
"Lorsque vous n'aurez rein à faire" from Chérubin -- The Dish
Suite no. 6 -- Milk and Money
Thaïs <Dis-moi que je suis belle> -- The Accompanist
Thaïs <Méditation> -- Angie -- Heartlands -- Titanic
Mendelssohn
Canzonetta -- The Road to Wellville
Elijah <Lift thine eyes> -- Mona Lisa Smile
Hebrides Overture -- L.A. Confidential
Intermezzo and Scherzo -- A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy
A Midsummer Night's Dream <Overture and Nocturne> -- A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999)
A Midsummer Night's Dream <Wedding March> -- Addams Family Values -- Analyze This -- Clueless -- Crush -- Dead on the Money -- Death Becomes Her -- Domestic Disturbance -- Evil Woman -- The Father of the Bride -- Father of the Bride 2 -- Flubber -- Four Weddings and a Funeral -- Grumpier Old Men -- Hitched -- How to Make an American Quilt -- The Importance of Being Earnest -- Irma la Douce -- Jane Austen's Mafia! -- Just Married -- Kolya -- The Lady Vanishes -- The Marrying Man -- Me, Myself and Irene -- Miracle on 34th Street -- Money Talks -- Moon Over Parador -- My big fat Greek Wedding -- The Other Sister -- Picture Perfect -- Police Academy 2 -- Prizzi's Honor -- The Rocky Horror Picture Show -- Runaway Bride -- The Suburbans -- Sunshine -- That Thing You Do! -- Up Close and Personal -- A Very Brady Sequel -- Wayne's World 2 -- The Wedding Planner -- What Planet Are You From?
Piano Concerto No. 2, 2nd movt -- A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy
Quintet in B-flat, op. 87, 3rd movt -- The Age of Innocence
Scherzo from A Midsummer Night's Dream -- Red dragon -- Strangers on a Train
Scherzo in C minor -- The Wizard of Oz
Song without Words -- Titanic
Songs without Words Book II, Op. 30 No. 1 <Andante Espressivo "Contemplation" in E-flat> -- Sophie's Choice
Symphony No. 4 "Italian" -- Center Stage
Symphony No. 4 "Italian", 3rd movt -- Set It Off
Symphony No. 4 "Italian", 4th movt -- Breaking Away
Variations serieuses -- The Pianist
Violin Concerto -- Cousin Bette -- Humoresque -- Rhapsody
Violin Concerto, 2nd movt -- A Month in the Country
Messiaen
O Sacrum Convivum -- Stigmata
Mompou
Canción y Danza No. 5 -- Star Trek: Nemesis
Cancion y danza No. 6 -- Star Trek: Nemesis
Monteverdi
The Fourth Book of Madrigals -- The Full Monteverdi
Morley
"Now is the month of Maying" -- Beaches
Mouret
Première Suite de Symphonies <Rondeau> -- Hot to Trot
Mozart
6 German Dances K. 509, No. 1-3 -- Amadeus
The Abduction from the Seraglio <Ich gehe, doch rate ich dir> -- Guarding Tess
The Abduction from the Seraglio <Turkish Finale> -- Amadeus
Adagio and Fugue in C minor, K. 546 -- G.I. Jane
Ave verum corpus, K. 618 -- Lorenzo's Oil -- The Peacemaker
Clarinet Concerto, 1st movt -- Eye for an Eye
Clarinet Concerto, 2nd movt -- American Gigolo -- Breathless (1959) -- Green Card -- Operation Sandman: Warriors in Hell -- Out of Africa -- Stealing Beauty
Clarinet Trio, 3rd movt -- Colonel Chabert
Concerto for 2 pianos and orchestra in E-flat, 3rd movt -- Amadeus
Coronation Mass, K. 517 <Agnes Dei and Dona nobis pacem> -- Philadelphia
Così fan tutte -- House of Mirth
Così fan tutte <"Soave sia il vento"> -- Heaven's Burning -- Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Così Fan Tutte <Un' aura amorosa> -- My Left Foot
Divertimento for String Trio K. 563, 3rd movt -- Mission Impossible
Divertimento in B-flat K. 137, 3rd movt -- Bridget Jones's Diary
Divertimento in D K. 136, 1st and 3rd movts -- Out of Africa
Divertimento in F K. 138, 2nd movt -- Total Recall
Divertimento No. 1 <Allegro> -- Simpatico
Divertimento No. 1 <Andante> -- Where Truth Lies
Divertimento No. 10 "Lodron night music" -- Milk and Money
Divertimento No. 15 <Minuet> -- The Associate
Don Giovanni <Ah, fuggi il traditor> -- Mad Love
Don Giovanni <Batti batti> -- xXx
Don Giovanni <Commendatore scene> -- Amadeus
Don Giovanni <Deh vieni alla finestra> -- Wild side
Don Giovanni <Finch'an dal vino> -- xXx
Don Giovanni <Il mio tesoro> -- Kind Hearts and Coronets
Don Giovanni <La ci darem la mano> -- Babette's Feast -- Don Juan DeMarco
Don Giovanni <Madamina, il catalogo e questo> -- Guarding Tess -- Screamers
Don Giovanni <Overture> -- Torrents of Spring
Egmont <Overture> -- Sunshine
Exsultate, jubilate K. 165 -- The Affair of the Necklace -- Barfly
Flute and Harp Concerto -- Cousin Bette -- Ghost in the Machine -- A Judgement in Stone
Flute and Harp Concerto, 2nd movt -- Amadeus -- Green Card -- The Joy Luck Club
Flute Concerto No. 1, 1st and 2nd movt -- Green Card
Flute Quartet No. 4 in A <Minuet> -- Gross Anatomy
Gran Partita <Adagio> -- Amadeus
Horn Concerto No. 1, 1st movt -- Sphere -- The Truman Show
Horn Concerto No. 2, 3rd movt -- JFK
Horn Concerto No. 3, 3rd movt -- Fame
Horn Concerto No. 4 -- SOUR GRAPES
Idomeneo, Re di Creta <Non temer amato bene> -- Philadelphia
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik -- The Bonfire of the Vanities -- Heartbreakers -- There's Something About Mary -- Up Close and Personal -- The Whole nine Yards -- Who's that Girl? -- Year of the Comet
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, 1st movt -- Ace Ventura: Pet Detective -- Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls -- Amadeus -- Bird on a Wire -- Bone Daddy -- Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle -- Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle -- Fame -- Hopscotch -- Incognito -- Nikita -- Overkill -- Teaching Mrs Tingle -- The Witches of Eastwick
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, 2nd movt -- Alien -- All I Want for Christmas -- Batman -- The Cowboy Way -- Mystery Science Theatre 3000: The Movie -- X-2
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, 3rd movt -- Bugsy Malone -- G.I. Jane
Laudate Dominum -- Snow Falling on Cedars
Litaniae de venerabili altaris sacramento, K. 243 <Dulcissimum Convivium and Viaticum> -- Philadelphia
The Marriage of Figaro <Che soave zeffiretto> -- Matchstick Men -- The Shawshank Redemption
Marriage of Figaro <Excerpts> -- Milk and Money
The Marriage of Figaro <L'ho perduta... me meschina! (Cavatina)> -- The Accompanist
The Marriage of Figaro <Non più andrai> -- Amadeus -- Hopscotch -- Mr Magoo
The Marriage of Figaro <Overture and Aria> -- Runaway Bride
Marriage of Figaro <Overture> -- Gross Anatomy -- House! -- The Ipcress File -- The Last Action Hero -- Trading Places -- Weird Science
The Marriage of Figaro <"Voi che sapete"> -- I Dreamed of Africa -- The Nun's Story -- A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries
The Marriage of Figaro <Voi signor, che giusto siele> -- The Living Daylights
"Masonic Funeral Music" in C minor -- Amadeus
Mass in C minor, K. 427 <Kyrie> -- Amadeus
Mass (Missa solemnis) No. 4 in C-minor "Orphanage" <Solus Sanctus> -- The Accompanist
Mass No. 18 in C minor "The Great" -- Where Truth Lies
A Musical Joke, 1st movt -- La vita è bella -- La Vita è Bella (Life is Beautiful)
A Musical Joke, 3rd movt -- Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
Piano Concerto No. 14 in E-flat -- Getting It Right
Piano Concerto No. 19 in F -- Pacific Heights
Piano Concerto No. 20, 1st and 2nd movt -- Amadeus
Piano Concerto No. 21 -- Entertaining Rita -- Regarding Henry -- Silent Fall -- The Taste of others -- VIRTUAL SEXUALITY
Piano Concerto No. 21, 1st movt -- Consenting Adults
Piano Concerto No. 21, 2nd movt -- Elvira Madigan -- Janice Beard 45 WPM -- Metroland -- The Spy Who Loved Me -- Twelve Monkeys
Piano Concerto No. 22, 3rd movt -- Amadeus
Piano Concerto No. 23 -- The Barber of Siberia -- Way of the Gun
Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor -- Getting It Right
Piano Concerto No. 25 -- Barfly -- Boxing Helena
Piano Concerto No. 25, 2nd movt -- The Associate
Piano Quartet No. 2 in E-flat -- Little Man Tate
Piano Sonata in A K. 331, 1st movt -- Out of Africa
Piano Sonata in A, K 331 <Andante> -- Fame
Piano Sonata in C, K 545, 1st movt -- Groundhog Day -- The Loss of Sexual Innocence
Piano Sonata in F <Allegro> -- Love Story
Piano sonata No. 11 -- A Beautiful Mind -- Bend it like Beckham
Piano Sonata No. 11 in A <Rondo "alla turca> -- The Truman Show -- The Wedding Banquet
Piano Sonata No. 11, 1st movt -- Frances
Piano Sonata No. 15, 1st movt -- X-2
Piano Sonata No. 15, 2nd movt -- The French Lieutenant's Woman -- Loser
Piano Sonata No. 17 in B-flat, K. 570 -- Dark Eyes
Piano Sonata No. 8 in A minor -- My Father the Hero
Quintet in E-flat -- When Harry Met Sally
Requiem -- The Affair of the Necklace -- SLC Punk |
, but that is what Republicans are delivering.
Looking at JCT’s table for 2019, second column, the percentage cuts are roughly similar across income groups from $20,000 to $1,000,000. But the JCT table slants the results by including payroll and excise taxes. The table under-measures the percentage cuts to the middle compared to the top.
The table below takes estimated payroll and excise taxes out of the JCT data. It shows individual and corporate income tax cuts as a percentage of estimated individual and corporate income taxes paid under current law. Middle-income households will receive by far the largest percentage income tax cuts in 2019.
Data Notes: Households less than $40,000 are shown as “n/a” because they do not pay income taxes in aggregate. JCT does not appear to publish current law estimates of individual and corporate income taxes only for 2019, so I estimated them using ratios from this TPC table.A court in France has acquitted two police officers accused of failing to help two boys, whose deaths at a power substation led to weeks of riots.
Bouna Traore, 15, and Zyed Benna, 17, were electrocuted in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois in October 2005.
Police had chased the boys as they made their way home from a football match.
Almost 10 years later, the court in Rennes cleared Sebastien Gaillemin and Stephanie Klein of charges of failing to assist someone in danger.
Adel Benna, Zyed’s brother, said he was sickened by Monday’s ruling.
“Police officers are untouchable. It’s not just in this case, they are never convicted,” he told reporters.
The officers had been accused of doing nothing to help, despite knowing the boys were in danger when they were seen approaching the EDF power facility. They insisted they were not to blame.
Bouna and Zyed were electrocuted while a third youth, Muhittin Altun, escaped with burns.
The deaths ignited three weeks of clashes with security forces in run-down city suburbs across France.
Vehicles and public buildings were burned and thousands of people arrested in rioting that led to the first state of emergency in the country for more than 20 years.
‘Relieved’
For years the case dragged through the courts, until in 2012 France’s highest court overturned a ruling that dropped a “failure to help” charge against the officers.
But Monday’s closely-watched decision, which comes after a five-day trial in March, is final and cannot be appealed.
The trial focused on a phrase that Mr Gaillemin, 41, radioed to colleagues, saying: “If they enter the site there’s not much hope they’ll make it alive.”
The call was received by Ms Klein, a police intern at the time, who was accused of not reacting.
But president judge Nicolas Leger ruled that neither officer had a “clear awareness of an imminent and serious danger”, which would be required under French law for a conviction.
The officers’ lawyer, Daniel Merchat, said his clients were “relieved”.
“For nine years, my clients have been completely convinced that they committed neither a mistake, nor a crime. This nine-year case has left them suffering... for them this is now a page that has turned,” AFP news agency quoted him as saying.
If found guilty, the two officers would have faced up to five years in prison. However, both the defence and prosecution had called for an acquittal.
The two dead teenagers’ relatives have launched a civil case, seeking a total of €1.6m (£1.2m; $1.8m) in compensation and damages.
The hashtag #ZyedEtBouna was trending in France on Monday, with many users expressing their dismay at the verdict.
But far-right National Front MP Marion Marechal Le Pen, a granddaughter of party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, provoked an angry response when she used the word “rabble” to describe young delinquents, echoing what former Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy had said two days before the two boys died.
She suggested the ruling showed that the riots had been unleashed “for pleasure and not because of a police blunder”.
Clichy is one of France’s most notorious immigrant “banlieues” (suburbs).
In January, Prime Minister Manuel Valls said France should no longer tolerate “ghettoisation” in the suburbs, following the Paris attacks that left 17 people dead.
Social alienation was seen as a factor in the attacks, carried out by jihadist gunmen.
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As the global war on terror rages in Afghanistan and Iraq, a defiant group of scrappers eke out a living by infiltrating the live impact areas of a US military bombing range near the US/Mexico border to scavenge aluminum, brass and copper debris from exploded and unexploded ordnance. Dodging fighter jets, attack helicopters, Marines artillery units, Navy Seals, Border Patrol, ICE and Sheriffs agents, these survivalists are driven by adrenaline, crystal meth and wild-west grit to load up on military scrap without breaking down or blowing up in the merciless terrain. Scrappers is a journey into the feast or famine in a Mad Max free-enterprise zone where the welfare and warfare states bitterly collide. For more info, contact us at littlemulesproductions@yahoo.com, or scrapperfilm.com Written by Little Mules Productions Plot SummaryStory highlights ISIS says it was targeting Shiite Muslim militias and security forces
Three police officers are among the 13 dead, authorities say
(CNN) Two suicide bombings claimed by the ISIS terror group tore through parts of central Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 13 people and injuring dozens of others, according to police officials in the Iraqi capital.
One bombing hit a busy square known as al Tayaran, killing seven people, including a police officer, and injuring 29 others, police said.
The other blast happened at a commercial area called al Wathba, killing six people, including two police officers, and injuring 18 others, police said.
ISIS, the Sunni Muslim extremist group that controls other parts of Iraq as well as swaths of Syria, claimed on Twitter that the bombings targeted Shiite Muslim militias and security forces.
Predominantly Shiite militias allied with the Iraqi government have worked for months alongside Iraqi forces to try to push back against ISIS.How much does a name matter? Let’s take a look at some big name players whose stats can be found later in the draft by the poor man’s version of themselves. All projections are courtesy of Fangraph’s Steamer projections. Rankings and ADP come from the consensus rankings on Fantasy Pros. I’m focusing on OBP leagues and not AVG. If you’re using AVG in your league you’ll need to reevaluate some of these guys. For most or all first round players there is no poor man’s version, you’re never going to find a ” Bryce Harper type” in the 3rd round. Once you get a couple rounds in though, there are some interesting players that will give you similar stats and much better draft day value. Let’s take a look at a couple.I’m not drafting Mookie Betts this year, here’s why. Ranked 18th overall, with an average draft position of 22, he’s great, I’m a big fan. He’s going to be a star sooner than later but he’s simply not worthy of a mid-2nd round pick when you can take Ryan Braun with your 5th round pick ADP 57. Mookie went 18/21 with a.341 OBP last year in 145 games. Braun went 24/25 with a.356 OBP in 140 games and comes with a track record that you can trust more than a year and a half in the majors from Mookie. Tell me again, what’s sexier, an awesome name like Mookie, or better stats across the board 2 rounds later? Why not ditch that Mookie pick for Votto or Bryant? Maybe Scherzer if you want to go for a pitcher and then come back and take Braun 35 picks later.So now you’ve gotten to the 6th round and you don’t have a stud first baseman yet. Everybody else does and you’re worried. The top 7 ( Paul Goldschmidt Edwin Encarnacion, Jose Abreu, Joey Votto and Chris Davis ) are all gone. You could take Freddie Freeman in the 6th round. Pick 72 on average and it wouldn’t be a bad pick. Freeman would be giving you a projected 24/4/.370 line. Or you could wait and take Brandon Belt who’s going in the 11th round who went 18/9/.356 in just 137 games last year. Is Freeman a better fantasy player than Belt? Possibly, probably even. He’ll give you a few more homeruns, but is he 5 rounds better? No, he’s most certainly not. In addition, the Braves are going to be terrible this year and the Giants should be very good. The better supporting cast from the Giants should result in more runs and RBIs from Belt than Freeman.One player going within a few picks of Freeman that might be a better value is Brian Dozier. Dozier is projected out at 20/14/.320. I think that projection is very conservative on the power side seeing as he hit 23 in 2014 and 28 in 2015. He might not hit 28 again but if he were to drop down to his 2014 numbers of 23/21 he’s not only better than Freeman power/speed wise but he’s doing it at 2b where power and speed is much harder to find. He doesn’t have the OBP that Freeman has of course, but nobody is perfect. Francisco Lindor should also be available if you want to gamble on the young shortstop who went 12/12/.353 in 99 games last year, that’s about a 17/17 pace over a full season. Both of these players will end up producing similarly to Freeman at premium positions. Skip on Freeman and take Belt later.George Springer you say? You could take George Springer early in the 3rd round, average pick 33, and you’d probably be happy with that pick because Springer is awesome. But can you do better? He’s projected to go 26/15 with a.343 OBP. Or you can wait 7 rounds and take Joc Pederson in the 11th, ADP 139. That’s 112 spots lower for those of you that don’t have a fancy calculator on hand. Pederson is projected to give you 24/11/.340. Joc’s batting average will scare people, as it should, but if you’re playing in an OBP league (get with the times and switch to OBP if you haven’t already) he’ll give you a.340 OBP, just 3 points lower than Springer.What about some pitchers? Raise your hand if you like Gerrit Cole. High five! Last year we saw Cole put up 19 wins, a 2.60 ERA and a 1.19 whip with 202 strikeouts. Those are fantastic numbers. Projecting forward though steamer has him regressing a bit at 15/3.26/1.16/196, still very good numbers. Cole is ranked 43rd overall, 12th among starting pitchers with his ADP at 36. That’s too early for me. Cole took a big step forward last year by lowering his ERA a full run from 3.65 to.260. Steamer is projecting regression to his ERA and roughly splitting the difference between his 2014 and 2015 numbers resulting in a 3.26 ERA. That projection lines up close with his 2015 3.13 xFIP due to him giving up a miniscule and unsustainable 6.5% hr/fb rate. His previous two seasons had an 8.1% hr/fb and a 9.4% hr/fb rate for a little context.Let’s trust Steamer for this comparison and find someone else who can give us similar numbers with better draft value. Noah Syndergaard seems like a good choice. Last year we saw Syndergaard pitch to a 9/3.24/1.05/165 line. Less strikeouts than Cole but Noah did it in 150 innings, 58 innings less than Cole. Syndergaard actually had a much better strikeout rate- 9.96 k/9 compared to Coles 8.74 k/9. That’s a big difference, more than a full strikeout per 9 innings. If you wanted to look at a different strikeout rate stat we can see that Cole struck out 24.3% of the batters he faced placing him 20th overall among qualified pitchers last year. Syndergaard struck out 27.5%. He was 12 innings short of qualifying but had he done so his strikeout rate would have been 6th best in baseball last year, tucked right in between Kluber and deGrom. Noah is currently being drafted at pick 54, 18 picks after Cole. This seems like a complete no-brainer and by saving that 3rd round pick from Cole it frees you up to draft Nelson Cruz (39th) or Cespedes (40th) with that 3rd round pick and then come back for Syndergaard in the 5th round.What if we went deeper? All the way down to the 6th round and take a look at Sonny Gray, ADP 61. Last season Gray delivered a 14/.273/1.08/169 line in 208 innings pitched, but count me among the people who don’t believe he can repeat those numbers. His 2.73 ERA is great. Better than great even, but he did it with a FIP of 3.45, a.72 run difference. Now, Gray has outperformed his FIP in each of his first 3 seasons but not by this much. His K rate has also gone down, 9.42, 7.52, 7.31 k/9 in each of his 3 seasons in the majors which is never a good sign.What do we think about Carlos Martinez instead of Gray? Overall ranking of 114th and 31st among SPs. CarMart put up a 14/3.01/1.29/184 line with 2 fewer starts than Gray in 2015. Martinez is going in the 9th round, ADP 104, almost 45 picks later than Gray.. The WHIP is the only figure here where Gray is significantly better due to Martinez’s highish walk rate. That is a big difference, but it’s the only mark against Martinez. It’s also worth pointing out that while Gray has gone 1.07, 1.11, and 1.08 with his WHIP since coming to the majors, he never had a whip under 1.30 over a full season in the minors.Passing on Gray should give you the option of taking one of the top 3 closers; Wade Davis Craig Kimbrel, or Kenley Jansen if you were so inclined. The value you get out of Wade and Carlos is better than the value you would get from Gray and a 9th round closer. David Robertson, who was good last year, is going around the 9th so if you were to take Gray and then Robertson you would get 255 strike outs over 271 innings, for a combined ERA of 2.89. If you were to go with Wade Davis and Carlos Martinez you would get 262 strikeouts over 246 innings with an with an ERA of 2.44 so clearly better value. The point of all this is that you should be drafting for stats, not for names, and passing on some of these names will get you better stats.Few men embody the ethos of the defending champion Kansas City Royals better than first-base coach Rusty Kuntz. The long-time coach is the maestro behind Kansas City's running game and its outfield defense—previously overlooked qualities that have helped propel the Royals to consecutive pennants and a World Series title.
Prior to a series-opening tilt between Kuntz's Royals and the Red Sox at Fenway Park, we sat down with the ever-enthusiastic coach to discuss his preparation, the grind of 162 when you're 60 years old and what a shin guard means as a scouting report.
Tim Britton: What is the daily routine like for a first-base coach, especially on the first game of a series?
Rusty Kuntz: Well, it's a little easier because we already played these guys at our place for three games, so we've got an idea of where they hit the ball and all that stuff. I do the baserunning, basestealing and outfield play. For instance, we just played Miami. You only play them for three days and you're in and out.
It takes you about four solid days. I've got to go through 13 pitchers and then I usually add on two or three more that Topper gets me. You try to break them down, what their tendencies are, what they like to do, what counts they like to throw breaking-ball stuff in, when they like to pick over. You get an idea of pick counts, pitch counts. You've got to go through all that information.
Basically, every three days we get a phone book. And you've got to rolodex through all of it to see what we need as far as information goes, and you've got to do it about 16 times. You've got to pick and choose and find all the information you can on these pitchers. It probably takes you an hour to an hour and 15 minutes to do one guy.
Like right now I'm doing the Yankees, who we don't play for another three days. It's just so time-consuming. You'll have 10 to 12 hours on one pitching staff, and you've got to find time to do it prior to playing them. Plus you've got to keep up with the speed of what's actually going on right now with Boston.
Some of our pitchers that have faced a majority of their hitters right now, you can go back and look at Ian Kennedy facing Boston May 18 at our place. You go through the game, see what kind of pitches he throws, what their approach to him is and try to match that up. Then you go back and look at what these guys have done in their last maybe three or four games against Tampa and try to match up an Ian Kennedy with a Jake Odorizzi—a similar kind of package right there—and see how they approached [Odorizzi] and how they hit him.
Obviously a hitter is going to change from May to now. So you want to get what they've done in the past, because a lot of times if they've had success, they'll go back there.
It's just video, video, video, video. Every day you're behind the video for about 4.5 hours. Every day. I get up about nine in the morning, and the first thing I do is turn on the video and see if I can get about three hours knocked out in the hotel. Then I come here and do another hour or hour and a half, and then by that time Topper's giving me more information on more stuff. That's the grind of what it's like at the big leagues.
Now, does everybody do it? No. A lot of guys, the brainiacs upstairs give you a printout of what their projected lineup is going to be and how it matches up with Kennedy, and they give you their idea of where to play defensively. A lot of guys just take that and run with it.
Me, I've been doing it too long. I don't trust a lot of things. I'm not just going to take a piece of paper from upstairs and go, 'Okay, this is where we're going to play them.' The one ingredient they don't have is what that guy on the mound brings. If he brings his A-game, that piece of paper works. But if he's struggling and he can't locate and he can't find the strike zone, I know defensively in the outfield we go straight up on everybody. You can't cheat if he can't locate.
The last time out Ian against Boston, he was able to locate into all four quadrants with at least two pitches. So he was dealing. So now, I can move the oppo corner in, I can move the pull-side closer to the line, because he's hitting his spots. If he can hit the spots, that's where the hitters are going to hit the ball. So you can cheat.
TB: You've been doing this a long time. How have you refined that process over time as video has become more prevalent?
RK: The same charts I had 35 years ago are the same ones I use now, because I trust what's on those sheets. I'll make some little notes on there—if a guy's struggling, if a guy can't locate, if a guy's spot-on—so that I can go back and look at those notes the next time we face that team.
Video is just a godsend as far as a tool goes. That's why I think it's a shame when guys don't use a lot of different avenues that are available. It's like anything else: If you have information, you have knowledge. You know how baseball is: It comes and goes in patterns. If a guy's hot, what is he doing? He's jerking everything. If he's cold, now is he trying to go the other way more? Those are things you have to adjust to, and that's why video is so important. If I didn't have video and just went off those charts, I might be two days behind. What they do tonight is going to determine what I'm going to do with Duffy tomorrow or Ventura on Sunday.
TB: You have that phone book of data. How do you narrow it down to a single sheet of paper for a guy to look at?
RK: That's the time-consuming part of it. At any given time, we've got four pro scouts that have seen these clubs, and all their information goes into a computer to spit it all out. Actually that's what my son does: He takes that information and condenses it into folders and ships it out to us.
To go back to how it's progressed, I'm learning more what to look for. When I first started, I was overwhelmed. 'Oh my God, where do you start with this?' When you first start, you just try to take the most obvious things, and you try to use those as maybe a little tool for yourself as far as giving a little edge. When this guy's ahead in the count, he really likes to turn. But as soon as he gets to two strikes, he just tries to flick it that way. Like Pedroia will do that at times, and you can tell how comfortable he is with the pitcher by probably the second or third pitch. You'll see that front hip turn and that front elbow explode out of there — well, he's seeing this ball really good and is trying to go up top. A guy like Herrera comes in and he's tougher to find and he's got 98 to 100, he's probably not going to fly out as much. He'll let it travel a little more and maybe close down his stance and try to shoot it to right field. He's a professional hitter. You try to keep up with those kinds of matchups.
Then you've got the game situation. If they've got a couple guys on and they're down by three, I don't care what you are, he's trying to turn and burn. He knows he has to do that at the plate. They might be down by one, Herrera's in to close out the game, he goes to that two-strike approach to try to shoot it through that four-hole to get a base hit. You have to know the game situations too. In those phone books, you find out all that info — ahead in the count, behind in the count, tie score, starters and closers — how all that stuff matches up. That's what the analytical guys have.
TB: You were just in Miami. How different is your outfield defense when you're preparing for a park like that compared to Fenway?
RK: Well that was okay because that ballpark is like ours. Another point along those lines, I've never seen those guys swing a bat. I couldn't tell you who this guy is compared to that. Hechavarria or Yelich—you go back and watch as many games as you can cram in and try to match that pitcher up with someone you might have during that series. So I've got to match somebody up with Ventura and Volquez. If I can't find that on whoever they just played, I've got to go back even more. You go back and try to find, who matches up with Ventura? How'd they approach him?
But you still haven't really ever seen him hit. Those three-and-dones are almost impossible. Now that we're playing interleague and you're playing National League teams like that, it's a cram session for three games. And you go, 'Is it worth it for three games?' Especially if you lose all three. 'I spent about 27 hours going through material and we lost them anyway.' But if you win two out of three like we did and you're trying to get back into that wild card, it makes it all worthwhile. Like I tell these guys, what else would you do? You're getting paid to do this. This is your job.
TB: As a guy with a passion for outfield defense, how validating is it to see the way that is valued now maybe compared to earlier in your coaching career?
RK: Well, you still see a lot of teams that still play straight up. And that's great, but if that one ball you could have been over and in a little bit because you knew that's where he would hit it, that's what gives me the ass. You trust what you see, but you've got to go with your gut. 'The way he's swinging, the way he's pitching, move him in.' He makes that catch, yes. If you don't move him in and the next pitch is a single, now you feel like crap.
You try to engage in the game, how it's flowing, how they're swinging. It's August; that's totally different from May. April is totally different from June because of the temperature. The wind is blowing out, that creates depth problems. August—what's his bat look like now? Does it have a five-pound weight on it? Did they get in at 4:00 in the morning and are just going through the motions in BP, dead-ass tired? There's all kinds of things you look for as far as setting up your defense—not only just what the pitcher/hitter matchup is. All those other different things like the weather, wind, time of game, time of year — this ball is going to fly a lot more today than in April.
I tell young coaches, when you're looking at a guy for the first time—like, I looked at Ozuna for the very first time. There's a couple of things you want to look for right off the bat if you've never seen the guy and want to know where to play this guy. Obviously my pitcher's velo is going to play in. Ventura's throwing 101, I'm going to play you oppo. I don't give a shit if you're dead-pull.
Once I get past a pitcher's velo, now I look at the player. The first thing is if he's got an elbow or shin guard on. The elbow means he's close to the plate, and the shin is he likes to pull. If I don't see either one of those, that means he's off the plate and likes to go the other way. Why would you have a shin guard on if you stay inside the ball and go that way, and why would you have an elbow guard on if you're not on the dish? Those are the first two things I look at. If I see those two things, he's a pull guy.
The next thing I look at is, where is that third-base coach or first-base coach? If Big Papi gets up, where is Ruben Amaro, Jr.? If he's back [on the dirt], this guy's a pull guy. That isn't going to lie. If he's not comfortable here [in the coach's box], he's back there—probably because [the hitter] pulls.
You look at the guards and where that base coach is standing, and that gives you an idea.
If I've got a coach back that far, what does that do to my oppo guy? I bring him in. If he's trying to turn and burn, if he pulls off that pitch away, it's going to be a lot more [flare] than [line drive]. Those are the little things you go through when you're trying to position him for the first time. And then you just read what he does.
TB: And sometimes you have Jarrod to go make a catch in center field over the wall, like you taught him.
RK: Well we did do that earlier. I told him to run like hell, jump by that wall and I'll flip one, and we'll do it 20 times until you get it right—because you never know. And then the third hitter…
No, I'm kidding.
TB: It's nice to have those guys out there.
RK: My God. People say I'm a pretty good outfield coach. I've got Platinum [Alex Gordon] in left, I've got Dyson who other than Gore is the fastest guy in baseball, and then I've got LoCain, whose range in center is No. 1, playing right field. And oh by the way, they're giving me a Brazilian track star as my other outfielder. I'm pretty good. Yeah.
If these guys are diving and sliding, I've got them in the wrong spot. With that kind of speed and those kinds of jumps, if I've got them in the right spot, they're standing there.
TB: You were talking about the grind earlier. We talk about the grind on players all the time. What's the grind on coaches, not just going through 162 but all of spring?
RK: These guys come to spring training to get in shape, and we come to spring training to get the regular season going. From a coaching standpoint, you're walking in there from Day One of spring training—if not even before, because these guys come to Arizona in January so you've got to go down in January to work them out and get them going. You're not 20 years old anymore. I'm 60 now. By this time of the season, I'm out of gas. I'm trying to keep up with 20-year-olds and try to keep them going and keep their energy levels up and all that stuff, when I've got none in the tank.
But it's hard. We get here at 11 or 11:30 in the morning, because you've got to use those video machines before the players come in at about two to get your work done off the information you need. And then you sit in front of your locker for two more hours on your iPad to get all the video information out of it.
And then when the players get done playing, then you go home and you start the next series and then all of a sudden, it starts snowballing. By eight months, now you're in the postseason and you're adding the pressure of the postseason on top of the grind.
Which is a great thing, because that's what you've been preparing for since February, to play for October. It seems like a blink of an eye. The last two times we've gotten to play in the postseason in October, it's by far the fastest month that you have. You're either winning it or losing it in the blink of an eye, and the loser goes home. It's very stressful, and it's a hell of a grind.
TB: You're pretty well known for your positivity. How are you able to maintain that attitude through eight months?
RK: I don't know. I don't know. I'm out of gas now, and sometimes I get real grumpy. I don't know. These guys, when you're working with 20-year-olds, you understand two things as a coach and as long as you keep that in perspective and don't lose that sight, you're going to be okay with it.
One, you have to remember how hard this game is to learn. It's almost impossible. And the second thing, it's a hard game to play. As long as you keep those two things in perspective, how hard it is to learn and how hard it is to play, when you come out and you see one mistake after another, you just call timeout, 'OK, come here,' without blowing a gasket or just having a cow because this guy didn't catch this ball or didn't make that play.
But then you also have that fine line where you've got to make sure these guys understand the importance of what's going on — that not every mistake is OK. I tell them all the time, if it's a mental mistake, it's not acceptable. Physical mistakes are going to happen, but mental mistakes? No. Not being in the right spot at the right time, that's preventable. Those are all effort plays. If you're not backing up first base as a right fielder and the ball goes over his head, that's on you. That's just effort. That E2 turned into a triple, and it's on you. First base is on the catcher, third base is on you.
Those are the ones that give you the ass and those are the ones you have to bring him in and say that's not going to work. You've got to be better than that. You need to make sure that doesn't happen again. And after a while, they get it.
As long as you bring the energy, we'll try to fill up the head with information.
TB: You've been part of a few different organizations. When you were with the Marlins in '93, you're trying to start a culture from scratch. How different is that from your other stops where that's more established?
RK: Yeah, it's a lot harder. I was watching Cliff Floyd today on why baseball chemistry is so important. Most of your guys upstairs, it's about numbers and analytics. Cliffy is absolutely right: It is all about chemistry. These guys live, breathe, eat, sleep — for eight months, they're together more than they're with their families. If you don't have a locker room that bonds together and can stand one another, it's not going to work. That's been proven in the past over and over and over again.
When you talk about starting off the Florida Marlins, some of the chips like Conine and Orestes Destrade, they click and work really good. But then there are also five or six duds you pick up and have to quickly get rid of because they don't mesh with what the organization and team is trying to do. Unfortunately, some of those duds stick around a little bit too long and they create a cancer in the locker room. When that happens, from a coaching perspective—especially in the minor leagues, when you have control of the personnel and the personalities of the players — if you don't buy in, if you don't want to be a part of this, see ya. As a coach, as an instructor, as a front-office person, when you go into a minor-league clubhouse, you want to feel wanted, you want to see smiling faces, you want to see guys happy. They work hard and play harder. Everything is cohesive. If you've got a couple knuckleheads in there that don't want to buy into it, you get rid of them quick because you don't want that to be what you're all about.
Like they say, one bad apple can spoil everything, and it does. In a locker room in baseball, it does. If that guy doesn't blend or doesn't fit in, out. Position players, you only need 13 of them. That's all you need — 13 guys that believe in one another, that will fight for one another, that will do whatever it takes just like you would for your own brother. Until you find those 12 or 13 right guys, it doesn't work. You can only have one bad one and then the rest of them are infected by it.
TB: You've got a lot of homegrown players here. What's it been like seeing them come up through and really evolve as a team and a clubhouse?
RK: It's really cool. In 2012, I got to go back and be a rover, and it was so neat to see Hosmer, Moustakas, Salvador Perez, Lorenzo Cain, Jarrod Dyson, Alex Gordon was coming back down to Triple-A to learn how to be a left fielder and I got to help him. That group of guys, once they hit Double-A, they won. Triple-A, they won. Big leagues, now they've won a World Series.
That's what makes it so much fun to come to the ballpark every day. Those personalities have survived all those different levels. Those personalities have won championships at every level they've played together. That doesn't happen every day. That just doesn't happen. If you're waiting for the next wave to roll in and do that same thing, you might be here a while. It gives you goosebumps when you think about where they started and how they formed together as one and still love one another to this day. It's just such a great situation to be in. Every day I come to work I can't wait to get here because they're so much fun to be around.
TB: You've got a World Series ring as a player, and you've got one from last year as a coach. Do they mean the same thing? Do they represent different accomplishments in your mind?
RK: I think the player one is more special, because as a coach, you're at the mercy of their performance. You give them all the information, you work them out, you get them ready, and then you push them out there and hope they can do it.
When you're a player, you're in control of that stuff. If you don't work hard, if you don't prepare, if you don't come through in certain situations, then it's all on you. If you do do all that kind of stuff, then it's a little more rewarding than sitting over here and hoping and praying it works. But they're both great. You can't beat it.
The first thing I think about when I win a World Series is all the players who played the game for so many years who never won it, who never experienced that. Last year we had Alex Rios |
if this was not done, Russia would attack America within "the next two or three years, when she gets the atomic bomb and civilization will be wiped out or set back many years."The Federal Government has cut the dementia and severe behaviours supplement, paid to providers of care for people with severe behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia.
Assistant Minister for Social Services Mitch Fifield has told the Senate the Government had no choice but to eliminate the supplement as of July 31, after its budget blew out by nearly 10 times over.
"I have not taken this decision lightly," Senator Fifield said.
"But there was no other responsible course of action in the circumstances."
The dementia and severe behaviours supplement is only a year old. It provides a payment of $16 a day for each eligible dementia patient in residential care homes.
Figures released by the Department of Social Services show demand for the payment has dramatically outstripped initial projections.
Original estimates indicated 2,000 people in residential care would be eligible. Instead, as of March, more than 25,000 people were receiving the supplement.
The budget for the payment expanded accordingly, from an initial estimate of $11.7 million to $110 million this year.
Loss will impact care, providers say
The peak body for not-for-profit residential care, Aged and Community Services Australia, says the number of those applying for the supplement should not have been a surprise.
"The Government, in creating this very necessary supplement, has grossly underestimated the number of people who should be eligible," the organisation's CEO John Kelly said.
He says losing the supplement will impact care.
"It enables my members across 1,800 facilities around Australia to provide extra support," he said.
"They may be able to put on a specialist, they may be able to put on a person with dementia training...we're going to miss out on that."
But Alzheimer's Australia CEO Glen Rees says it was clear to his organisation that the supplement had gone off track.
He says the intent was good. The payment was designed to encourage residential care providers to provide more spaces for dementia sufferers with severe behavioural problems – some of the most difficult people to provide care for in Australia.
He says not long after the supplement was launched, it was clear there was a problem: there was no test to determine whether the providers who applied for the supplement could actually provide the appropriate care.
"From our point of view, it was always subject to error because the scheme wasn't accompanied by any definition of those providers likely to able to provide this most difficult level of care," Mr Rees said.
Result a 'travesty' for dementia sufferers
The result was far more recipients than anticipated, and a budget the Government says could reach $1.5 billion over the next 10 years.
Senator Fifield says it is the previous government, which launched the supplement, that should bear the blame.
"This is not a problem of the Government's making," Senator Fifield said.
"But it did fall to this Government to address the situation."
The Government says it remains committed to supporting those with sever behavioural problems and psychological symptoms of dementia.
Mr Kelly says he has heard nothing about future plans to replace the supplement that has been eliminated.
But he says most of those who received the supplement were legitimate. He points out there are 320,000 Australians with dementia now, and that number is expected to rise to 400,000 by 2021.
"Dementia is a chronic condition," he said.
"To think that you're going to pull money out of something that's been identified as a priority heath need and something that's intrinsic in the care of those older Australians, it's more than tragic. I think it's a travesty."
Do you know more on this story? Email investigations@abc.net.auAxure 7 added the wonderful and tremendously useful OnWindowScroll event to page interactions. Unfortunately, it doesn’t include direction like OnScrollUp or OnScrollDown. An event like this is super useful because you can use it to show a sticky header, like in this example jquery plugin, headroom.js. I’ll walk through the steps and then explain the logic. Example link: http://wires.glucasroe.com/VSHYD6
1. Build your content
Before adding your interactivity, build your content. It’s a grand idea, trust me.
Here’s my sample prototype:
2. Pin the header to the browser
Convert all of your header to a dynamic panel and pin it to the browser. Make sure your header is in front of all your other content or you’ll get a display bug.
3. Create and set a windowScroll variable
In your Page Interactions (If you don’t see these, go to View > Panes > Page Properties and click the center tab), double click OnWindowScroll. First, add in a Wait action (I use 100ms, I’ll explain why later). Then we’ll need to set set a windowScroll variable to [[window.scrollY]]. Here’s a quick walkthrough.
4. Hide the header onScrollDown
Add a new case, put in the conditional if [[windowScroll + 10]] is less than [[Window.scrollY]] and have it hide header slide up. Right click the case after you have set it up and toggle If/Else if. Screencast!
5. Show the header onScrollUp
Add a new case, put in the conditional if [[windowScroll - 10]] is greater than [[Window.scrollY]] and have it show header slide down. This is basically the exact opposite of what you did for onScrolldown. Here’s what it should look like when you’re done
What’s happening here?
The first event sets a value, but only after a brief delay. See what happens on the example URL if you open the variables panel in the left sidebar and scroll.
After a value is set (after initial scroll), on a subsequent scroll it holds the value briefly before resetting it. Comparing this value to the current scroll position allows you to determine scroll direction and then sets it again for the next time scrolling stops.
The additions to the variable value in the comparisons section gives you your tolerances. This prevents the functions from firing too easily as scrolling stops, especially if you’re using a trackpad.While the rest of us were sightseeing or lounging at the beach, Sharon Weinberger and her defense reporter husband, Nathan Hodge, spent their last two years' worth of comp time and sick days visiting Iran's uranium conversion plant, West Virginia's secret nuclear bunker, and the A-bombed-out Marshall Islands. The result, A Nuclear Family Vacation: Travels in the World of Atomic Weaponry, was released today by Bloomsbury Press. Sharon, Nathan, and I chatted about the book.
Noah Shachtman: What's the deal with you two? Don't you like skiing? Mountain climbing? Getting drunk on Mexican tequila? Why would anyone want to take a nuclear vacation?
Sharon Weinberger & Nathan Hodge: We love all that, honest. But you’re dealing with two reporters who have a fascination with all things weapons-related. Not necessarily in that “gee whiz, that bomb can raze an entire city” sort of a way, but more like, “what would motivate anyone to build this thing?”
For Sharon, A Nuclear Family Vacation was in some ways an extension of her first book, Imaginary Weapons, which explored the very odd subculture of weapons scientists who went off the proverbial deep end chasing a would-be super bomb. This book takes a step back and looks at the larger culture surrounding the places and people involved in building and using nuclear weaponry.
For Nathan, it was the perfect excuse for a road trip. And of course, we could visit family on the way: Sharon’s cousin works at the Los Alamos lab, an aunt lives near the Nevada Test Site, Nathan’s parents are just down the road from the Greenbrier bunker. The nuclear world has greater reach than you think.
NS: How were you able to get access to Iran? And does it have a bomb?
SW & NH: We got our visas literally two hours before boarding a flight to Tehran. Nathan had applied twice before for a journalist visa to Iran, with no luck. But in late 2006, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he would open up Iran’s nuclear facilities to students, tourists and other visitors to prove his country’s peaceful intentions. We took that as an invitation. Still, it took a lot of pleading with consular officials to get that last-minute visa.
Does Iran have the bomb? Well, if you believe the latest National Intelligence Estimate, it abandoned its weapons program in 2003. But it is still developing enrichment technology, and has a pattern of secrecy surrounding its nuclear efforts that is troubling indeed.
NS: You also visited the Marshall Islands, where many a nuke was dropped – and where American radars watch out for ICBMs, on the Kwajalein Atoll. What’s the nightlife on Kwajalein like? I mean, after a long day of missile defense and intercontinental ballistic missile tests, what do people do there for fun?
SW & NH: We went bowling. There’s a nice little 1970s-era bowling alley. They also have a video shop, so we rented movies. If you love snorkeling, or scuba diving, or deep-sea fishing—and don’t mind sharing a tiny coral atoll with around 1,700 other people—then Kwajalein is the place to be. Oh, and there’s beer, lots of beer. The community has the look and feel of an American suburb, transplanted to the Pacific (but without the cars).
NS: McCain and Obama are both hinting at a nuclear strategy overhaul. What are your thoughts on what they have to say or what they may do?
SW & NH: It’s refreshing to hear both candidates address this issue. McCain recently laid out the beginnings of what could be a fundamental shift in nuclear strategy. He opposed ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1999, but said we should take another look at it. He also said he would cancel all further work on the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, which he described as a “weapon that does not make strategic or political sense.” He’s also talked about negotiating a new treaty to end production of the most dangerous fissile materials, and improving the ability of international community to stop nuclear smuggling.
Obama has been something of a protégé of Senator Richard Lugar, the father of the Cooperative Threat Reduction programs, even traveling with Lugar to the former Soviet Union to review non-proliferation efforts. He has pledged to strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty so that countries that break the rules will face automatic sanctions. And he has spoken candidly about the threat posed by nuclear weapons falling in the hands of terrorists.
Somewhat reassuringly, both candidates have revived the possibility of eventual nuclear disarmament. Obama has said he would set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons, but pledged to maintain a strong deterrent as long as nuclear weapons exist; McCain said he shares Ronald Reagan’s vision of abolishing nuclear weapons, though he says the United States should proceed toward that goal “prudently and pragmatically.”
__
NS: Two top Air Force officials were recently fired, in part because of their failure to address nuclear security. Does this surprise you?__
SW & NH: It’s certainly not surprising that attention to nuclear weapons has fallen off – and that was bound to lead to lapses. Nuclear weapons aren’t prestigious anymore within the Air Force, so the profession just doesn’t attract as many of the “best and brightest” as it once did. As we discuss in our chapter on the missileers, many of the jobs surrounding nuclear weapons are about procedure and checklists. It’s not exciting, but it is important. And if you don’t treat it as important, you’re bound to have problems. We saw this in the case of the B-52 that was mistakenly loaded with nuclear weapons last year.
The larger issue here, however, is that of nuclear strategy. Why isn’t nuclear security taken as seriously at it once was? Because nuclear weapons are no longer as important as they were during the Cold War. Our nuclear strategy has not caught up to that reality. When we visited the missileers, they were still groping for a reason to be there: What was their role in nuclear strategy?
NS: What’s the deal with all this talk in your book of Thomas Friedman and nuclear strategy?
SW & NH: It’s become nuclear theory lite. We noticed that a lot of people in the nuclear weapons business were fond of quoting Thomas Friedman, so we started to suspect that The World Is Flat was on some kind of required-reading list. It’s become a sort of default explanation for why we need a nuclear deterrent, or missile defense, or just about anything else. The argument goes something like this: In the information age, ballistic missile technology, nuclear know-how or other weaponry that once required multi-billion-dollar investment by nation-states can now be acquired much more easily … so in Friedmanesque terms, the world is flattening. We wonder, though, if Friedman knows his book is being used as an argument for maintaining a nuclear deterrent. Whether that is a good substitute for On Thermonuclear War is a different question.
NS: Did your trips change your mind about nuclear weapons? Are you guys hippies now?
SW & NH: Well, no, but we started much more pro-nuclear than we ended. As national security reporters, we tended initially to buy into the logic that nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence, such as it, is an important element of the U.S. defense posture. Each trip we made eroded our confidence in that belief, mainly because we saw how each part of the nuclear weapons establishment, from the scientists who design them to the military leaders who could use them, provided different, often contradictory definitions of nuclear deterrence.
In the end, everyone was saying: you need us, and thus you need nukes. We don’t want to downplay the important the role of these people, but we can’t equate their desire to help national security with nuclear relevance. In sum, we came away disillusioned with nuclear deterrence. Would we support total disarmament? Hard to say, but it’s worth thinking about a strategy to get there.
On a more conservative note, we also came away somewhat disillusioned with counterproliferation policies, at least as currently practiced. It’s nice to hear candidates say things like: let’s put more money into non-proliferation programs. But throwing money at a problem doesn’t always help. It can even be counterproductive. Our trip to Russia, for example, really undermined any confidence we had in swords-to-plowshares schemes. The idea was to keep nuclear weapons scientists busy, but as a recent Government Accountability Office report noted, much of this money is going toward scientists too young to have ever worked on nuclear weapons design. So, guess what, we’re subsidizing Russian nuclear science, and not necessarily helping those scientists who pose the greatest risk to proliferation.
NS: Pakistan and India have nukes. Why didn't you go there?
SW & NH: We could have visited dozens of other places. In the end, well, the book is called A Nuclear Family Vacation. We went to places that we thought would be interesting to us. We had originally planned to visit Pakistan and India, but then when the opportunity to visit Iran came up, that seemed so much more interesting—a chance to visit a pariah state at the center of a nuclear crisis.
We got the same question about Hanford, Washington. But there, again, we had the opportunity to visit the Y-12 plant in Tennessee, and the chance to visit a working part of the nuclear production complex struck as more intriguing.
We also, in most cases, chose not to visit places that were mostly historical. Ron Rosenbaum wrote a great piece about visiting contemporary Hiroshima today, and the jarring disconnect between the nightmarish images of 1945 and the sleek neon city of today.
NS: Some of the best pop culture was atomically-inspired – especially movies like Dr. Strangelove. What were some of your favorites?
Come to think of it, a lot of the films we grew up watching had a theme of nuclear war: WarGames, Terminator, and (less overtly) Repo Man. A favorite movie in high school was Red Dawn (not about nuclear war per se, but it had something to do with the Soviets attacking, so we could get out of school, move to the woods and become partisans). We recently rented Red Dawn, and it was still thoroughly entertaining. Ironically, it also has some currency, considering that a major theme of the movie is counter-insurgency. Maybe there’s something to that: the best nuclear war or Cold War era movies look at the themes underlying nuclear strategy, be they resistance, survival, or absurdity.
Anyone who grew up in the 1980s also remembers watching The Day After. We recently rewatched a bit on the SciFi channel, and it doesn’t hold up well. Then again, it wasn’t that great at the time. Ask people what they remember about The Day After, and they’ll usually mention Jason Robards’ hair falling out.
NS: If someone wanted to visit a nuclear destination in your book, where would you recommend?
SW & NH: If you are on a limited budget, visit the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia, site of the now decommissioned congressional bunker. Who doesn’t love fake doors, secret tunnels, and the whole idea of post-Armageddon government. If you want to spend some cash, you could also stay at the Greenbrier.
If you have unlimited budget and time, definitely Iran. President Ahmadinejad did promise that tourists could visit the country’s nuclear sites, so why not?
NS: Where next?
SW & NH: We went to Israel in February on a tour of terror. We’ve toyed with the idea of North Korea. And we’re always open to suggestions.In the eye of the storm over energy policy is Liddell, an ageing coal-fired power station owned by energy giant AGL.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has twisted the arm of AGL chief executive Andy Vesey to take to the company’s board the proposition that it should extend the plant’s life beyond its scheduled 2022 closure, or alternatively sell it to an operator that would carry it on.
AGL chief economist Tim Nelson says the company is running the rule over both options but he argues preserving the power station may not be the best solution. “The decision is not just economic, it is also also a commitment on carbon risk.”
Nelson says the emissions profile of extending the life of coal-fired power stations is inconsistent with current commitments in AGL’s greenhouse gas policy and the government’s undertakings under the Paris climate accord. Add to that the hefty rehabilitation costs for 50-year-old Liddell and it seems “the numbers don’t add up”.
While AGL is reviewing government options, it is so far sticking to its alternatives for the site – repurposing it, or repowering it with zero-emissions technology.
But without a coherent policy framework it is hard to see an orderly transition in the energy market. Nelson says a clean energy target could fix the uncertainty, encouraging the replacement of old technology with a combination of renewables and “complementary capacity from flexible sources”.TechCrunch was certain that rumors of a pending honest-to-goodness Google Phone were the real deal, and now according to the site, Google employees are already tweeting with the devices in hand. If you believe what you see on Twitter, Google drones were given the HTC-designed handsets at an all-hands staff event, and the phone is quite a looker. One tweet reads "ZOMG we had fireworks and we all got the new Google phone. It's beautiful." while another says the phone is "Like an iPhone on beautifying steroids." One other, non-Google user on Twitter who's seen the device says that the device is a bit thinner than the iPhone, has a trackball (a la Hero), and has no physical keyboard... which sounds like the Bravo / Passion we've seen a lot of lately (and we hear is coming to the US soon). Apparently the device is running Android 2.1, is unlocked and AT&T-ready (no word on 3G status, but this could line up with our speculation about this being the carrier's first Android phone), and will be due sometime in January. We're guessing if that last bit is true, it will coincide with a CES announcement, but anything could happen at this point. If the device is out in the wild in such a big way, an end of the year press release wouldn't shock us either; of course, it's entirely possible that this is going to end up becoming the Android Dev Phone 1's true successor or an elaborate prank on Google's part in response to the rumors that have been building steam over the past couple weeks (they're crafty and they have a sense of humor -- it could happen). Anyhow, check out one of the tweet-tears after the break, and stay tuned for more info!
Update: Google all but confirms that devices are floating around on campus in a post on its blog:
We recently came up with the concept of a mobile lab, which is a device that combines innovative hardware from a partner with software that runs on Android to experiment with new mobile features and capabilities, and we shared this device with Google employees across the globe. This means they get to test out a new technology and help improve it.
Not only that, but TechCrunch has more details on the device, claiming it will be a Google controlled, HTC-built model actually dubbed the "Google Phone," and will feature a "super high resolution OLED display," a Snapdragon CPU, a mic on the back of the phone that helps to eliminate background noise, is "really, really fast," and most importantly, will be sold unlocked. Essentially, TC claims that the phone will function on any GSM network you throw at it -- we assume that means an extremely rare pairing of both T-Mobile and AT&T 3G bands in the radio. Of course right now this is all speculation and hearsay -- until we get some solid facts (and maybe a device or two on camera), don't pull out the credit card just yet.Jon Gruber over at Daring Fireball says that the Google Phone is identifying itself as "Nexus One" (a Blade Runner reference) in its user agent string, though apparently Sony is calling its Android UI "Nexus" as well. Furthermore, a tweet from the man claims that he's heard the phone sports 3G for T-Mobile only, thus seriously dashing hopes that this would play nice all over the US of A. Again, grain of salt everyone.NORTHAMPTON, England ― In the wake of the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia on Aug. 12, there has been a growing public interest with the anti-fascist movement. Anti-fascism is as old as fascism, and it can be defined simply as activity that opposes fascist and extreme right-wing politics. Labels such as “alt-left” are now being used by U.S. President Donald Trump, among others, to describe, and deride, something that has a long, complex history. In order to understand today’s anti-fascist groups ― and where they might succeed and fail ― we need to revisit the ones that came before.
Often in the public imagination, in America as well as Europe, mention of this rather poorly understood political movement can conjure up images of masked militants protesting in the streets. Yet the history of anti-fascism shows that anti-fascists can take many forms, which are, more often than not, peaceful. For example, since the 1960s, British anti-fascist organizations such as Searchlight magazine have specialized in using investigative journalism to expose the extremes of fascist and far-right politics. Similarly, Britain’s Rock Against Racism used music to help build a movement that opposed the British National Front of the 1970s.
Anti-fascists promote acceptance of a diverse, multicultural world. Right-wing extremists reject the diverse reality of modern life.
Both in the past and today, those targeted by anti-fascism regularly promote clichés of anti-fascists as nothing more than “thugs” and militants. This practice naturally helps further instill the oversimplified notion of what the movement stands for. After Charlottesville, for instance, Nigel Farage, the former leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party and a key Brexit campaigner, described anti-fascists as no different to fascists. Donald Trump has also, notoriously, received much criticism after Charlottesville for suggesting similarities between the extreme right and those who protest against them.
I teach a graduate history course on British fascism and anti-fascism, and despite suggestions made by the likes of Farage and Trump, my students and I cannot help but see stark differences between those who identify as “anti-fascist,” and those who are members of extreme right-wing groups. Certainly, there are surface similarities. Both typically operate towards the fringes of political culture, and both do things that smaller political organizations do: publish magazines, create websites, hold events and run campaigns, all in order to sustain politicized communities. However, the ideas underpinning these movements are radically different: anti-fascists promote acceptance of a diverse, multicultural world, while right-wing extremists reject the diverse reality of modern life.
Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images Anti-fascists typically seek to promote democracy and the acceptance of a plural modern world.
Who Are The Anti-Fascists?
The historian Nigel Copsey is a leader in the study of anti-fascism. He suggests, correctly in my opinion, that we should see anti-fascists simply as those who openly identify as “anti-fascist” in some way. According to him, anti-fascists are motivated by a wide range of ideologies, from the left to the right of the political spectrum. This is important, as it can help shape how anti-fascists work out who to identify as “fascists” and in turn potentially lead to divisions in the movement.
The activities of anti-fascists are diverse, too, ranging from the more typical street demonstrations, to creating pressure groups, becoming campaigning journalists, running magazines, writing protest songs, developing anti-racist educational organizations, and even infiltrating extremist groups in order to subvert them from the inside. Moreover, Copsey explains that anti-fascists typically defend Enlightenment values, and justify their agendas as promoting democracy and the acceptance of a plural modern world. This can help anti-fascists appeal to mainstream values, especially if they can link those they oppose to the history of Nazism and the horrors of the Holocaust.
For the extreme right, politics is ultimately steeped in the irrational, powered by a mood of victimhood, fear of otherness and a racist vision of a 'purified' world.
While diverse, all such groups in one way or another revel in specious mythologies about the supposed superiority, and unique genius, of white people. This is reinforced through a political culture that rests on romanticized histories glorifying “the white race,” combined with conspiracy theories and classic anti-Semitic tropes such as Holocaust denial. For the extreme right, their politics blurs into the mythic. It becomes a political faith, and it is ultimately steeped in the irrational, powered by a mood of victimhood, fear of otherness and a racist vision of a “purified” world.
Distinctions between this type of organization, and those that promote anti-fascism, ought to be obvious. This is not to say that anti-fascists do not create their own mythology, break laws and even engage in violence. Often a reactive phenomenon, sections of the anti-fascist milieu can be openly militant in their approach, while also criticizing those who reject violence. Some of the more militant anti-fascist elements do see a role for violence. In Britain, at least, this has been idealized in anti-fascist memoirs that present confrontations as necessary “battles” taken up by the movement.
But the picture is not so black and white ― it’s not just “good” or “bad” people on “both sides.”
Fototeca Storica Nazionale. via Getty Images The history of anti-fascism can be traced back to interwar Europe with the rise of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.
The History Of Anti-Fascism
There are many lessons to be learned from the history of anti-fascism. It tells us what has been effective, and how communities have been able to develop more empowered voices by campaigning against right-wing extremists. It also shows us how the movement can be very divided, which is often ultimately counterproductive.
This history of anti-fascism can be traced back to interwar Europe, where splits between various types of anti-fascism were conspicuous, typically as a result of the influence of the Soviet Union. The first anti-fascists emerged with the rise of dictator Benito Mussolini in Italy. Then, as fascism spread, so did anti-fascism. By the early 1930s, splits within the left were clear, and were most starkly felt in Germany among those who opposed Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers’ Party, or Nazi party.
Here, both the moderate left-wing German Social Democratic Party and the German Communist Party opposed the rise of the Nazi party. However, the Communists saw German fascism as fueled by capitalism in crisis, and so opposed any group they saw as supporting capitalism. For German Communists in the early 1930s, both the Social Democrats and the Nazis did this, although they felt the Nazis were at least honest in what they stood for. German Communists called the moderate left Social Democrats “social fascists.” Steeped in complex Marxist theorizing, Communists could even consider “social fascists” more dangerous than the Nazis, as they would try to keep capitalism going whereas if the Nazis came to power, they would soon fail and communism would be victorious.
By the later 1930s, in the wake of Hitler’s rise and the failure of the “social fascist” idea, Communists in Europe were then instructed by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s USSR to unite with all forces that opposed fascists, and until 1939, idealized anti-fascism. During the Spanish Civil War, a new era of Communists forging the “Popular Front” led to Communist anti-fascists developing wider alliances with left-wing, Christian and liberal anti-fascists. Communist International Brigades, and others opposed to fascism, traveled to Spain to fight against Spanish general and military dictator Francisco Franco’s forces, which were supported by Italian and German fascist regimes, popularizing many forms of anti-fascism. Consequently, the memory of the Spanish Civil War lingers in the cultures of anti-fascism to this day. However, while Stalin’s Soviet Union promoted anti-fascism until 1939, it then made an about-turn and forged a nonaggression pact with Nazi Germany.
Anti-fascism soon became central to the narrative for all the countries that fought against Nazi Germany between 1939 and 1945, especially the USSR after it was invaded by the Nazi regime. After the Second World War, once again competing forms of anti-fascism developed within the revolutionary and moderate left, as well as others deeply affected by the legacy of fascism.
For example, in Britain after 1945, anti-fascism promoted by the small Communist Party of Great Britain could conflict with anti-fascism supported by the moderate left-wing Labour Party and the wider Labour movement. In turn, the moderate left in Britain was not always keen to involve itself with anti-fascism. New, specialist groups also emerged. In the 1940s, the small direct action Jewish organization the 43 Group, whose members included Vidal Sassoon, fought those who sought to rekindle British fascism, and even identified companies that helped facilitate fascists in any way. Established Jewish organizations, like the Board of Deputies of British Jews, also continued a role developed in the 1930s promoting anti-fascism as part of a wider function of looking after Jewish interests.
By the end of the 1950s, as new groups like the extreme right-wing White Defence League were founded, one of Britain’s first celebrity-driven anti-fascist campaigns emerged, the Stars Campaign for Interracial Friendship, which included figures such as Cleo Laine and Johnny Dankworth. This was a precursor to the larger scale Rock Against Racism movement of the late 1970s.
Much more recently, music has been important in social media campaigning. In response to the far-right English Defence League, one group called itself “English Disco Lovers,” to reappropriate the initials “EDL” for its online campaign promoting anti-racist values. Other types of anti-fascism include Searchlight magazine, which since the 1970s has also served as a model for other anti-fascist magazines of its type, such as the contemporary anti-fascist group HOPE not hate and Sweden’s Expo.
Importantly, contemporary British organizations now produce credible data on hate crimes that help influence policy discussions. The think tank the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, which specializes in countering violent extremism, has come up with analysis and guidance on how nongovernmental organizations and governments can work together to tackle the threats posed by the extreme right. Meanwhile, the Jewish organization Community Security Trust has become a significant part of British anti-fascist culture, while newer groups such as Tell Mama now also defend Muslims from Islamophobic attacks.
Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Anti-fascism activism that exposes links to older fascist and neo-Nazi cultures is a method that has proven effective.
What America’s Anti-Fascists Can Learn From History
Anti-fascists today can learn lessons from such older, and often imaginative, approaches to undermining the extreme right. They can capture media attention in ways that delegitimize extreme right agendas. Rather than promoting violent confrontations, successful anti-fascist campaigns often play on the idea of ridiculing such intolerant groups. This is important as many extreme right activists crave violent confrontation with anti-fascists, even if they deny this publicly. Conflict with anti-fascists also allows extremists to play the role of the victim being silenced, and can to lead to more sympathetic media coverage.
For Americans grappling with the reality of life post-Charlottesville, this is particularly relevant. Though rooted in European history, anti-fascism is far from a new phenomenon in the United States. As elsewhere, militant forms of activism have rubbed against more respectable methods for opposing white supremacist cultures for generations. In the recent past, groups such as Anti-Racist Action have helped foster a more confrontational anti-fascism. This included street violence in Toledo, Ohio in 2005, when anti-fascist protesters attacked the police as well as neo-Nazis. Some contemporary anti-fascists continue to idealize such militancy and hostility towards the state, especially those linked to the antifa movement, a far-left-leaning militant movement short for “anti-fascist” that resists neo-Nazis and white supremacists and is active in both America and Europe.
Such openly “militant” anti-fascists regularly deride what they label “liberal” anti-fascism, dismissed as ineffective hand-wringing when the only language understood by the extreme right is violence. Yet the reality is that such “liberal” anti-fascists have had many successes in using legal ways to put pressure on the state ― and wider civil society ― to reject extremism.
In America, rather than endorsing violence, the Southern Poverty Law Center has published a wide range of material, including its most recent guide for communities, to advise people on how to respond in a responsible manner to hate groups. The Anti-Defamation League also offers easy to access ways for people to respond to extremism. For those in America who want to engage in lawful protests against white supremacists, such groups offer sensible strategies and have gained notoriety beyond U.S. borders.
There are many ways to be an anti-fascist without having to resort to violence. But this needs to be done with care.
While the current notion of anti-fascism still conjures up a specific set of images that are often used against it by its opponents, looking at the history of the movement can help us move beyond such stereotypes so that we can create more effective methods of combating fascist groups today. Militant anti-fascism exists, but it can often be counter-productive. There are many other forms of activism that can loosely be called “anti-fascist,” and it is perfectly legitimate for civil society to find ways to respond to extremists ― including peaceful protest. There are many ways to be an anti-fascist without having to resort to violence. But this needs to be done with care.
Activism that credibly exposes the roots of current fascist activism ― and its links to older fascist and neo-Nazi cultures ― is a method that has been effective for anti-fascists in the past. The British anti-fascists of the 1970s, for example, successfully discredited the National Front by exposing its true roots in British neo-Nazi culture to the wider public. Today, terms such as “alt-right,” regularly used uncritically in the media, should be called out as unhelpful. They imply that today’s activists are somehow distinct from older white supremacist cultures, when in fact most historians would agree that the term was created by the movement to rebrand white supremacism and mask or water down connections with a much older racist movement.
From anti-fascism history, the world has learned that the key to success is finding ways to be united, and not letting ideological differences hamper joint activism. I suggest today’s activists study this history carefully. Do not simply romanticize all anti-fascist campaigns of the past. Embrace the promotion of reason over myth, and embrace democracy over extremism.About
The campaign is not funded but WATCHme will survive!
Thanks to your encouraging messages, I won’t let the WATCHme die.
See update #8
WATCHme is available here:
http://vivien-muller.fr/store/watchme
The WatchMe (Watchus cyclopus) is a newfound species, a (h)armless cyclops monster that was endemic to Vivien Muller’s office, east of France in the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia.
WatchMe has been selectively bred for months for various behaviors, cord management capabilities, and physical attributes.
It has no external ears and has very poor eyesight, however, it can be greatly improved by peculiar spectacles called « SmartWatch ».
The domestic WatchMe performs many roles for people, such as decorating a bedside, companionship, and charging a wearable technology.
A farmed WatchMe will be released at the end of year if a large adoption campaign succeeds.
WATCHme is a cute little charging stand for your smartwatch.
Dimensions:Author: Michael Potter
There are two types of rat baits: Non-toxic (natural) — to lure rats into traps and Rodenticide poison baits — to kill rodents. Here you'll find 5 best rat and mouse poisons from $11 to $65.
After eating rodents die within from several hours to several weeks: mice may die within a day. But the population of rats die more slowly, within a week or two, because they are larger than mice. Remember — poison baits are toxic and can |
over the citizen. No such regime should be enacted unless those privacy and civil liberties concerns are sufficiently addressed,” it said.
The committee also looked at the fact that Australian users’ metadata can be accessed by a huge number of federal and state government agencies, simply by filling out a form, and without any need for a warrant. This happened almost 300,000 times in 2011-12, with access granted to bodies as varied as the tax office and the RSPCA.
The committee recommended such warrantless access should be reined in.
It said the attorney general’s department should review “the threshold for access to telecommunications data” and that this review “should focus on reducing the number of agencies able to access telecommunications data by using gravity of conduct which may be investigated utilising telecommunications data as the threshold on which access is allowed”.
In a sharply-worded criticism, the committee said one reason it had been difficult to make clear recommendations about the data retention proposal was that the government had been so unclear about exactly what it had in mind.
“This lack of information from the attorney general and her department had two major consequences. First, it meant that submitters to the inquiry could not be sure as to what they were being asked to comment on. Second, as the committee was not sure of the exact nature of what the attorney general and her department was proposing it was seriously hampered in the conduct of the inquiry and the process of obtaining evidence from witnesses,” the committee wrote.
The shadow attorney general, Senator George Brandis, has said previously that “the public would accept a level of mandatory data retention in relation to telecommunications”. He said: “They would accept the logic of a regime being technology-neutral and reaching the internet, but my political judgment is that there is no way the public wouldn't react very strongly against a proposal unless they were absolutely guaranteed that their internet browsing history or use would not be subject of the mandatory retention regime.''
The committee was chaired by Labor MP Anthony Byrne. Brandis was a member.
It did not deal directly with the recent revelations from Edward Snowden.
Dreyfus said “the recent events in Boston and London highlight the ongoing threat of terrorism and the need to ensure our intelligence agencies have the tools they need to keep Australians safe and secure”.
Greens communications spokesman Senator Scott Ludlam said the committee’s findings meant the government should immediately abandon the mandatory data retention plan.
He said he was worried they meant Asio might get more powers to hack the computer information of people it was investigating.* Akamai close to being acquired by Google - report
* Akamai a long-running subject of takeover rumors-analyst
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 12 (Reuters) - Shares of Akamai Technologies Inc jumped more than 11 percent following a report that it was close to being acquired by Google Inc.
Akamai, whose service improves the performance of websites, is nearing a deal with search giant Google, according to the late Wednesday report by technology blog Business Insider citing “multiple ad tech sources” who were not identified.
Representatives from Google and Akamai said the companies do not comment on rumors.
Akamai, whose shares closed Wednesday’s regular session down 57 percent from their 52-week high of $54.65, is a long-running subject of takeover rumors. Last week, there were reports that the company could be acquired by Verizon Communications or International Business Machines Corp, said Mark Kelleher, an analyst with Dougherty & Co.
“Ever since I can remember there’s been theories of who could come in” and acquire Akamai, he said.
Shares of Akamai rose more than 11 percent following the Google report, before trading up 9.1 percent at $25.45 in extended trading.WASHINGTON, March 15, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Using biofuels to help power jet engines reduces particle emissions in their exhaust by as much as 50 to 70 percent, in a new study conclusion that bodes well for airline economics and Earth's environment.
The findings are the result of a cooperative international research program led by NASA and involving agencies from Germany and Canada, and are detailed in a study published in the journal Nature.
NASA Logo. (PRNewsFoto/NASA) (PRNewsFoto/)
During flight tests in 2013 and 2014 near NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, data was collected on the effects of alternative fuels on engine performance, emissions and aircraft-generated contrails at altitudes flown by commercial airliners. The test series were part of the Alternative Fuel Effects on Contrails and Cruise Emissions Study, or ACCESS.
Contrails are produced by hot aircraft engine exhaust mixing with the cold air that is typical at cruise altitudes several miles above Earth's surface, and are composed primarily of water in the form of ice crystals.
Researchers are most interested in persistent contrails because they create long-lasting, and sometimes extensive, clouds that would not normally form in the atmosphere, and are believed to be a factor in influencing Earth's environment.
"Soot emissions also are a major driver of contrail properties and their formation," said Bruce Anderson, ACCESS project scientist at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. "As a result, the observed particle reductions we've measured during ACCESS should directly translate into reduced ice crystal concentrations in contrails, which in turn should help minimize their impact on Earth's environment."
That's important because contrails, and the cirrus clouds that evolve from them, have a larger impact on Earth's atmosphere than all the aviation-related carbon dioxide emissions since the first powered flight by the Wright brothers.
The tests involved flying NASA's workhorse DC-8 as high as 40,000 feet while its four engines burned a 50-50 blend of aviation fuel and a renewable alternative fuel of hydro processed esters and fatty acids produced from camelina plant oil. A trio of research aircraft took turns flying behind the DC-8 at distances ranging from 300 feet to more than 20 miles to take measurements on emissions and study contrail formation as the different fuels were burned.
"This was the first time we have quantified the amount of soot particles emitted by jet engines while burning a 50-50 blend of biofuel in flight," said Rich Moore, lead author of the Nature report.
The trailing aircraft included NASA's HU-25C Guardian jet based at Langley, a Falcon 20-E5 jet owned by the German Aerospace Center (DLR), and a CT-133 jet provided by the National Research Council of Canada.
"Measurements in the wake of aircraft require highly experienced crew members and proven measuring equipment, which DLR has built up over many years," said report co-author Hans Schlager of the DLR Institute of Atmospheric Physics. "Since 2000, the DLR Falcon has been used in numerous measurement campaigns to investigate the emissions and contrails of commercial airliners."
Researchers plan on continuing these studies to understand and demonstrate the potential benefits of replacing current fuels in aircraft with biofuels. It's NASA's goal to demonstrate biofuels on their proposed supersonic X-plane.
For more information about NASA's aeronautics research, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/aero
SOURCE NASA
Related Links
http://www.nasa.govEven before Justin Trudeau was sworn in as prime minister, political watchers were hard at work dissecting the Liberal platform and the 171 promises contained therein. Among them: a pledge that the 2015 election would be “the last federal election held under the first-past-the-post voting system.”
Less than two months into his new government’s term, electoral reform is already a major point of controversy — and not just because of strong opinions about different electoral systems. Rather, the electoral reform debate has become almost entirely fixated on one thing: whether any reform proposal can be legitimately implemented without a nationwide referendum being held to seek the approval of Canadians.
[np_storybar title=”Spencer McKay: No need for a referendum on electoral reform” link=”http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/spencer-mckay-no-need-for-a-referendum-on-electoral-reform”%5DAfter winning a healthy majority of seats under the current electoral system, many have questioned whether the Liberals will follow through on their promise to change how Canadians vote. When the government confirmed its intent to do away with Canada’s current first-past-the-post system, a chorus of critics arose to demand a national referendum on the issue. Yet both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Liberal House Leader Dominic LeBlanc have made the right choice by announcing that they are not planning to hold a referendum on the issue.
The fundamental rules of democracy — such as how we vote — require widespread agreement in order to be considered legitimate and thus the opposition parties are insisting that they get a say in any changes. Ironically, some of them would likely have a greater influence on the process if Canada used a system of proportional representation to elect parliamentarians.
Continue reading…
[/np_storybar]
So far, this debate has largely polarized into two camps: those who prefer the status quo and want a referendum on the presumption that any change can be defeated; and those who prefer some alternative system and fear a referendum would scuttle any chance for change. Both sides are more interested in getting the outcome they want and are merely using the question of a referendum as camouflage for predictable self-interest.
Yet a more principled view on electoral reform should separate the preference for a desired outcome with a respect for the proper process, in the same way that voters all have a vested interest in free and fair elections, even if most have a preference about which party wins. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation, for example, endorsed the single transferable vote proposal in the 2005 and 2009 British Columbia referenda. But we would never have endorsed such a change without a referendum, which reflects our belief that such a fundamental change requires the direct approval of the voting public.
Historical precedent weighs heavily in favour of a referendum, as no government in modern Canadian history has attempted to implement it without one — and electoral reform referenda in Prince Edward Island (2005), British Columbia (2005 and 2009) and Ontario (2007) were all defeated. But not all electoral reform referenda pan out this way. In New Zealand, for example, a 1992 referendum on electoral reform not only won, but won big, with the pro-reform side winning 84 per cent of the vote. Accordingly, reform advocates should not view a referendum as a death sentence for their cause, but as an opportunity to win new converts to the pro-reform side.
There is also the matter of the sheer vagueness of the Liberal promise. Even if we were to accept the argument that a vote for a political party is a clear endorsement of every single one of its policies, the 2015 Liberal promise on electoral reform is, to be charitable, quite unspecific. Electoral reform champions have seized on the list of possibilities (“review a wide variety of reforms, such as ranked ballots, proportional representation, mandatory voting and online voting”) — and simply asserted that a vote for the Liberals (and any other party that mentioned anything remotely similar) can therefore be translated as pre-emptive approval of whatever concrete proposal ultimately emerges. It is hard to envision any other policy area in which such an argument would stand up (“we’ll change the status quo on taxes”; “we will bring some form of change to health care”), never mind something as central to our democracy as how we count votes.
Indeed, pro-reformers who refuse to endorse the need for a referendum are left to confront a few awkward questions, such as: how is it that 39 per cent of the vote (for the Liberal party) in a supposedly unfair system can equal a clear mandate for such a fundamental change? Is arbitrarily tallying up the party votes on a policy-by-policy basis really a defensible way to measure support? How can one claim to want to make “every vote count,” while opposing the use of a mechanism that does exactly that? And why spend precious time and energy fighting the idea of a referendum, instead of preparing to win one by promoting the merits of reform?
The Trudeau government has a mandate to explore electoral reform. It does not have a mandate to impose anything it draws up without asking Canadians first. Principled reformers should concede the obvious, and make calls for a referendum on electoral reform unanimous.
National Post
Aaron Wudrick is the federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.CLOSE USA TODAY Sports' George Schroeder breaks down the five college football matchups to watch this week.
USC redshirt freshman quarterback Sam Darnold (Photo11: Richard Mackson, USA TODAY Sports)
USC and Oregon, who meet Saturday in Los Angeles (7 p.m. ET, ESPN), got off to fan-base-angst-inducing starts to the 2016 season, starts that put both of their head coaches on most-likely-to-be-fired lists.
Never mind that two of the Trojans' three losses and four of the Ducks' five losses came to currently ranked teams. These programs have created high expectations, and in the minds of many, those expectations better never be unmet.
The commonalities do not end there. Both teams' coaches rose to the head chair from the offensive coordinator seat at their current employers. And perhaps most important, they have track records that suggest they know what to do with the most important position on the field, quarterback.
USC is 4-1 since Helton tapped redshirt freshman Sam Darnold to replace initial starter Max Browne and effectively cool the coach's hot seat. Darnold's 16 touchdown passes since becoming the Trojans' starter are the fourth-most in the FBS, and his 9.3 yards per attempt as a starter places him among the nation's top dozen passers. He has a 6:1 TD-to-interception ratio.
National leaders in TD passes per attempt: Jake Browning (1:6.9), Logan Woodside (1:8.4), Baker Mayfield (1:8.8) and Sam Darnold (1:9.7) — The Football Four (@TheFootballFour) November 1, 2016
Helton says Darnold's lifelong desire to play for USC has made him a team player who roots for his teammates' success regardless of his role, and he refers to Darnold as an "old soul" who has handled his success with maturity.
His greatest improvement has come in two areas, Helton said. "One, just his distribution of the ball to different receivers. Usually with a young quarterback sometimes they get glued in on one guy, but one thing we're seeing right now is him taking what the defense gives him. You saw the other night he threw five touchdowns but they were to four different guys. And after watching the tape you came away saying, Wow, OK, he's really reading coverages, he's getting the ball to the right place, really out of 25 passes he threw he got fooled one time. Overall he's doing some great things.
"The other area that has improved is his understanding that even though he is an unbelievably competitive athlete, he's learning how to protect himself once he breaks out of the pocket and runs with the ball past the line of scrimmage and getting down. Being able to know where the first-down sticks are. He's a value to us now and starting to do that better."
Herbert and his predecessor as Oregon's starter, Dakota Prukop, have a history that dates to Herbert's early high school days, as Prukop was close friends and teammates of Herbert's brother Mitchell at Montana State. Herbert replaced Prukop during Oregon's loss Oct. 1 at Washington State and made his first start Oct. 8 in the Ducks' home loss vs. Washington.
Oregon freshman Justin Herbert (Photo11: Kelley L Cox, USA TODAY Sports)
Three weeks later Herbert, a freshman who was the last quarterback to enroll at Oregon this year, tied the Ducks' single-game passing yardage record with 489 in a win vs. Arizona State and was named the Pac-12 offensive player of the week. He has 10 touchdown passes in his past two games and, like Darnold, a 6:1 TD-to-INT ratio.
"His overall knowledge has been good," Helfrich said of Herbert. "The way that he has learned week to week has been impressive. He's very honest, and that's one thing we hammer with our quarterbacks is, if you don't know (an answer) and you fake it, that's worse. If you try to make up an answer, it's like going to the training room and your left knee hurts and saying, Hey, look at my right ankle.
"I think our players certainly believe 100% in Justin. It was just one of those things where we needed a boost and we were kind of contemplating that and it was best for our football team so we pulled the trigger."
USC and Oregon aren't the only FBS teams who are getting a boost from a quarterback who didn't start the season under center. Here are five more:
Will Worth, Navy
The Midshipmen entered the season expecting Tago Smith to be a worthy successor to Keenan Reynolds. A season-ending knee injury in Navy's opener, however, compelled Navy to turn to Worth.
Since then the senior has compiled the 10th-best passer rating in the FBS and had his best performance in an Oct. 22 win against Memphis, a game in which he threw just four passes, completing three. Two went for touchdowns and complemented his rushing effort, which featured 31 carries for 201 yards and three more TDs.
Danny Etling, LSU
You won't find his name among the nation's top 50 passers in any statistical category, but it's a testament to him that fans of the country's No. 14 team want him under center more than any other player on the Tigers roster. Though Etling is not the main reason LSU is 4-1 with Etling as its starter, the fact is that LSU is 4-1 with Etling as its starter.
Giovanni Rescigno, Rutgers
The Scarlet Knights turned to the redshirt sophomore as their starter for their Oct. 22 game vs. Minnesota, and he led them to their highest scoring output of the season. Rescigno's numbers didn't make any superlatives lists, but the respect he garners from teammates makes him a strong candidate to continue as Rutgers' signal caller.
Somewhat unexpectedly, redshirt sophomore Giovanni Rescigno has become a key figure for Rutgers football. (Photo11: Jesse Johnson, USA TODAY Sports)
Alex Hornibrook, Wisconsin
Hornibrook is different from others on this list because it was expected he would get significant playing time this season. And it's possible Hornibrook won't be the Badgers' starter in every game remaining on their schedule, but that's not necessarily an issue for him or his team.
Hornibrook, a redshirt freshman, has given way to senior Bart Houston in key situations in Wisconsin's past two games, but he's not sore about it. After giving Hornibrook every snap in the Badgers' first three Big Ten games, coach Paul Chryst is using both of his QBs now as the team makes a run for the Big Ten West title.
Maybe Hornibrook isn't ready to go it alone. But he's shown enough that the Badgers know they have a go-to guy now and for the future.
Jake Bentley, South Carolina
Bentley is the third quarterback to start for coach Will Muschamp in his first season with the Gamecocks, but he might be the last. South Carolina is 2-0 and has had its two highest-scoring games with Bentley starting.
Bentley, who is three weeks from his 19th birthday and graduated from high school in 2016 after his junior year, is the son of Gamecocks running backs coach Bobby Bentley and seems to have learned plenty from older brothers Chase and Shuler, who also were college quarterbacks.
Though he didn't take a snap in the Gamecocks' first six games, he's completed 69.6% of his passes in the past two with four touchdowns and no interceptions.
THIS WEEK'S 10 BEST GAMESGreater downtown is a combination of the traditional Loop, or central business district, and the adjoining Near North, West and South sides, collectively referred to by IDES as the “outer business district.”
Combined, those two areas added just under 16,000 jobs in the year ended March 31, rising 2.9 percent to a total of 557,635. That easily is the highest tally since at least 1991, when IDES changed its methodology on collection data, and almost certainly is a record.
Overall, downtown has added 78,000 jobs, up 16.3 percent, since the recession-era trough in 2010.
The downtown gains were strong enough, combined with lesser growth in the rest of Chicago proper, that the number of total jobs reported by employers in the city hit 1.126 million, the highest since the 1.142 million level set in 2001, just before the city and national economy crashed. The overall city jobs total was up 1.7 percent compared with the prior year.
In comparison, the total number of unemployment-insurance-covered, private-sector jobs in the six-county metro area grew 1.5 percent, to 3.433 million. Cook (including Chicago) and Will counties saw employment grow 2.1 percent, but other suburban counties notably lagged: DuPage was up just 0.4 percent, and Lake County employers actually reduced jobs by 115, according to IDES.
Recent national employment growth has been about 2 percent a year.
Related: U.S. adds most jobs in 10 months
The new figures are likely to fuel what has been a lively debate—started during last winter's mayoral campaign and continuing on and off since—over whether downtown now is strong enough to stand on its own and whether the city should shift resources to other areas and tap downtown with higher taxes.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel has trumpeted the flow of big corporate headquarters to the Loop—some like Kraft Heinz, Gogo and Motorola Solutions coming from the suburbs, but others such as Oscar Mayer and ConAgra from out of state.
At the same time, though, the mayor has declared that downtown will receive no additional tax-increment financing projects—even for needed infrastructure—and this fall he pushed a record $588 million property tax hike that mainly would come from the central area and adjoining neighborhoods.
There also are questions about how long the back-to-downtown trend will continue, though such things are occurring to one degree or another throughout the country.
Another political implication: While Gov. Bruce Rauner can say that Illinois needs pro-business tax reforms, Emanuel can say that his part of the state is doing pretty well without them.
Finally, a couple of cautions on the data. They don't include self-employment or public-sector jobs. The latest data are preliminary and subject to minor revision. And IDES emphasizes that the figures reflect moves, shifts and reporting changes by employers, and thus were “not designed as a time series.”
Nonetheless, this is a good, solid set of numbers that have been collected the same way for many years. And the trend is very clear. With gains like this, the boom in downtown residential and office construction is likely to continue.City To Tear Down Western-Belmont Overpass Next Year
By Chuck Sudo in News on Jun 10, 2014 9:40PM
The crumbling undercarriage of the Western Avenue viaduct. Photo Credit: Gabriel X Michael
The Western-Belmont overpass, an eyesore that long outlived its usefulness, will be completely demolished next year and replaced by a grade-level intersection.
That’s according to a plan released by the Chicago Department of Transportation Monday night, part of a larger overall project to improve the Western Avenue corridor from Jones Street, south of Diversey, to Waveland Avenue. The plan calls for widening sidewalks to 13 feet, planting trees, adding benches and bike racks and installing pedestrian countdown signals at intersections.
The teardown of the Western-Belmont overpass is the centerpiece of the project. It originally opened in 1962 as a way to help alleviate traffic to Riverview amusement park. Riverview would close a couple years later and the overpass wound up serving as a symbol of antiquated urban planning. As historian John R. Schmidt wrote last year:
In 1962 few people had complained about aesthetics. Once the overpass was no longer needed, critics discovered it was ugly. It blighted the neighborhood. Besides, the traffic lanes on the viaduct itself were too narrow. Demolition costs were high. So for decades, there’s been a death-watch at Western-Belmont—a death watch on a viaduct. How long before the thing would fall apart, and the city would be forced to tear it down? Now it looks like this is finally going to happen.
Tearing down the overpass will allow for three lanes of traffic on Western during morning and evening rush hour commutes, but some residents were skeptical demolishing the structure would help ease the traffic flow. The overall construction project is expected to take up to two years to complete, with the overpass slated for demolition next spring and expected to last 4-6 months. Traffic on Western will be reduced to one lane on Western in each direction during that span.This is hardly surprising, but still. The Baltic Business News is reporting that Indrek Neivelt, chairperson of the Estonian Development Fund is saying that Estonia isn’t competitive with its current cost base, and the only option that faces the country is lowering prices and cutting salaries.
“Our main problem after this consumption party is competitiveness. The money has been devalued in many export markets. With our expense base and prices we are no longer competitive. Polish food is going to Lithuania and it’ll be here soon. Soon we might not be able to produce food competitively,†Neivelt said. “Today is the situation that shopping in the UK is cheaper, sitting into the taxi is cheaper than in Tallinn, eating out is cheaper than in Tallinn – with our prices we aren’t competitive,â€
Estonian PM Andrus Ansip also acknowledged in a press conference today that one of the reasons for the deterioration of the current crisis in the country is that some the governments in some export markets such as Ukraine, Russia, Sweden and UK had gone for allowing their currencies to weaken against the euro.
The number of unemployed is also on the rise in Estonia, and increased by 4155 or 15.8 pct in December month on month, according to the local Labour Market Board. Compared to December 2007 the unemployment rate has risen by 115.3 pct.
And local stock market analyst Tõnis Oja has come to the conclusion that the Baltic economic crisis may have affected Sweden more even than the Baltics themselves. Oja wrote in the magazine Äripäev that concerns that Swedish banks were overexposed on the Baltic loan and real estate market not only caused the banks’ share prices to plummet, but it was also partly responsible for the value of the Swedish krona falling from 1.67 SEK per Estonian kroon in the summer to 1.43 kroons (and by an equivalent percentage against the euro).Impossible as it seems to me, I will have yet another homeschool graduate in a little over a year! My daughter M, 16, has only a few more classes that she requires in order to wrap up her high school requirements. Because she’s focused more on mandatory classes, she has a few electives to fill the gaps. Here are some ideas for electives your homeschooled teen will love!
I received a membership in order to try out this product, and all opinions are those of myself and/or the student who participated in trying it out. We only share products that we believe you’ll enjoy as much as we do, and we are never required to offer a positive review.
Phys Ed.Ideas
Fencing.
If you teen needs physical education classes to complete a diploma, fencing is one that appeals to almost everyone.
Archery.
Like fencing, archery is great physical exercise and loads of fun. Relatively recent hit books and movies brought archery back into focus in a big way. The joy of it is that you can do it almost anywhere as long as you aren’t aiming at living creatures!
Hip Hop.
If even our little nearest town of 800 people offers hip hop classes, then certainly most places will. It’s a great workout, looks super cool, and requires a lot of physical discipline.
Volunteerism
In our province, graduates must complete a minimum of 40 hours of volunteer service. If soup kitchens don’t appeal (the most common choice), here are a couple of other ideas that might even tie into future careers.
Become a docent.
Most museums, whether art or animal based, offer a free docent course and after completing the training your teen can guide visitors around, talking about their passions. My oldest son looked into the docent course offered by a nature-based museum specializing in creatures indigenous to the area we lived in at the time. What a wonderful idea for a teen with a passion for animals!
Rehabilitate.
SPCAs, animal shelters, and many other foster animal arrangements such as horse rescue operations welcome someone to come in and help. These places are run on a tiny budget and often with nowhere near enough hands to pet, feed, and groom these poor creatures.
Remember our elders.
Many seniors residences have clients with no family or visitors. A few hours a week spent playing cards, reading, or just listening could make an enormous difference in the life of an older resident.
Art and Music.
Spend time behind the velvet curtains.
When I was a teen, I volunteered once a week at the local theater as a coat check girl. Once everyone was in, I got free access to every play that was performed. Some of my friends volunteered at the same place but as ushers or washroom attendants. It’s a great way to gain exposure to a wide variety of performances from orchestra to modern for free, and enough understanding of the workings of these performances to be a full credit by the end of the year.
Art doesn’t have to take you out of the house.
There are so many amazing online art classes out there! You’re sure to hit on one that appeals to your teen’s style. Our new favorite is Sparketh Online Art Lessons, a subscription-based online art course that gives you access to every single lesson they offer, with a wide variety of styles and media.
Since teaching art is not my specialty unless you really want to draw a stick man or a cartoon bunny bottom, I love that it takes the teaching out of my hands and guides my daughter to new levels of artistic achievement!Every detailed tutorial is divided into 4 or 5 mini video lessons that take students step by step through the class.
M,16, has been working on a book this term. She branched out and began drawing the worlds, characters, and sewing the clothing styles. She has been particularly delighted with some of the watercolor and manga tutorials, since her style is, I would say, a very distinctive mix of both.
Once thing I liked was that it didn’t suck up all of our very limited bandwidth. The videos were as clear and easy to view at a lower setting as they would be in HD. That meant that we could check out multiple tutorials at a time when we found ourselves on an artistic rabbit trail! The classes themselves were launched in July 2015 and have been an online hit ever since.
Another plus, in my opinion, is that the tutors themselves are probably only about college level and talk to the camera like they would to any friend. It makes the classes very relatable.
M was delighted to find tutorials for a few things that had been a challenge for her: draping a scarf on a character’s neck, for example, is a lot trickier than you’d think, but the tutorial broke it down and made it really simple.
I think the very fact that there is such a wide variety of instructors and art styles is a huge bonus. It took M out of her comfort zone a few times simply because a tutorial caught her interest and she decided to give it a whirl. A lot of art courses, especially online art classes for teens, seem to narrow the topics and styles down to one individual style and media per course; with Sparketh we had so much variety that we could surf around and choose something that looked like fun on that particular day.
Sparketh Online Art Lessons offers a free 30 day free trial so you and your kids can check it out. They have beginner, intermediate, and advanced classes as well as basics for each media, and I would say that students from early elementary right on up to adult will find things to try and enjoy. A month of free art lessons will give you a chance to see, hands-on, whether it’s right for you and I would encourage you to take advantage of it!
You can also find Sparketh on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. Check out all the extras they share!
What suggestions can you offer from your experience for electives your homeschooled teen will love?
SaveGlaciers are commonly thought to work like a belt sander. As they move over the land they scrape off everything -- vegetation, soil, and even the top layer of bedrock. So scientists were greatly surprised to discover an ancient tundra landscape preserved under the Greenland Ice Sheet, below two miles of ice.
"We found organic soil that has been frozen to the bottom of the ice sheet for 2.7 million years," said University of Vermont geologist Paul Bierman -- providing strong evidence that the Greenland Ice Sheet has persisted much longer than previously known, enduring through many past periods of global warming.
He led an international team of scientists that reported their discovery on April 17 in the journal Science.
Antique landscapes
Greenland is a place of great interest to scientists and policymakers since the future stability of its huge ice sheet -- the size of Alaska, and second only to Antarctica -- will have a fundamental influence on how fast and high global sea levels rise from human-caused climate change.
"The ancient soil under the Greenland ice sheet helps to unravel an important mystery surrounding climate change," said Dylan Rood a co-author on the new study from the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre and the University of California, Santa Barbara, "how did big ice sheets melt and grow in response to changes in temperature?"
The new discovery indicates that even during the warmest periods since the ice sheet formed, the center of Greenland remained stable; "it's likely that it did not fully melt at any time," Vermont's Bierman said. This allowed a tundra landscape to be locked away, unmodified, under ice through millions of years of global warming and cooling.
"The traditional knowledge about glaciers is that they are very powerful agents of erosion and can effectively strip a landscape clean," said study co-author Lee Corbett, a UVM graduate student who prepared the silty ice samples for analysis. Instead, "we demonstrate that the Greenland Ice Sheet is not acting as an agent of erosion; in fact, at it's center, it has performed incredibly little erosion since its inception almost three million years ago."
Rather than scraping and sculpting the landscape, the ice sheet has been frozen to the ground, "a refrigerator that's preserved this antique landscape," Bierman said.
Cosmic signal
The scientists tested seventeen "dirty ice" samples from the bottommost forty feet of the 10,019-foot GISP2 ice core extracted from Summit, Greenland, in 1993. "Over twenty years, only a few people had looked hard at the sediments from the bottom of the core," Bierman said. From this sediment, he and a team at the University of Vermont's Cosmogenic Nuclide Laboratory extracted a rare form of the element beryllium, an isotope called beryllium-10. Formed by cosmic rays, it falls from the sky and sticks to rock and soil. The longer soil is exposed at Earth's surface, the more beryllium-10 it accumulates. Measuring how much is in soil or a rock gives geologists a kind of exposure clock.
The researchers expected to only find soil eroded from glacier-scoured bedrock in the sediment at the bottom of the ice core. "So we thought we were going looking for a needle in haystack," Bierman said. They planned to work diligently to find vanishingly small amounts of the beryllium -- since the landscape under the ice sheet would have not been exposed to the sky. "It turned out that we found an elephant in a haystack," he said; the silt had very high concentrations of the isotope when the team measured it on a particle accelerator at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
"On a global basis, we only find these sorts of beryllium concentrations in soils that have developed over hundreds of thousands to millions of years," said Joseph Graly, who analyzed the beryllium data while at the University of Vermont.
The new research, supported by funding from the National Science Foundation, shows that "the soil had been stable and exposed at the surface for somewhere between 200,000 and one million years before being covered by ice," notes Ben Crosby, a member of the research team from Idaho State University.
To help interpret these unexpected findings, the team also measured nitrogen and carbon that could have been left by plant material in the core sample. "The fact that measurable amounts of organic material were found in the silty ice indicates that soil must have been present under the ice," said co-author Andrea Lini at the University of Vermont -- and its composition suggests that the pre-glacial landscape may have been a partially forested tundra.
"Greenland really was green! However, it was millions of years ago," said Rood, "Greenland looked like the green Alaskan tundra, before it was covered by the second largest body of ice on Earth." To confirm their findings about this ancient landscape, the researchers also measured beryllium levels in a modern permafrost tundra soil on the North Slope of Alaska. "The values were very similar," said Bierman, "which made us more confident that what we found under Greenland was tundra soil."
Future tense
Many geologists are seeking a long-term view of the history of the Greenland Ice Sheet, including how it moves and has shaped the landscape beneath it -- with an eye toward better understanding its future behavior. It's 656,000 square miles of ice, containing enough water, if fully melted, to raise global sea levels twenty-three feet -- "yet we have very little information about what is happening at the bed with regards to erosion and landscape formation," said Corbett.
What is clear, however, from an abundance of worldwide indicators, is that global temperatures are on a path to be "far warmer than the warmest interglacials in millions of years," said Bierman. "There is a 2.7-million-year-old soil sitting under Greenland. The ice sheet on top of it has not disappeared in the time in which humans became a species. But if we keep on our current trajectory, the ice sheet will not survive. |
potential whereabouts ("possibly local donut shops," they added hopefully).
But then, on Monday, the unexpected happened.
"This evening at approximately 6:30 pm Michael Zaydel made good on his promise to turn himself in to RTPD for his outstanding warrants," police posted. "He walked in on his own, and not only did he bring the donuts, he brought one bagel!"
The treats could not save him from a jail cell, however.
The department told NPR that Zaydel was sentenced to serve time in county jail for 39 days — with an additional 30 possible if he fails to pay his court fees.One skill that every nurse should have in their arsenal is being able to start an IV for any patient, at any time.
Here’s a master list of compiled knowledge and tips that you can use to become a genuine vein whisperer:
Be comfortable & relax before you start
This applies to everyone from EMTs, to paramedics, doctors, and nurses working in any type of setting. It’s the same in a calm hospital setting as it is in the back of a bouncing ambulance, helicopter, or otherwise on the fly.
Some say to sit, some say to raise the bed up to your height and stand (if you can). It’s all about your preference, so you do you. You need to be comfortable to spend some time and be able to be dexterous in that position.
Take a deep breath and relax. Talk to your patient to make it less stressful and tense for the both of you. If you’re nervous and shaking you’ve already lost the battle before you’ve even uncapped the needle. So keep calm and stick on.
Talk to your patient
Besides trying to calm and reassure your patient who’s about to have a needle in their arm, this is a good opportunity to discuss previous IV sites.
Sometimes patients know where they have good veins, and where others have tried and failed. It can’t hurt to get more info.
Wear tight gloves
Some say just tear the tip off the glove, but that’s really not necessary, not to mention dangerous. Just wear tight gloves and you’ll be alright (but not so tight that you lose feeling in your fingers).
If you absolutely have to feel without gloves, at least put some on after you’ve located a vein before you play with needles.
Go by feel
Veins that you can feel are nice and spongy are typically better veins to throw an IV in. They are likely going to be sturdier than superficial ones that you can see but cannot really feel.
Go by sight
But hey, this world ain’t perfect, and sometimes you can’t feel a thing. In this instance, you may be able to place an IV by seeing a smaller superficial vein. The good news with this method is that your target is in plain sight, and should be relatively easy to aim at. Just know that it’s probably going to be a very shallow vein, and its chances of blowing are probably higher.
Choose the right size IV catheter for the vein
Don’t try to shove an 18 in some little old lady with a tiny superficial hand vein that you can’t even feel, but can barely see through her paper thin skin. You need to select an IV gauge that is appropriate for the vein that will be accommodating it. The catheter should always be smaller than the vein you’re inserting it into, otherwise, you’re going to blow it. And just FYI, 22’s are not the end of the world.
Aim shallow before going deep
Putting a needle into a vein is kind of like cutting hair… you can always take it further, but you can’t always go back. It’s better to aim shallow and take a little longer to hit the vein than it is to go in at too deep of an angle and end up going right through and blowing it.
Always start shallow, and slowly keep going deeper until you strike gold. Also keep in mind that if you can see a vein, then it’s not all that deep.
Bevel down?
Typically you should go in bevel up, but there is such a technique as going bevel down. The rationale is that for shallower veins where you keep puncturing all the way through, you need to reverse the bevel angle to avoid it.
Know the anatomy
This comes with practice and experience but you will begin to learn where to look for common veins. Sometimes finding veins is easy, but most often it isn’t, so knowing exactly where to start looking is helpful.
Best Places to Find a Vein for an IV Education [637d34f5d600587b3557f35a1670a1fbd69d5c20_1_690x444] I’ve been starting IVs for years, and my buddy and I probably started about 1000 IVs in 2016. At this point, I can pretty much walk into a room and immediately know where to look for veins. Where, you ask? Time for an anatomy lesson! Forearms Forearms are usually the best places for an IV. The patient can’t bend anything without breaking something first, so your IV pump will love you. Here are a few usual vein hiding spots: With a supine …
Anchor the vein
Pull the skin taut around the vein in question so the bugger doesn’t move or “roll” on you. If you need to re-evaluate your position once you’ve stuck, ease up on your grip and see where the vein is in reference to the needle. Then pull tight again and keep going.
I find that holding traction works best when you take your non-sticking hand and with your thumb and index finger, hold each end of the vein down and push them away from each other to stretch it out and hold it in place. Plan to stick in between the two fingers along the stretched piece of vein.
Advance the tip of the IV slightly after the flash
When you get in the vein, you will have a little bit of blood but the needle is slightly ahead of the catheter. You should insert another few millimeters of the needle in before attempting to slide the catheter in so that it too is in the vein with the needle. Otherwise, you risk blowing the vein, or it not threading.
Pop the tourniquet immediately after the flash
Better yet, if you can avoid tourniquets all together, then that’s great. But for most people, you’ll need to put the tourniquet on to see anything. The instant you have a flash of blood in your IV chamber, you need to get rid of the pressure. The longer that stays, the higher the chance of the vein blowing under the stress.
Use a BP cuff as a tourniquet
If you work in an area with vital monitors on the walls, place the BP cuff on the arm and hit the “venipuncture” setting on the monitor. Most patients agree this is a much more comfortable tourniquet, and it’s better at making veins pop up.
If you don’t have automatic BP machines with a venipuncture setting, you can still use a manual cuff and set the pressure to around the patient’s diastolic BP, which is usually around 55-65mmHg.
Chloraprep and alcohol swabs
Chloraprep and alcohol really piss veins off. It makes them irritated and they dilate which is perfect for you to strike!
Warm compress
Peripheral veins shrink when people are cold because the blood leaves the periphery and returns to the core. Warm the arms with blankets, compresses, k-pads, whatever you have, and you will get bigger better veins to poke.
Tapping
Tapping is a polite way of saying you’re striking the patient gently on the skin over the veins. It will trigger inflammation in the area and make the veins pop up. You probably shouldn’t try this on patients who are pissed off, or confused though.
Gravity
Let the arm hang off the bed for a while, and the blood will pool and expand the veins. Whenever possible make sure the arm is below the heart level… gravity is your good buddy.
Fist pump
Tell the patient to make a tight fist, then relax, and repeat a couple of times in quick succession. The reason for this is twofold. One, you will encourage more blood flow to the area with some muscle flexion, and two, you will be able to differentiate between a vein (which shouldn’t change much in feeling during this action) vs. something else like a muscle, tendon, ligament, or bone (which will probably change in feeling quite a bit during this action).
Avoid valves & bifurcations
Valves make it damn near impossible to thread an IV thru. You can use floating techniques but it’s probably best to avoid the issue if you can. Look for bifurcations (i.e. where veins join together - a good probability of a valve there), and “knots” on the vein that you can see and feel.
You can also run your finger up the vein, pushing the blood out on the way back towards the patient while holding down pressure on a distal piece of the vein so it can’t refill with blood. Where the blood flows back to and stops, you know there lies a valve.
But if you get good at floating in IVs, valves aren’t so scary Check out this article and video on valves, How to Test a Vein for Valves.
Navigating IVs through tortuous veins
Sometimes you find that you have great blood return because you’re in the vein, but you just can’t thread the catheter in all the way. If the vein is twisty and tortuous, you can try rolling the catheter from side to side while simultaneously pushing and pulling it in and out. This can sometimes help you get the catheter around some of the twists and turns in the veins if they’re not nice and straight.
Ultrasound and AccuVein
These are not typical tools for IV starts but they may come in handy for the ultra-hard sticks. Technology is amazing, and these tools can make an otherwise near impossible stick fairly easy as they will illuminate your target.
IV Floating techniques
If you find that you are unable to fully advance the catheter, odds are you’ve run into a valve, or the vein turned. Try twisting/rolling the catheter if it’s curvy, but if it is straight, back up just a bit, and try to float it. There are two forms of floating.
One involves slowly and gently pushing on the flush as you are threading the catheter in. This can help thread IVs that are just not going in without a good bit of force. You should only be doing this if you have already gotten a flash and blood return because otherwise, you’re not in the vein. So step one, get the IV in the vein and get your beautiful blood return. Then connect your flush and pull back making sure you still get good blood return. At this point, start gently pushing saline in, while slowly advancing the catheter until it is fully inserted to the hub. This is my favorite method of floating, and I’ve had 100% success with it.
The other method is quite the opposite and involves pulling back on the flush until you get good blood return and maintaining that suction pressure as you advance the catheter forward. This is done to keep a valve “open,” so that you can thread a catheter through it. Some people swear by this method, but I prefer the first method.
Practice, practice, practice
Get to know who is good at placing IVs where you work at and every time someone needs an IV go with that person to start it. Watch a few, then try a few, and with more and more experience you will see yourself rise to become the next IV boss.
More Advanced IV Tips & Tricks:
Tourniquet etiquette
One of the biggest mistakes I see people make is that they have a tourniquet on tight as hell, and they leave that sucker on throughout the entire process. This is the best way to make a vein blow.
The goal should always be to have the least amount of pressure in the vein as possible. If you don’t even have to use a tourniquet, that’s great! Sometimes you can put one on very loose, just enough to see some veins.
In all situations, you want to get rid of the tourniquet IMMEDIATELY once you see a flash of blood start to fill up your chamber. The longer you have the tourniquet on, the pressure in the vein is going to keep rising, and once you poke a hole in the vein you’ve significantly weakened its structure.
TLDR; Use a tourniquet only when necessary, keep it as loose as possible, and remove it ASAP once you are in the vein.
Valves
If you’ve managed to get into the vein and not blow it from tourniquet pressure, the second most likely reason you’ll blow a vein is due to valves.
Check out the figure above. Our veins have valves all along them to prevent the back-flow of blood and keep it moving towards the heart. Think of them as little french doors that open every time your heart beats to allow blood to go through, and then close every time there is a pause so that gravity or other forces doesn’t pull the blood back away from the heart.
If the valves are open, you can advance a catheter through them rather easily, but if they’re closed… not so much. By trying to force something through a closed valve, you are going to rupture it, and your vein is going to explode.
How can I avoid valves altogether?
There are some things you can do to avoid valves or get through them. First, you should always test the vein to see if it has valves in the area you are trying to stick. The fastest way to find a valve is to assume that any visible or palpable “knots” along a vein will be a valve and to look for bifurcations where veins come together or branch apart. All these spots are common valve areas. But if you’re not sure, here’s a reliable method for finding sneaky valves.
Start by holding distal pressure with your finger below where you’re going to place the IV, and then with the other hand, use another finger to press and push the blood proximal to the patient from where you are still holding distal pressure. Basically, you’re trying to push the blood out of a piece of the vein without letting it refill with blood.
Now without releasing the finger holding distal pressure, release the second (proximal) finger that you pushed the blood out with, and you should see the blood flow back until it stops somewhere. Wherever it stops flowing, you know there’s a valve there, because the valve stopped it from going further back. If the entire vein puffs back up with blood all the way back to your finger still holding distal pressure, then you should be free of valves in that entire region of the vein that you tested.
You only need about 1.5 inches of valve free vein (just look at your catheter), so this is your best bet to not have to worry about valves. It’s kinda hard to explain in writing, so please check out this instructional video below for a better understanding of how to locate valves.
How can I navigate through valves?
Sometimes you don’t have the option to avoid valves altogether and you have to go through them. It’s rare, but it happens. I remember a guy who had a single good vein, but every inch or so there was a valve. In this case, we had no choice but to get the catheter through the valves.
How do you do that? You float it! Floating in an IV is super fun once you’re good at it. Firstly, you need to get the tip of the catheter into the vein and establish a good back-flow of blood. Once you’ve got the tip of the catheter in, you need to advance it just a couple of millimeters further so that the entire catheter tip is in the vein, instead of just the tip of the bevel.
Next, you can slowly start advancing your catheter (not needle… never needle) until you start to feel the slightest bit of resistance. At this point, you’re poking a valve, so STOP ADVANCING THE CATHETER. Back up just a bit from where you felt resistance, and connect your flush.
Start pulling back to get blood return in your flush as you would if you had just placed an IV (despite the fact that half of your catheter might not be in the vein yet… that’s okay). Once you have blood return, start slowing pushing saline. This pressure from the saline flush will open the valve, and while continuing to slowly push saline, you can simultaneously wiggle and advance the catheter through the valve.
Miscellaneous Pro Tips
Remember IV catheters have a bevel
You could do everything else right, but if you start to thread a catheter before you have the entire bevel in the vein, you can blow it. You always need an extra couple of millimeters more than when you first get a flash of blood. The first part of the bevel might be in, but if you start threading before you get the rest of it, the sharp jagged edge of the bevel can tear the vein wall, and that sucker is gonna explode.
Never advance the needle further than necessary
This might seem obvious to most, but you only have to insert the metal needle far enough to get the entire bevel of the catheter into the vein, that’s all. The further you insert the metal needle, the higher the chance that you’ll accidentally pierce through the vein. The plastic catheter is softer and is the only thing you should be threading into the vein.
Tight skin saves IVs
With older patients especially, loose skin can make it hard to advance a catheter. Always hold the skin taught when advancing your catheter, or it will scrunch up and likely tear something… and it’s probably going to be the vein you just stuck.
Wiggle Power
Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle. You don’t have to sing Jason Derulo and Snoop Dogg (we do), but you should twist, twirl, & roll the catheter as you’re advancing it while floating, or if the vein is a little tortuous, or if you’re just being cautious. This helps the catheter navigate through little turns, bumps, or other obstacles in the vein.
Shallow First!
Once again, this may be super obvious, but always start shallow with your approach angle and gradually go deeper. The vein might only be a few millimeters tall, and if your approach angle is too steep, you could go right through it and blow it.
I’ve read articles (obviously written by noobs) that say 15 degrees minimum, all the way up to 45 freaking degrees. That’s insane! I’d say 15 degrees max for an initial approach angle, but probably even less most of the time. Just remember, you can always go deeper, but you can’t undo a punctured vein because you started out too deep.
Buddy System
IV buddies are seriously underrated. Going into a room with a colleague takes the pressure off of just you and can help you relax. Plus, two sets of eyes makes finding a good vein easier and faster. Sometimes you need all your focus to just stick the vein, and have the other person help attach the flush, hold skin, help float the IV, reassure the patient, etc. IV starts are way easier with two people than by yourself.I was feeling pretty good last Saturday night.
To have come back from 1-0 down with 10 men at a club in such good form as MK Dons was a good effort which spoke volumes for the character in the side, especially as we haven't won an FA Cup game in 11 years! Then at 8.30 on Sunday morning I received a text from Phil Beard, QPR's chief executive, and I knew it was all over. The hardest 22 months of my career, but also the most rewarding, had come to an end.
Phil's text only said that the owners had been talking overnight, and could he come over and see me, but I knew. There had been a bit of chatter on Twitter and I had heard rumours, so the writing was on the wall, I just didn't realise it was in such big letters. I'd still been putting in bids for players on the eve of the FA Cup tie and I thought I'd get a bit more time. I'd fulfilled my remit, to get to the transfer window outside the bottom three, and was confident I'd get Alex and Nedum Onuoha in to fix our problems at central defence.
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Only six weeks ago I talked with the board and we said it would be a difficult period until January because of the opposition we had, but then we had a winnable run of fixtures which, with the team strengthened, would provide the opportunity to move up the table. It is not as if we had been playing badly. We've been undone by individual errors. I still feel we have played some fabulous football and in those last eight games, other than against Manchester United, we could have had so many more points. Only those around the club realise what I've had to contend with – at least until my book comes out. But I'm not going to whinge today, it'll only give ammunition to all those columnists who like to have a dig at me.
I phoned him and said, "come over". It was difficult for him, he's only been at the club a few months. I was disappointed [owner] Tony Fernandes didn't tell me to my face, but he's all over the world and it's difficult for him. I don't feel any animosity like I did at Sheffield United. I felt the circumstances of leaving there were unjust and there was bad feeling when I left, but I don't feel like that here. I don't bear any malice towards Tony or [vice-chairman] Amit Bhatia. When you put that money into a club you are bound to want your own manager. I just don't fit in with the mould of a Premier League manager. I treat the club's money as if it were my own and I resent paying over the odds.
I just said to Phil straight away: "Don't worry, pal, it's not your fault. I think it's wrong, I feel I've done all the hard work and now someone else is going to get the benefit, but I'm bound to feel like that." He was as good as he could be in the circumstances. We had a couple of hours talking about things and he agreed to delay the announcement until after the FA Cup draw so I could tell the rest of my family. That was handy as I couldn't get hold of [my eldest son] James till the afternoon.
After Phil left I called Mick Jones, my assistant, and asked him to meet me at the training ground. I told him there, but he'd already guessed. I then phoned Keith Curle, my coach. He was surprised. He felt we had a great chance of moving up the table. We cleared out the office – I've never seen so much junk. It's a bit like moving house, though some of it pre-dated me. Given the turnover at QPR before I got there, some stuff could have been from three or four managers back.
The news broke early evening and then the phone began to ring. I just let it take messages. There were lots from managers, they know it could be them next.
Monday I just spent time with the family, letting it all sink in, and replied to some of the calls. The players were off so I couldn't say goodbye to them until Tuesday. Then I went to the training ground and gathered them all together. I told them I'd never forget last year, that winning the Championship was one of the most fantastic moments in my life. I said this season with a bit of luck we'd be in the top half of the Premier League. Finally I said, 'Thank you lads, for so much enjoyment', then I headed west, into the sunset, literally since I then drove to Cornwall.
2. Email support reduced my wife to tears
My first thought after Phil came round was always to get back to Cornwall to reflect on the last 22 months. When I said last week that I had done 10 years' work in less than two, I think everyone associated with the club will understand why I used those words.
Crystal Palace was special for me, but QPR topped the lot. If it turns out to be my last job I couldn't be prouder of managing such a fantastic club with such loyal fans. When I have left clubs in the past, you expect a handful of touching letters. This time I've had more than 2,400 emails, and to a one you are all supportive in thinking we would have stayed up this year, which was great to know.
The first night in Cornwall, Sharon was a wreck, crying her eyes out. I thought at first she was re-watching the last episode of Downton Abbey, but she was reading the emails. You know about my IT prowess, but I would like everyone to know that Sharon is going to reply to every one using my words. It will take a while, but I do seem to have a lot of time on my hands at the moment. Having read every message, I couldn't believe all the stories so many people told, they were simply quite amazing. It struck home once again how much football clubs mean to people. I would like to say to the fans, thanks for everything.
My old secretary from Crystal Palace, Chris, was among those who rang (not so "old", or she'll bollock me!) When I think back I've had some fantastic secretaries who have had to put up with a lot, and now I've left Caroline, who's also been a complete superstar. It seems I'm thanking people, so why not add Mick, my football wife, and Curley, my naughty son, who've both been fantastic and I couldn't have done it without them. I know it sounds like I'm saying goodbye to everything but I honestly don't know where my future lies at the moment because my world has been turned upside down momentarily, but I'm sure it will right itself for next week's column. I do hope I don't get the sack from this now as well!
It is disappointing to have another crack at the top flight ended prematurely, but football's not just about the Premier League, wonderful as it is. When I got to the top flight with Notts County, I turned a move to Chelsea down because I wanted to stay loyal to the group of players who had pleaded with me to stay to give them a chance. It would have been easy to take the money, and I'm sure I could have stayed in the top flight with Chelsea. My career could have been very different. But I've never taken the easy way out and, though I've always done some strange things with my career, when I look back I don't have many regrets. That said, I do envy Mark Hughes. I have never taken over a club that just needs the icing putting on the cake. I've always had to scrap for the ingredients to make the cake in the first place. Mark has taken over a fabulous club with the cake already made, he just has to put the icing on. With the fixtures coming up it is a great time to take over.
3. Cheesed off after long walk at the Cheesewring
To blow the cobwebs away down in Cornwall, we all went out for a walk with the dogs on Bodmin Moor. We bumped into some ponies and went to Minions and the Cheesewring, an ancient heritage and mining site on the south-east tip of the moor. It was a fabulous walk, but about a mile after we left, Sharon said: "Have you got the lead, Will?" There was a long pause, then he said, "I put it down at the Cheesewring". Back we went.
We went into Tavistock and, while parking the car, Sharon overheard two elderly ladies who were 10p short for the meter. I walked over and gave them 10p. I've never heard two women squeal so much, you'd think they'd won the pools. We then came back to our car 20 minutes late with no sign of a traffic warden anywhere. It was quite a change after being in London. Last week Sharon got a ticket for being three minutes over time in Richmond. They are sad, aren't they? You don't get that in Devon and Cornwall.
We finished off with a cream tea in the local post office-cum-café. I hadn't had one for ages and I'm still not sure whether the cream or jam is supposed to go on first. In the circumstances I thought I could give the Dukan diet a miss. Talking of which, I had to laugh at Sky's coverage on Sunday night. They sent a poor old reporter to hang around Loftus Road but there was obviously no one around so they dragged three blokes out of the Springbok pub nearby. They were all slightly inebriated and one said: "Warnock, he lost four stone and he was never the same." I felt like texting Sky, saying: "Surely you can get someone better than that?" Never mind me losing four stone, they looked like they could each lose four stone and more.
4. Palace coup made me and Wills jump for joy
Tuesday night I enjoyed watching Palace's Carling Cup semi-final win over Cardiff. While I think Malky Mackay is a brilliant manager, Will and I couldn't help but jump up when Palace scored. I made a lot of friends at Palace, and I was thinking in particular about my mate Justin, a top financial wizard who is an absolutely bonkers Palace fan. After the times they've had over the last few years, it seems such a special time for them, although everyone knows the tie is far from over. It was good for me and William to be able to forget about events at QPR for a night. It is difficult for kids when your Dad is a bit high-profile and he gets the sack. You don't feel like it affects them but it does in their own world. I'm sure he'll come through it and be stronger for it.
5. Here's to you, Mr Robinson
Today I'm going to watch Plymouth v Burton. Paul Peschisolido, who played for me at Sheffield United, is Burton manager and Ben Robinson is chairman, the same chairman who was there when I was manager in 1980. He's an amazing man, who always backs his managers. I can't remember how many times he supported Nigel Clough through bad times, and Pesci when he had a poor run-in at the end of last season. Now Burton are in the play-off places. I'm pleased for Ben, he's put his whole life into the club and it'll be nice to catch up with him today.
6. Losing little Ellie puts it all into perspective
At the end of the day, football is a game and I've had the chance to live my dream. For some time I've supported a charity in Looe called Ellie's Haven. Last week Ellie lost her battle against a rare genetic illness which meant she needed round-the-clock care. She was six. She never complained and her mum and dad were devoted to her, so let's get things in perspective. The charity, which is seeking to raise funds to create a holiday retreat in Cornwall for children with long-term illnesses continues. Go to: www.ellies-haven.org.uk
Keep up to date with all the latest news with expert comment and analysis from our award-winning writersThe government’s anti-corruption tsar, Eric Pickles, is considering naming any foreign citizen subject to a UK visa ban as a response to the inquiry into the 2006 murder of Alexander Litvinenko.
The home secretary, Theresa May, was criticised on Thursday for failing to impose tougher economic sanctions against agents of Vladimir Putin’s regime in the wake of the inquiry’s finding that Putin had probably approved Litvinenko’s murder in 2006. She will meet Litvinenko’s widow next week.
A change in the law that ministers are proposing to Pickles would give the public the right to know who the UK is banning from entering the country, and, by implication, who the UK would let in.
After Litvinenko, more sanctions against Russia would be pointless – and hypocritical | Simon Jenkins Read more
The list would also act as a reassurance for Russian dissidents living in London who fear they may be victims of political assassination. At least two Russian businessmen, Alexander Perepilichny and Boris Berezovsky, who had fallen out of favour with Putin, have died in mysterious circumstances in the UK.
May’s sole substantive measure has been to impose an asset freeze on two Russian agents, neither of whom has any assets in the UK. Both men have scoffed at suggestions that they should come to the UK to stand trial. May is likely to reject calls from Litvinenko’s wife, Marina, to add to the list of Russians subject to visa bans or asset freezes when the pair meet shortly.
There is currently no transparency around the government’s exercise of its powers to impose visa bans or deny entry, all of which are non-statutory, in relation to people involved in serious international crimes such as torture, terrorism and other kinds of organised crime.
Putin’s spokesman criticised the Litvinenko inquiry ruling on Russian television. Dmitry Peskov told Channel One: “I have the feeling that this was for one goal only, to continue turning the spinning wheel of anti-Russian hysteria. And they have been successful. People are becoming zombies, they look at Russians with eyes wide from horror, our bilateral relations suffer and the interests of the British people suffer.”
Pickles is due to publish an update of the government anti-corruption plan before an international conference to be convened by David Cameron in May as one of his main international initiatives of 2016. Cameron said the conference would look at how “to stop corrupt officials or organised criminals using anonymous shell companies to invest their ill-gotten gains in London property, without being tracked down”. He has promised he will prevent London becoming a home for dirty money.
Key findings: who killed Alexander Litvinenko, how and why Read more
No 10 said the anti-corruption conference would look not just at preventing corruption, but also ending impunity and compensating the victims of corruption. One focus will be on strengthening law enforcement in big international anti-corruption cases, but it will also propose rules requiring disclosure of beneficial ownership of foreign-owned rather than domestic companies.
MPs on all sides of the Commons on Thursday called on the government to do more to crack down on Russian politicians, and their use of London to hide dirty money.
The justice minister Dominic Raab championed the automatic publication of the identities of those subject to visa bans when he was a backbencher, at the end of the last parliament.
He said in the Commons in 2015: “In the 21st century, the British public have a right to know whether the henchmen of despots like Putin – or, indeed, any other international dictator or outlaw – are being granted a free pass to come to this country.
“If we are serious about trying to alter Putin’s behaviour, should we not start by making sure that those who bankroll him cannot enjoy the fruits of their labour here, clandestinely in luxurious comfort?
“Those individuals who bankroll Putin and his like should know that when they cross the line and engage in serious international crimes, their association with him and support for him will bar their ability to enjoy the luxurious Knightsbridge lifestyle that so many of them crave. To ensure that message hits home consistently and publicly, we need transparency over such visa bans.”
He also pointed out that the Home Office does sometimes disclose when someone is subject to a visa ban, but claims it is neither diplomatically sensible nor fair in terms of natural justice to disclose the names as a matter of routine.
Alexander Litvinenko: the man who solved his own murder | Luke Harding Read more
In the Commons on Thursday May repeatedly rejected a call from all sides of the House for a “Sergei Magnitsky law” designed to impose mandatory visa bans and asset freezes on any individual linked to the torture and murder of Magnitsky, or similar such international crimes, in Russia and elsewhere. She said she already had powers to impose travel bans.
Magnitsky was the lawyer for a British businessman, Bill Browder, and was brutally killed on orders from the Kremlin for disclosing a $23m (£16m) tax fraud – the biggest in Russian history – that had allegedly been committed by Putin and his associates.
David Davis, the former shadow home secretary, said he backed the proposal of a “Magnitsky” list, with individuals banned from the UK named and identified. “The US has done it, the European parliament has done it,” he said. “We can certainly make it a Europe-wide thing.”
He added: “There is a slight problem with this. Sometimes they [the government] want to ban people without telling anybody, including spies. But I think to have a public list is a good idea. It takes the judgment out of the reach of the courts. I’ve got no problem with a Magnitsky list. I think it’s the most powerful way of doing it.”
Davis renewed his criticism of the prime minister’s low-key response to the Litvinenko public inquiry report, saying that he had “totally misjudged” Putin. He said Russia’s president would interpret the UK’s failure to expel diplomats or impose other measures as a sign of weakness.
The prime minister defended retaining contact with Russia pointing out relations were needed for the Syrian talks to succeed. Speaking in Davos, Cameron said: “Obviously we have real difficulties with our relationship with Russia because of what has happened, and it’s right that we take the action we announced yesterday. But when it comes to Syria, difficult as it is, we have to discuss this issue with them. Because the crisis in Syria will only be solved when all of the players recognise that it’s in their interest to have a settlement.”Get information on education programs that could help you increase your earning power.
Enlarge By Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY Liz Campos packs boxes at Lazy Susan in Los Angeles. She would prefer a full-time job at the home decor business, with benefits. Lancaster Advertising in Lewisville, Texas, used to have 15 employees, two office buildings and a loss on its balance sheet. Today, the firm has no staff, no buildings and a healthy profit. Owner Ken Lancaster draws from more than 100 freelancers worldwide and works from his house, his boat or coffee shops. "You don't have to worry about someone coming late to work, and they hate you, and about all the payroll taxes and health insurance," he |
I noticed that there was this range of emotion in the songs for me and I started thinking about what was going to capture that spectrum," Carey says. "There was just a moment I thought that would really work as a title for the songs. I loved the simplicity of it and I loved the metaphor of it, on an emotional level." -- Eric Swedlund
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Like Up on the Sun on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for the latest local music news and conversation.With the Senate’s efforts to pass a comprehensive cyber bill stuck in neutral, the Office of Management and Budget is laying the groundwork for significant reforms to federal cyber policy.
Three former alumni and other experts are offering their suggestions to OMB as part of its efforts to revise Circular A-130, specifically the cybersecurity appendix, which is about 10 years old.
Frank Reeder, president of the Reeder Group and a former OMB official, said the group is specifically looking at areas that the Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th President, which was led by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, didn’t address.
“It was our view that a lot could be done using existing authorities,” Reeder said during a presentation Thursday at the Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board meeting at the National Institute of Standards and Technology headquarters in Gaithersburg, Md. “We’ve been engaged in conversations with a number of folks inside the executive branch, who have been very supportive of what we are doing, and they are certainly interested in what we have to say as it supports the work that is already underway at OMB to revise the circular.”
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An OMB spokeswoman declined to comment on the effort to update A-130.
Still, Reeder said his group expects to submit its white paper with recommendations to OMB this summer. He said he is unsure of OMB’s timeframe to release a revised draft circular.
Reeder; Karen Evans, the former OMB administrator for e-government and IT; and Dan Chenok, a former branch chief with OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs; presented ideas on how to improve A-130 to the ISPAB and were asking for suggestions.
Roles and responsibilities changed
One of the areas A-130 needs updating is in the roles and responsibilities it assigns for cyber oversight.
Reeder said one example of how the circular is out-of-date is it doesn’t mention the Homeland Security Department and highlights the General Services Administration’s role in cybersecurity.
“OMB has since issued guidance to revisit the whole question of responsibilities in the circular, specifically to acknowledge and explicitly task DHS in some areas. This is an area that has created some heartburn on Capitol Hill, we know,” Reeder said. “At the same time, we think OMB has ample authority to address a large part of this. The role of GSA has certainly changed. In fact, some of the governmentwide responsibilities that were assigned to GSA probably belong more appropriately in DHS.”
Evans said another area is to include the concept of services in A-130. With the push by the administration to use cloud computing and shared services, OMB is telling agencies to get out of the business of owning their own systems. But at the same time, inspectors general and Government Accountability Office auditors still are holding departments responsible for the security of those systems.
“The idea of getting rid of these physical types of systems, it’s an Oracle this, or it’s that, it’s more like here is the data and here is the service associated with that,” she said. “That becomes the new definition of how security gets measured and progress or non-progress against that would be measured.”
A third area is whether to consider the development of a maturity model for cybersecurity. There are maturity models for software development and for enterprise architecture. Evans wondered if agencies could use such a cyber maturity model to assess their risk and decide which level of maturity meets their needs the best and then work toward that level.
A cyber maturity model may help IGs
If OMB added a maturity model to the oversight process, it would give agencies and IGs a roadmap to follow, Evans said.
Gail Stone, a deputy assistant IG for audit of financial systems and operations audits for the Social Security Administration and a member of the advisory board, said she thinks IGs would give a maturity model mixed reviews.
But for her, Stone thinks it would be easier to audit systems because she would have solid baseline and, once a few areas are clarified such as definitions of a system, which she says forces IGs and agencies into unnecessary conversations, this would be a much smoother process.
Two other areas would be most difficult to address in the A-130 revision.
Evans said with the push toward continuous monitoring, OMB should consider redefining what makes a system.
Under A-130, a major information system “means an information system that requires special management attention because of its importance to an agency mission; its high development, operating or maintenance costs; or its significant role in the administration of agency programs, finances, property or other resources.”
But with cloud computing and shared services, Evans said maybe it’s time to change that definition and she offers a possible new way to define a system.
She said it starts with information and its use.
“You would put groupings or security around the types of information that you are managing,” Evans said. “Therefore, things like shared service or cloud services or as technology evolves, you are really thinking about having information as an asset, and what is the risk associated with that. Then how do you measure that and who is responsible for this grouping of information?”
Reeder called this the most challenging change intellectually.
“How do we move away from a definition of major application or system to a construct that recognizes a reality, at least in our view, the organizing principle is probably around information?” he said. “At an abstract level, it sounds pretty easy, but as a practical matter, it will take a lot of work.”
The third-rail of A-130
The second big area that could be an obstacle is what Reeder called the third-rail of A-130 — redefining what is a national security system and what isn’t.
Under A-130, a national security system is defined with a five-part definition that covers most systems run by agencies such as the NSA, CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency and the other 14 intelligence community agencies.
But the problem is similar systems that hold classified data not in the intelligence community or those with unclassified data for that matter, may come under A-130. Reeder called separation of the two types of systems a bright line in the law.
“That bright line doesn’t work for several reasons, in my opinion. One is a substantial portion of our cybersecurity competence lives on the dark side of the bright line,” he said. “Duplicating that technical capability on the civilian side — though certainly DHS and NIST are highly competent agencies — is plain silly. It’s an economic question.”
Reeder said the other reason is the line between those systems really doesn’t exist anymore.
“Is a payroll system that is used to pay people in the Department of Defense fundamentally different from a payroll system, in the security characteristics, in the risks attendant to operate, as a civilian agency,” he said. “We are trying to make distinctions where, as a practical matter, none exist.”
Whether Congress pass and President Barack Obama signs a comprehensive cybersecurity bill into law or not, OMB’s changes to A-130 also will make it easier for agencies and IGs.
Reeder said the current approach causes agencies to spend money on things that do not enhance security.
But a revision to A-130 would let agencies focus on real threats and mitigate risks rather than responding to checklists, he said.
“Certainly, the agencies that get it would find their lives would be easier if some provisions were modified,” he said.
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Copyright © 2019 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.PARIS — On Wednesday, France woke up to find that the National Security Agency had been snooping on the phones of its last three presidents.
Top-secret documents provided by WikiLeaks to two media outlets, Mediapart and Libération, showed that the NSA had access to confidential conversations of France’s highest ranking officials, including the country’s current president, François Hollande; the prime minister in 2012, Jean-Marc Ayrault; and former presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac.
Yet also today, the lower house of France’s legislature, the National Assembly, passed a sweeping surveillance law. The law provides a new framework for the country’s intelligence agencies to expand their surveillance activities. Opponents of the law were quick to mock the government for vigorously protesting being surveilled by one of the country’s closest allies while passing a law that gives its own intelligence services vast powers with what its opponents regard as little oversight. But for those who support the new law, the new revelations of NSA spying showed the urgent need to update the tools available to France’s spies.
Of course, the fact that the NSA is listening to the conversations of French presidents is not that surprising to anyone who has been paying attention to the revelations in the past two years of NSA spying, nor is the idea that France might do the same to its allies. In 2013, the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel revealed that the U.S. government had targeted the cell phone of German Prime Minister Angela Merkel — so why not Hollande’s phone, too?
The response from the French government today was firm but predictable. Senior intelligence officials will travel to the U.S. to meet their counterparts in Washington, while the U.S. ambassador in Paris was summoned to the Elysee Palace. A similar scenario played out in 2013, when Le Monde published Snowden documents that revealed some of the extent of American surveillance in France. Prime Minister Manuel Valls said today that he wants a “code of conduct” to guide the relationship between France and the U.S. on intelligence activities — but the government demanded the exact same thing almost two years ago.
When The Intercept published NSA documents in March indicating the Five Eyes — the NSA’s core allies — were intercepting large swaths of internet traffic in France’s Pacific islands, an official protest from France was nowhere to be heard. Even when it appeared that France’s closest ally, Germany, was using its surveillance capabilities to spy, on behalf of the NSA, on France’s foreign affairs ministry and some of the country’s most strategic companies, French authorities remained silent.
This silence can be explained. We’re now aware, thanks to Snowden, that Western intelligence agencies know almost no boundaries when it comes to spying on friends and foes. We also know that Western intelligence agencies are connected by secret agreements and exchange large amounts of data that they collect for each other. To what extent do the French intelligence services collaborate with the NSA? Are they compelled, like Germany’s BND, to snoop on their European partners and allies in exchange for valuable intelligence from the NSA? Does France have the moral and political standing to direct tough words at the U.S. and oppose NSA spying in a meaningful way?
While the American government has seen its surveillance powers placed under greater scrutiny and modestly reformed in the wake of the Snowden revelations, France has gone in the opposite direction this year, due partly to the fatal attack by religious extremists on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. The attacks — a kosher grocery was also targeted — prompted the French government to speed up the legislative process and focus its surveillance debate on terrorism, although the new law deals with multiple areas like counter-intelligence and the fight against economic espionage. The bill’s opponents were characterized as “pro-terrorist” — for instance, when the interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, told the National Assembly, “Those who attack human rights are not intelligence services, but terrorists.”
This had a numbing effect on the parliamentary debate. The bill was met with a great deal of protest outside the government: dozens of civil rights organizations, journalists’ unions and human rights activists strongly opposed it. Two years of revelations from the Snowden archives gave them ample ammunition to oppose the efficacy and ethics of expanded surveillance. Still, it faced little opposition in parliament, where it passed by a wide margin. If there’s one thing that can be learned from the debate around the law, it’s that France has not reached the post-Snowden world yet. The country had a narrow yet crucial window to impose robust oversight on its intelligence services and avoid the mistakes made in America after 9/11, but this opportunity has been missed.
Until the law was passed, France’s intelligence services operated almost without any laws to regulate them. Although the new law delivers a much-needed framework, its safeguards are regarded by many critics as insufficient. The powers of the oversight body in charge of the intelligence agencies have been slightly strengthened and it will be possible, if a citizen suspects she is being surveilled, to take her case before the Conseil d’Etat, France’s highest court. But other parts of the law have drawn controversy, including the way it defines the purposes the government can invoke to surveil French residents. The categories extend well beyond terrorism. Many opponents of the law think these guidelines are so broad that they could enable political surveillance. But the key point of disagreement is what the government calls “black boxes.” The law allows the use of government equipment inside Internet Service Providers and large web companies to analyze streams of metadata and find “terrorist” patterns and behaviors.
The country’s intelligence community got everything it wanted — almost. An amendment that would remove any oversight of surveillance of foreigners, targeting chief executives and foreign spies, had been demanded by France’s top spy, Bernard Bajolet, the director general of external security, during a hearing at the National Assembly a few weeks ago, but the government opposed it and managed to get rid of it before the final vote. Yet, the government added a last minute amendment that tears to pieces the meager whistleblower protection the bill was supposed to set up.
The end result is that most of what France’s intelligence services have been doing in the dark is now authorized by law.
Martin Untersinger is a reporter in Paris for Le Monde.
Photo Illustration: Chirac: Herbert Knosowski/AP; Hollande: Pascal Lachenaud/AFP/Getty; Sarkozy: Bernd Thissen/picture-alliance/dpa/APVeiled in the hazy days of this Vancouver summer are several strategic efforts to capitalize on the council seat left empty when Geoff Meggs joined the new provincial NDP government as Premier John Horgan’s chief of staff last month.
While at least four political parties are gearing up to contest for the seat in the Oct. 14 byelection, organizers continue to keep details of their plans close.
Names of prospective candidates have trickled out for several parties, including that of Park Board Commissioner Sarah Kirby-Yung, who on Wednesday announced her run at the Non-Partisan Association’s nomination. But none have come forward for ruling party Vision Vancouver.
Regardless of which party takes the empty seat — one of 11 in all on council — it will not shift the balance of power away from Vision. But it could signal Vancouver residents’ appetite for change — or continuity — in advance of the general municipal election in 2018.
Asked why she was interested in council, Kirby-Yung said it was because she thought the city could be run better than it is now.
“I think we’ve got some significant issues that we’re not tackling effectively,” she said.
Joining Kirby-Yung in seeking the NPA nomination is Hector Bremner, who in 2013 ran for the B.C. Liberal party in New Westminster. Bremner works in government relations for Steelhead LNG and public affairs for the Pace Group.
Robert McDowell, a former campaign manager for NPA Councillor George Affleck and an NPA candidate in the last general election, said Wednesday he would also vie for the seat.
“I’m very interested in council and that’s what I’m after right now,” McDowell said, adding that most caucus members supported his bid.
Penny Noble, the executive director of Bike to Work B.C., said she was also “definitely interested in seeking the nomination” as a way to have more impact on issues that mattered.
Meanwhile, former mayoral candidate Kirk LaPointe said he will not contest for the empty seat.
Neither will Wayne Moriarty, a former editor-in-chief for The Province, who said he had considered a run for the NPA but ultimately decided the timing was not right.
Moriarty said that while he believed Mayor Gregor Robertson had changed the city for the better, “the time is right for another party or even a council of independents to run things.” He said he planned to support the NPA in the coming byelection.
Further left on the political spectrum, one-time mayoral candidate Jean Swanson has announced her intention to run for the empty seat. Swanson ran as a COPE-NDP Unity candidate in 1988, but she has not attached her name to a party for this bid.
Longtime homeless advocate Judy Graves has announced her bid to run for OneCity. The party plans to hold its nomination meeting later this month.
Pete Fry is a nominee for the Green party, which has yet to confirm whether he is running unopposed.
Paul Nixey, a spokesman for Vision, said his party would announce its process for candidacy by the end of this month, “including how Vision’s members, supporters, and activists will be engaged.” For now, party organizers are interviewing prospective candidates, but Nixey declined to give names.
Previously rumoured to have been interested in running was former school board chair and trustee Patti Bacchus, who has since said she is “enjoying a nice break from politics.”
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Is there more to this story? We’d like to hear from you about this or any other stories you think we should know about. Email vantips@postmedia.com.FILE - In a Jan. 31, 1989 file photo, Russell Means, who heads the American Indian Movement, (AIM) testifies before a special investigative committee of the Senate Select Committee on Capitol Hill, in Washington. Means, a former American Indian Movement activist who helped lead the 1973 uprising at Wounded Knee, reveled in stirring up attention and appeared in several Hollywood films, died early Monday, Oct. 22, 2012 at his ranch Zzxin Porcupine, S.D., Oglala Sioux Tribe spokeswoman Donna Solomon said. He was 72. (AP Photo/Marcy Nighswander, File)
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — Russell Means never shunned attention. Whether leading Native Americans in railing against broken federal treaties, appearing in a Hollywood blockbuster or advocating a sovereign American Indian nation within U.S. borders, the activist who helped lead the 1973 uprising at Wounded Knee reveled in the spotlight.
But it was only on his terms. Openly critical of mainstream media, the onetime leader of the American Indian Movement often refused interviews and verbally blasted journalists who showed up to cover his public appearances. Instead, he chose to speak to his fan base through YouTube videos and blog posts on his personal website.
When he did speak out publicly, he remained steadfast in his defense of AIM. He found himself dogged for decades by questions about the group's alleged involvement in the slaying of a tribe member and the several gun battles with federal officers during the 71-day occupation of Wounded Knee, but denied the group ever promoted violence.
"You people who want to continue to put AIM in this certain pocket of illegality, I can't stand you people," Means said, lashing out an at audience member question during an April gathering commemorating the uprising's 40th anniversary. "I wish I was a little bit healthier and a little bit younger, because I wouldn't just talk."
Means, who announced in August 2011 that he had developed inoperable throat cancer but told The Associated Press he was forgoing mainstream medical treatments in favor of traditional American Indian remedies, died early Monday at his ranch in in Porcupine, S.D., Oglala Sioux Tribe spokeswoman Donna Salomon said. He was 72.
Born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Means grew up in the San Francisco area before becoming an early leader of AIM. He often was embroiled in controversy, partly because of AIM's alleged involvement in the 1975 slaying of Annie Mae Aquash.
But Means also was known for his role in the movie "The Last of the Mohicans" and had run unsuccessfully for the Libertarian nomination for president in 1988.
AIM was founded in the late 1960s to protest the U.S. government's treatment of Native Americans and demand the government honor its treaties with Indian tribes. Means told the AP in 2011 that before AIM, there had been no advocate on a national or international scale for American Indians, and that Native Americans were ashamed of their heritage.
"No one except Hollywood stars and very rich Texans wore Indian jewelry," Means said. "And there was a plethora of dozens if not hundreds of athletic teams that in essence were insulting us, from grade schools to college. That's all changed."
The movement eventually faded away, the result of Native Americans becoming self-aware and self-determined, Means said.
Paul DeMain, editor of News from Indian Country, said there were plenty of Indian activists before AIM but that the group became the "radical media gorilla."
"If someone needed help, you called on the American Indian Movement and they showed up and caused all kind of ruckus and looked beautiful on a 20-second clip on TV that night," DeMain said.
Means and AIM co-founder Dennis Banks were charged in 1974 for their role in the Wounded Knee uprising, but after a trial that lasted several months, a judge threw the charges out on grounds of government misconduct.
Means said he felt his most important accomplishment was the founding of the Republic of Lakotah and the "re-establishment of our freedom to be responsible" as a sovereign nation inside the borders of the United States. His efforts to have his proposed country recognized by the international community continued at the United Nations, he said, even as it was ignored by tribal governments closer to home, including his own Oglala Sioux Tribe.
But others may remember him for his former organization's connection to Aquash's slaying. Her death remains synonymous with AIM and its often-violent clashes with federal agents in the 1970s.
Authorities believe three AIM members shot and killed Aquash on the Pine Ridge reservation on the orders of someone in AIM's leadership because they suspected she was an FBI informant. Two activists — Arlo Looking Cloud and John Graham — were both eventually convicted of murder. The third has never been charged.TEENAGERS aged 15 to 19 are Australia's most dangerous people, new figures from the Australian Institute of Criminology showing violent crime is highest among this group.
Teens are responsible for a disturbing number of bashings, robberies, abductions and sexual attacks and 17-year-olds are the worst offenders.
The figures were released as part of the annual Australian Crime: Facts & Figures report.
The report showed the rate of assaults in the 15-19 age group was 886 per 100,000 people in 2011, compared to a rate of 85 per 100,000 for offenders aged 55-59.
Robberies and extortion in the younger age group were committed at a rate of 115 per 100,000 people.
Sexual attacks were most prevalent among 15-year-olds, with 64 offences per 100,000 people. This compared to 18 per 100,000 in the 60-64 age group.
Demographer David Chalke said easier access to alcohol, the prevalence of video games and changing family structures were to blame for high rates of crime among teens.
"If you go back 20 years, the availability of alcohol was much less. It was a lot harder for under 18s to get booze," Mr Chalke said.
"Now it's a whole lot easier for them to get juiced up and that may be a significant contributor."
On families, Mr Chalke said parents working longer hours and having fewer children had resulted in bored teens turning to crime.
"Video games have also created a culture where violence is the norm," he said.
Criminologist Emmeline Taylor, who will next year head up the a criminology degree at the Australian National University, said teens had been prone to violence for quite some time.
"Across Australia and universally, the trend shows there is a sharp incline in criminal behaviour in early adolescence," Dr Taylor said.
Justice Minister Jason Clare said that while the report showed there had been some progress in tackling crime, with a general decrease in crime levels, there was still "a lot more work to do".
"The Federal Government recognises the need to support young people who are at risk of falling through the cracks of society and putting them on the right path and this is why we have invested $40 million into a National Crime Prevention Fund which allows local communities to work together to recognise local problems and develop local solutions," Mr Clare said.
The report also shows that knife crime remains prevalent across the country. Almost half of all Australian murder victims in 2011 were killed by a knife and knives also represented 49 per cent of the weapons used in armed robberies.
The report also showed fraud committed on credit and charge cards continued the trend of previous years by increasing.
Indigenous Australians were also 18 times more likely to be jailed, at a rate of 2276 per 100,000 people, compared to 125 per 100,000 for others.Under Jim Crow laws, black Americans were relegated to a subordinate status for decades. Things like literacy tests for voters and laws designed to prevent blacks from serving on juries were commonplace in nearly a dozen Southern states.
In her book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, legal scholar Michelle Alexander writes that many of the gains of the civil rights movement have been undermined by the mass incarceration of black Americans in the war on drugs. She says that although Jim Crow laws are now off the books, millions of blacks arrested for minor crimes remain marginalized and disfranchised, trapped by a criminal justice system that has forever branded them as felons and denied them basic rights and opportunities that would allow them to become productive, law-abiding citizens.
"People are swept into the criminal justice system — particularly in poor communities of color — at very early ages... typically for fairly minor, nonviolent crimes," she tells Fresh Air's Dave Davies. "[The young black males are] shuttled into prisons, branded as criminals and felons, and then when they're released, they're relegated to a permanent second-class status, stripped of the very rights supposedly won in the civil rights movement — like the right to vote, the right to serve on juries, the right to be free of legal discrimination and employment, and access to education and public benefits. Many of the old forms of discrimination that we supposedly left behind during the Jim Crow era are suddenly legal again, once you've been branded a felon."
On Monday's Fresh Air, Alexander details how President Reagan's war on drugs led to a mass incarceration of black males and the difficulties these felons face after serving their prison sentences. She also details her own experiences working as the director of the Racial Justice Program at the American Civil Liberties Union.
Interview Highlights
On the number of blacks in the criminal justice system
"Today there are more African-Americans under correctional control — in prison or jail, on probation or parole — than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began. There are millions of African-Americans now cycling in and out of prisons and jails or under correctional control. In major American cities today, more than half of working-age African-American men are either under correctional control or branded felons and are thus subject to legalized discrimination for the rest of their lives."
On the war on drugs — and federal incentives given out through the war on drugs — as the primary causes of the prison explosion in the United States
"Federal funding has flowed to state and local law enforcement agencies who boost the sheer numbers of drug arrests. State and local law enforcement agencies have been rewarded in cash for the sheer numbers of people swept into the system for drug offenses, thus giving law enforcement agencies an incentive to go out and look for the so-called 'low-hanging fruit': stopping, frisking, searching as many people as possible, pulling over as many cars as possible, in order to boost their numbers up and ensure the funding stream will continue or increase."
On President Reagan's war on drugs
"He declared the drug war primarily for reasons of politics — racial politics. Numerous historians and political scientists have documented that the war on drugs was part of a grand Republican Party strategy known as the "Southern strategy" of using racially coded 'get-tough' appeals on issues of crime and welfare to appeal to poor and working-class whites, particularly in the South, who were resentful of, anxious about and threatened by many of the gains of African-Americans in the civil rights movement."
On racial profiling
"I think it's very easy to brush off the notion that the system operates much like a caste system, if in fact you are not trapped within it. I have spent years representing victims of racial profiling and police brutality and investigating patterns of drug law enforcement in poor communities of color, and attempting to help people who have been released from prison attempting to're-enter' into a society that never seemed to have much use to them in the first place. And in the course of that work, I had my own awakening about our criminal justice system and this system of mass incarceration.... My experience and research has led me to the regrettable conclusion that our system of mass incarceration functions more like a caste system than a system of crime prevention or control."
Copyright 2017 Fresh Air. To see more, visit Fresh Air
DAVE DAVIES, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies, in for Terry Gross. Today we remember Martin Luther King and his contribution to the cause of civil rights. Our guest, legal scholar and attorney Michelle Alexander, believes the gains of the civil rights movement are being undermined by the mass incarceration of African-Americans associated with the war on drugs.
She says millions swept up in the drug war, even those who avoid lengthy prison terms, are forever branded as felons and denied basic rights and opportunities which would allow them to become productive, law-abiding citizens. The result, Alexander says, is a new caste system in America.
Michelle Alexander is a graduate of the Stanford law school who clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun. She was director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Racial Justice Project in Northern California. She's now an associate professor of law at Ohio State University.
Her book is called "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness." Well, Michelle Alexander, welcome to FRESH AIR. Let's start with the scale of incarceration among African-Americans. How big a problem is this?
MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Well, it's truly staggering. Today there are more African-Americans under correctional control, in prison or jail, on probation or parole, than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began.
There are millions of African-Americans now cycling in and out of prisons and jails or under correctional control or saddled with criminal records. In fact, in major American cities today, more than half of working-age African-American men either are under are correctional control or are branded felons, and are thus subject to legalized discrimination for the rest of their lives.
This is something that now affects the overwhelming majority of African-Americans in the United States. If not them directly, then they often have a relative who's been affected by the system.
DAVIES: And you call this the new Jim Crow. Why use that phrase?
ALEXANDER: Well, I think it's important for people to understand that the system of mass incarceration isn't just another institution infected with conscious or unconscious bias. It's a different beast entirely. People are swept into the criminal justice system, particularly in poor communities of color, at very early ages, targeted by police, stopped and frisked.
Sometimes when they're walking to school, their backpacks are rifled through in a search for drugs. Once they're old enough to drive a car, their cars may be pulled over, stopped and frisked. So they're shuttled from their decrepit, underfunded schools to brand-new, high-tech prisons; typically for fairly minor, nonviolent crimes, often drug offenses, the very sorts of crimes that occur with roughly equal frequency in middle-class white neighborhoods and on college campuses but go largely ignored - shuttled in to jail and to prisons, branded as criminals and felons. And then when they're released, they're relegated to a permanent second-class status, stripped of the very rights supposedly won in the civil rights movement; rights like the right to vote, the right to serve on juries, the right to be free of legal discrimination in employment, housing, access to education and public benefits.
So many of the old forms of discrimination, that we supposedly left behind during the Jim Crow era, are suddenly legal again once you've been branded a felon.
DAVIES: Let's talk about the origins of this. I mean, it was President Reagan, I believe, that declared the war on drugs in 1982. I mean, do you see this as directed at African-Americans in cities?
ALEXANDER: Yes, absolutely. I mean, it was President Richard Nixon who first coined the term a war on drugs, but it was President Ronald Reagan who turned that rhetorical war into a literal one. And he declared the drug war primarily for reasons of politics, racial politics.
Numerous historians and political scientists have now documented that the war on drugs was part of a grand Republican Party strategy, known as the Southern Strategy, of using racially coded get-tough appeals on issues of crime and welfare to appeal to poor and working-class whites, particularly in the South, who were resentful of, anxious about, threatened by many of the gains of African-Americans in the civil rights movement.
You know, to be fair, I think we have to acknowledge that poor and working-class white really had their world rocked by the civil rights movement. Wealthy whites could afford to send their kids to private schools and continue to give their kids all of the advantages of wealth has to offer.
But in the wake of the civil rights movement, poor and working-class whites really were faced with a social demotion. It was their kids who might be bussed across town to go to a school they believed was inferior. It was their kids and themselves who were suddenly forced to compete on equal terms for scarce jobs with this whole new group of people they, you know, believed, had been taught their whole lives to believe were inferior to them.
And this state of affairs created an enormous amount of confusion, resentment, but it also created an enormous political opportunity.
DAVIES: You know, what's interesting about it is that when I remember - I mean, I'm old enough to remember back in the '80s, and what I associated with the war on drugs were some things that seemed to be aimed very much at middle-class kids, too.
I mean, my sense was that, you know, Nancy and Ronald Reagan didn't like, you know, middle-class kids who had experimented with the drug counterculture in the '60s and '70s doing that stuff. And so we saw these ads, you know, the fried egg that said, you know, this is your brain, this is your brain on drugs.
There were these DARE programs. I'm not sure what the acronym stands for, but it's a drug education program that was done in all kinds of high schools, including middle-class high schools.
ALEXANDER: Yes, there was a public-education effort that occurred in middle-class, white communities associated with the drug war. But what happened in poor communities of color wasn't public education but rather mass incarceration.
So, you know, after the drug war was declared, a couple years after the drug war was declared, crack hit the streets and really began to ravage inner-city communities, and with the media frenzy associated with crack cocaine, a wave of punitiveness really washed over the United States.
But this wave of punitiveness did not result in sweeps of college campuses or universities or middle-class white students having their backpacks, you know, searched and rifled through. It wasn't them who were being followed home from school, you know, from the school bus. That became the reality.
The drug war was a literal war. It has been, it continues to be, a literal war waged in poor communities of color complete with SWAT teams and military-style equipment and tactics, even though studies have consistently shown now, for decades, that people of color are no more likely to use or sell illegal drugs than whites.
DAVIES: Let's talk about how the war on drugs actually worked and the impact that you write about on African-Americans in - particularly in inner cities. What about the way federal grants were administered, and the kinds of incentives they gave to local police departments? How did that work?
ALEXANDER: Yes, well, you know, after the war on drugs was declared, drug convictions increased astronomically. In fact, drug convictions have increased more than 1,000 percent since the drug war began, and many people assumed that the explosion in drug arrests and convictions was due to some kind of spike in drug use and abuse. But that's not actually the case.
One of the reasons that drug arrests have skyrocketed is because federal funding has flowed to state and local law enforcement agencies who boost the sheer numbers of drug arrests. Through the Edward Byrne Memorial Grand Program and related funding streams, state and local law enforcement agencies have been rewarded in cash by the millions for the sheer numbers of people swept into the system for drug offenses, thus giving law enforcement agencies an incentive to go out looking for the so-called low--hanging fruit: stopping, frisking, searching as many people as possible, pulling over as many cars and trying to search them as possible, in order to boost their numbers up and ensure that the funding stream will continue or increase.
DAVIES: All right, so you see a lot of legal latitude in what police can do. You see federal incentives for mass arrests. And it's easier to go into communities of color because they can get away with it?
ALEXANDER: Oh absolutely. If these kinds of sweep tactics were employed on college campuses or directed towards middle-class high-school students in suburban neighborhoods exiting from their school bus, there would be just incredible amount of outrage. You know, the drug war would have ended a long, long time ago if these tactics had been employed in middle-class or upper-middle-class white communities.
But because they are employed almost exclusively in ghettoized communities, they face virtually no political repercussions. And because so many of |
effort will likely ask for a more reasonable $250,000 to $300,000, Kennedy said, before debuting a prototype at New York Toy Fair in February.
Distributing games on cartridges is more costly than simply pressing a DVD or putting downloadable bits on a server, but Kennedy says they can get cartridges that will sell in the $20 to $30 range (perhaps a bit more for a game with a big license). "Nobody's going to pay $100 for a cartridge," Kennedy said. "[but] it doesn't cost as much to make a cartridge today as it did 20 years ago. Costs are minute unless the game gets enormously big."
That brings up the specific storage capacity for those cartridges, which is still up in the air. While Retro VGS was originally talking about games up to 1GB, that has been reined in to focus closer to a 100MB range these days, Kennedy says. That should be plenty of space for 16-bit-style games—SNES titles topped out around 48Mb in the '90s. But it could be a tough limitation for games built in inefficient environments like Game Maker and Unity, which can add a lot of bloat to even simple games.
Then there's the physical medium used for game storage, which is also still being debated. Adding extra storage capacity isn't tough if you use cheap SD-card storage, but untouched data on those cards lasts only a couple of years before degrading. Kennedy says he's looking for much longer retention times for Chameleon cartridges, which should be able to last as collector's items for decades.
"If [older systems] had 20-year retention times, they'd all be unplayable right now," Kennedy said. "Whatever modern-day technology can give us for the best price we're trying to build as long a retention time as we can. That's hugely important to [co-founder] Steve [Woita] and I, because everything we play is over 20 years old right now. Nobody builds a product to last 20 years these days. When Atari built these things back in the day, they probably had no idea people would be playing them now."
Hitting the reset button
Over and over again in our interview, Kennedy tried to stress how much he and his team have learned from Retro VGS' recent troubles. "I see the last three or four months as market research," he said. "We've listened to the criticism. We're aware we brought a lot of that on ourselves. But we've learned. We're going back to bring out what we wanted to bring out before all the feature creep set in."
After months of false starts, though, Kennedy says he hopes people interested in the golden age of gaming will give the newly rebranded Coleco Chameleon a fair shake. "We know that we've stirred up a hornet's nest with this concept. There are people who are passionate like you wouldn't believe that want this product, it's crazy. Then there are people who ask 'Why are you bringing cartridges back, it's pointless.' And then there's everything in between."
"It's clear that it struck a chord. Positive, negative, whatever, it struck a chord."Veteran wide receiver Sinorice Moss, veteran quarterback Jim Sorgi and promising rookie Adrian Tracy were placed on injured reserve this morning, three of the five moves that helped the Giants pare their roster to 75 players.
Offensive lineman Kevin Boothe was also placed on the reserve physically unable to perform list, sidelining him for the first six weeks of the season. Rookie wide receiver Nyan Boateng was waived.
Moss has been a roster mainstay since 2006, but a groin injury slowed his return to the field in recent weeks. He underwent surgery to repair a sports hernia in Philadelphia this morning.
Sorgi was signed during the offseason to serve as Eli Manning's backup, although his preseason was halted by a shoulder injury suffered in the opener. His injury leaves Rhett Bomar as the backup quarterback, although the Giants are expected to explore veteran options. Bomar has not attempted in a pass in a regular season game.
Tracy was transitioning from defensive end to outside linebacker and led the team in tackles in its second preseason game. He suffered a dislocated elbow on Saturday against the Baltimore Ravens, and underwent surgery Monday to repair ligament damage.
Boothe will be eligible to return on Oct. 19, and can practice up to 21 days before the team needs to add him to the active roster, release him or place him on IR.
The roster must be further trimmed to 53 players this weekend. The Giants play Thursday against the New England Patriots.CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- A mixture of tears and sweat poured down the face of Carolina Panthers linebacker Luke Kuechly as he was carted off the field with a potential concussion late in the fourth quarter of Thursday night’s win against New Orleans.
He looked dazed.
Scared.
Teammates looked the same as they watched the 2013 NFL Defensive Player of the Year disappear into the tunnel at Bank of America Stadium, struggling to breathe as he fought back emotion.
"You could see it on his face that he was pretty visibly upset," tight end Greg Olsen said after Carolina’s 23-20 victory.
The season that began with the fear of being defined by the "Super Bowl hangover" all of a sudden is being defined by head injuries.
Kuechly, who is in the concussion protocol, could be the sixth Carolina player to suffer a concussion this season. Left tackle Michael Oher has missed seven games with one and there is no sign of when he will return.
Quarterback Cam Newton missed a Week 5 game against Tampa Bay. Backup safety and special teams ace Colin Jones has missed the past two games. Outside linebacker A.J. Klein missed Thursday’s game.
Cornerback Daryl Worley might have missed a game with one had Carolina not had a bye the week after he suffered his in Week 6 in New Orleans.
Concussions are scary because so much is unknown about them. The Saints put starting cornerback P.J. Williams on injured reserve in September three days after he was carted off with a concussion.
Former Carolina middle linebacker Dan Morgan missed the final 15 games of the 2006 season with what was believed to be at least his fifth concussion.
Once you’ve had one concussion, according to medical experts, there is a higher risk that you will have another.
This would be Kuechly’s second concussion in two years. He missed three games last season after suffering one late in the first quarter of the opener at Jacksonville.
Cornerback Kurt Coleman said the way Kuechly reacted when New Orleans running back Tim Hightower lowered his helmet into the middle linebacker’s facemask and chest was reminiscent of that hit.
Kuechly was hit so hard that he was pushed back into the path of outside linebacker Thomas Davis, whose helmet glanced off his teammate’s helmet.
It was such a somber sight as Kuechly laid motionless on the turf with team doctors evaluating him that Saints safety Roman Harper, who played for the Panthers in 2014 and '15, came to check on him.
Saints quarterback Drew Brees told Kuechly he was praying for him as the three-time Pro Bowl selection left the field.
"He is maybe, certainly one of the best football players I’ve ever seen -- ever played against," Brees said.
That the Panthers hung on to win 23-20 to keep their slim playoff hopes alive at 4-6 with six games remaining seemed less significant because of what happened not only to Kuechly, but center Ryan Kalil (shoulder) and defensive end Mario Addison (foot).
Kalil and Addison left the game earlier with injuries and did not return. Their status for Carolina's Nov. 27 game in Oakland remains uncertain.
But what is certain is it’s hard to imagine the Panthers making a playoff push without Kuechly. He’s had more tackles (693) than any NFL player since entering the league as a first-round pick out of Boston College in 2012.
He already had a season-high 14 tackles Thursday to give him a team-leading 102 this season before leaving the game.
If outside linebacker Davis is the heart of the defense, Kuechly is the soul.
His last words to teammates before leaving the field were to "keep fighting."
"Luke is a fighter," Coleman said. "That’s why we fight for each other."
Luke wanted me to let you guys know that he's doing fine and thanks for your prayers!! #KeepPounding A photo posted by td58 (@td58) on Nov 18, 2016 at 8:47am PST
This isn’t to suggest the Panthers can’t win without Kuechly. They beat Houston, New Orleans and Tampa Bay without him a year ago, with Klein taking over in the middle.
But with a young secondary, as much as it has improved during the past month, Carolina still needs Kuechly’s experience and ability to make plays that others simply can’t.
"That’s our leader, one of the key components of our team," fullback Mike Tolbert said.
The blank stare Kuechly had as he left the field wasn’t much different than the look on the faces of many of his teammates in the locker room afterward. The next-man-up mantra was repeated throughout, but there is no next man on the roster as good as Kuechly.
Not even close.
That’s why the winning locker room didn’t look much different than the losing locker room in terms of the mood.
"You just hope he’s OK more than anything," Olsen said. "When he comes back is out the window."A few days ago out of the blue, I got a Facebook message from one of my friends whom I had met the previous year during the Disney College Program. She was meeting up with several other mutual Disney friends from the tri-state area, she said, and maybe going to Six Flags, and would I like to come?
Would I like to come?? Is the Pope Catholic? Does a bear shit in the woods? Does Deadpool like chimichangas?
It had been several months since I had entered an amusement park, and the lack of roller coasters was starting to negatively impact my life, so I jumped at the opportunity to brave the cold and head out to New Jersey. And by cold, I mean cold – probably the coldest weather we’ve had all year, with the thermostat playing hopscotch with the 40-degree mark all day.
(I’ve done crazier things in the name of roller coasters, such as being the only adult on this gem of a coaster.)
So I bundled up, hopped in my friend’s car, grabbed some questionable breakfast at a Jersey rest stop, and arrived at Six Flags Great Adventure by early afternoon. We had worried about having enough time to do everything we wanted, but it turned out to be a moot point: the parking lot was practically empty, and we had our choice of parking spots to take. It was shaping up to be a great (if freezing) day.
Once we entered, we made a beeline for the back of the park, where Nitro (my #4 coaster at the time of this writing) was waiting in all of its yellow regal splendor. Sadly, here was our first (and only) disappointment of the day, as we found out that Nitro would be closed due to the weather. We refused to let that be a downer on our day, though, and promptly made up for it with two laps on Batman: The Ride.
Batman is a clone – one of many – of the original inverted coaster at Six Flags Great America. It’s enjoyable enough, but it’s been far outclassed several times over throughout the years by bigger and better installations. Still, it’s a fast and intense ride, and for us, that was enough to spike our adrenaline, and we took a second go-around without leaving the station thanks to the completely empty queue.
The Dark Knight was next, and ‘unremarkable’ is the most positive thing I have to say about this Wild-Mouse-in-a-box. We followed this up with yet another roller-coaster-in-a-box, Skull Mountain, which I deem marginally better due to the lack of an excruciatingly long pre-show that we were forced to sit through, and a first drop that will catch riders unawares if they’re not careful.
After a turn on the bumper cars, we grabbed a bite at Panda Express, and followed it up with a spin on the Swashbuckler, Great Adventure’s round-up ride that would never be built today in our litigious society. It’s basically a wheel that spins around really fast, with the riders arranged in a circle so that the centripetal force is the only thing preventing them from losing their balance. It’s a fun ride, although the Chinese food in our stomachs begged to differ by the end of it! (All of the operators were letting us stay on longer than usual, due to the eminent lack of crowds – we must’ve seen about a hundred people all day, combined.)
We quickly ran through a lap on Harley Quinn Crazy Train, which was a walk-on. This was one of the coasters that I had skipped in my previous outing, when it had shut down as I was literally just about to board. It was a decent-sized family coaster – enough to provide a couple of whoops, but nothing spectacular, and I couldn’t help but mutter a “cha-ching” under my breath as we crested the lift hill. Roller coaster #118 acquired! (I’ve been on over 100 unique roller coasters. This is a list of my favorites.)
The Joker was next, and it was running very well; much more so than my previous (and only) time riding this S&S Free Fly model. Perhaps it was the cold weather, or the near-nonexistent wait (sensing a pattern here?), but the cars seemed to be running slightly faster than normal, and the spins were smoothly executed and with little whiplash to speak of.
By this point, we were getting all tuckered out from nonstop riding. There was a severe lack of people in the park today, probably because of the weather (reminder: it was dipping below 40 on and off throughout the day) and also because it was the first day of Great Adventure’s “Holiday in the Park” offering, which runs through January.
In any case, we smelled the telltale smoke of a bonfire in the distance, and headed there to warm ourselves up for a few minutes before tackling the other side of the park. Six Flags had set up for us a pretty decent selection of Christmastime snacks, including materials for s’mores and roasted almonds, but what caught our eye was the spiked drink selection – hot chocolate, cider and more, all with a generous pour of alcohol. And, let me tell you, a spiked cider plus the roaring flames of a bonfire does wonders to warm you up after a few chilly hours in the Jersey winter.
Since Six Flags advertises “Holiday in the Park” as a post-season offering, much of the park remained closed, to our chagrin, including headliners like El Toro and Kingda Ka. The latter wasn’t too much of a loss (these strata-coasters are generally a one-and-done ride for me), but I was somewhat upset that I would be missing out on my #1 roller coaster of all time.
On the bright side, all of that time that I would’ve spent marathoning El Toro could now be diverted to exploring the smaller rides that Great Adventure had to offer, including Houdini’s Great Escape, a Vekoma Mad House attraction that I last experienced about a decade ago at Lotte World in South Korea.
Houdini is a one-trick pony, but it’s a pretty decent pony. The ride consists of benches, arranged facing each other (think House of Lords in the British Parliament), that can tilt up to 50 degrees in either direction. This contraption is surrounded by walls (usually themed to a room) that have an independent axis of rotation, which means that despite the seats never tilting above 50 degrees, the “room” can spin to give riders the illusion of traveling upside-down. It’s a neat trick, and definitely worth a ride – but once you figure out the illusion, you tend to spend more time trying to figure out how it works rather than simply enjoying the experience!
The rest of our time was spent marathoning the remaining flat rides that were open – a Top Spin, a carousel that was in desperate need of a good refurbishment, a Viking and the perquisite spinning teacups (that we rode twice, with the result being several minutes of tottering and sitting and groaning) – with breaks in between to warm ourselves up by the bonfires Six Flags had kindly set up for us.
We closed out the day with an extra lap on Skull Mountain, for the sheer fact that it was indoors (and out of the cold). We called it quits after that, finally giving Mother Nature the victory she always wanted. Our heated car waited in the parking lot, and we unanimously decided to crank the heat to high.Local opponents of the F-35 are throttling up their campaign by petitioning for a cutoff of construction funds for Burlington International Airport if it agrees to host the fighter jets.
Activists began gathering signatures during Town Meeting Day voting today in support of a 2014 ballot initiative stating that "no more than one dollar may be spent for construction, equipment and improvement" at the airport in the event F-35s are based there.
Bristol attorney Jim Dumont, speaking on behalf of the plane’s opponents, argues that Burlington voters have the power to slash the airport’s budget. He bases that claim on a section of state law that requires local voters to approve the budget of a municipally owned airport. Burlington has apparently flouted this law for decades by not making airport funding contingent on direct approval by city voters, Dumont said at a news conference Tuesday morning at the Mater Christi School polling place.
City attorney Eileen Blackwood says Dumont has it wrong.
In a statement emailed to reporters on the evening prior to the press event, Blackwood said, “Burlington’s city charter trumps the general state law on this issue.” Burlington’s charter vests budget-making authority solely with the city council, she notes. Airport spending therefore could not be directly blocked by the city’s voters, Blackwood says.
Dumont (pictured) responded on Tuesday that it’s Blackwood who’s got it wrong.About the Novels
The Aristillus Series is a pair of science fiction novels about anarchocapitalism, economics, open source software, corporate finance, social media, antigravity, lunar colonization, genetically modified dogs, strong AI…and really, really big guns.
Earth in 2064 is politically corrupt and in economic decline. The Long Depression has dragged on for 56 years, and the Bureau of Sustainable Research is hard at work making sure that no new technologies disrupt the planned economy. Ten years ago a band of malcontents, dreamers, and libertarian radicals bolted privately-developed anti-gravity drives onto rusty sea-going cargo ships, loaded them to the gills with 20th-century tunnel-boring machines and earthmoving equipment, and set sail - for the Moon.
There, they built their retreat. A lunar underground border-town, fit to rival Ayn Rand's 'Galt's Gulch', with American capitalists, Mexican hydroponic farmers, and Vietnamese space-suit mechanics - this is the city of Aristillus.
There’s a problem, though: the economic decline of Earth under a command-and-control economy is causing trouble for the political powers-that-be in Washington DC and elsewhere. To shore up their positions they need slap down the lunar expats and seize the gold they've been mining. The conflicts start small, but rapidly escalate.
There are zero-gravity gun fights in rusted ocean going ships flying through space, containers full of bulldozers hurtling through the vacuum, nuclear explosions, armies of tele-operated combat UAVs, guerrilla fighting in urban environments, and an astoundingly visual climax where -in the midst of all out warfare…well, you’ll have to read the novels.
About the project
I came of age reading the great science fiction novels of the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, but somewhere between the 1980s and today, though, science fiction went wrong.
The science, the stories, the heroism that made science fiction great - these have given way to novelisations of TV shows and movies and video games, space melodramas, and stories about social justice, women, and marginalized people. I wanted that great science fiction back - so I wrote the books I wanted to see on the shelves. This is a project to get those books into your hands.
Optimistic fiction with ornery and insistent individualism
Eric S Raymond, open source luminary, author of the Cathedral and the Bazaar, and science fiction fan, once said that "hard SF is the vital heart of the field, the radiant core from which ideas and prototype worlds diffuse outwards" and that hard SF is characterized by "radical transformation, optimism, applied science as our best hope, the lust for possibilities". He then went on to say that the core of science fiction is libertarian, and defined SF's libertarian tradition as "ornery and insistent individualism, veneration of the competent man, instinctive distrust of coercive social engineering and a rock-ribbed objectivism that values knowing how things work and treats all political ideologizing with suspicion".
This perfectly describes the kind of science fiction I love... and the kind of science fiction that I can't find on the shelves any more.
I've flipped past thousands of books featuring tattooed Strong Woman vampire hunters, Hollywood love stories that have nothing to do with science fiction except that they're set on a spaceship, tales of beautiful intuitive women who must choose between suitors while arranging a revolution against the Bad People, adolescent wizards, and more, while looking for the novels I want to read.
Where are the Heinleins, the Nivens, the Pournelles, of today? Sure, there are a few - but not enough.
Out of frustration, I finally wrote the novels that I wanted to read - and with this kickstarter, you can read them too.
The two books of the Aristillus series deliver what Eric S Raymond described as the ideal. It's a big Neal Stephenson-esque tale - a true science fiction story - with lots of hard science, although mostly in the background. It doesn't clobber the reader over the head, but all of the science (aside from one or two big "this is the fictional bit!" pieces) is plausible, from the space suit technology and the implicit calculations of potassium superoxide CO2 scrubbing, to the reentry speeds of various ships, to lunar geology (selenology). It also doesn't clobber the reader w politics, either!
...but more important than that is the tone of the story. I've had more than enough tales where everything man does is garbage and we need to trust in Gaia, or the powers of logic lead us astray and we really need to listen to our hearts, or the conflict is resolved in the end by realizing that everyone was actually a little bit wrong and the secret is to listen to each other.
Ugh. No.
These novels tell a story with a good team and a bad team. Our heroes want to be left alone, free to live their own lives. The villains are nosy, intrusive, and think that they should make decisions for everyone. That's not to say that it's a treacly morality tale - there are shades of gray, good people stuck on the wrong side of a bad situation, and characters torn between differing virtues. But it is a story of with good guys, and those people have a belief in the power of logic, heroism, and Thinking Big.
And, finally, this is a self consciously - and unashamedly - libertarian story. It's got competent men and women who believe in their right to be free, and are frankly unreasonable about it - they refuse to do what they're told, they refuse to knuckle under and obey their betters, they refuse to believe that the best days of mankind and the west are behind them. They dream big and work hard to make their dreams happen. They are ornery and insistent individualists, and if they have to write open source code, build spaceships, dig tunnels, or weld armor plate to turn bulldozers into tanks in order to fight for their freedom, that's exactly what they'll do. They have no tolerance for carbon permits, political correctness, listening to their betters, or waiting for permission.
A note on quality
If you're like me you've probably read a fair bit of self published fiction that is, to be frank, garbage. I'm disgusted by the lack of craftsmanship I've seen in so much self published work. There are often typos galore, duplicated words, hackneyed phrases, and beginner level mistakes in grammar.
...but worse than that, the stories are often trite, have embarrassingly implausible dialogue, mistakes in pacing, Mary Sue characters (just like the author, but super-awesome at everything), and reveals and twists that weren't properly set up. The stories often fail to explain the stakes, make us care about the characters and their struggles, or raise the tension appropriately before releasing it with a climax.
A satisfying novel is actually a very tricky and complicated piece of social technology, and it's not one that someone can get right on the first try...or even the second or the third.
This was something I learned the hard way. I've been publishing non-fiction articles in national magazines since I was 13 ("Revised AD&D Combat Tables" in Dragon Magazine issue #117 (buffs nails on shirt)), and it was a surprise to me that even after one has a mastery of the English language, fiction is a second and unique challenge.
It took me five drafts, and over a million words of practice before I finished writing this, and even then, it wasn't done until after I'd paid to have the entire thing professionally proof-read.
In short: the white hot core of science fiction is tales of competent men and women fighting for their ideals against forces that would hold them back. These tales are worth reading only when they're well-executed: realistic and interesting characters, good writing, good dialogue, steady and confident pacing, and an exciting payoff that is not merely justified but required by all that has gone before."
I strongly think that the Aristillus series delivers the goods, and I think you will too.
About the Novel and the Author
A novel about a libertarian revolution on the moon - that does full justice to the pressing, seldom-broached minarchist-anarchist debate! This may be just what the market for libertarian SF is crying out for.
-- Ken MacLeod, author of The Cassinni Division, Cosmonaut Keep, Newton's Wake
I've barely begun it but have already discovered humor, firepower, and dogs. Good start! Very L Neil Smith-ish.
-- Claire Wolfe, author of 101 Things to Do 'Til the Revolution
I've enjoyed reading it quite a lot...the work of a professional writer, one who knows how fiction works and uses narrative techniques and tropes consciously and purposefully.
-- William H Stoddard, author of GURPS Steampunk
I'm sure this can be justified as your lovely American free speech and not hate speech or malicious communication, and yes, I'm sure Corcoran has a perfect right to say it and all that shit. Guess what? I have a perfect right not to like it, and a right to not be associated with the nutter who spews it.
-- Warren Ellis, author of Transmetropolitan, Iron Man Extremis, The Authority
I don't think what Corcoran wrote should be criminal, but it's certainly stupid, ill-advised, and, frankly, immoral. Corcoran calls himself an anarcho-capitalist. Which is fine, I guess. I'll live it to anarcho-capitalists to figure out if they want him.
-- Radley Balko, former Huffington Post senior writer
I'm left wondering - how is Travis Corcoran still a free man?
-- The Daily Kos
Free samplesCodi Wilson, CP24.com
The stepmother of a 17-year-old who was gunned down at a pizza place on Weston Road early this morning described the teen as a “kind” and “loving” boy who had a close relationship with his grandmother.
At around 1:40 a.m. Sunday, police said gunmen walked into a Pizza Pizza in the area of Weston Road and Lawrence Avenue and starting shooting in the direction of 17-year-old Jarryl Hagley, who was eating with friends.
Det. Paul Worden told CP24 Sunday that the victim rushed to a back washroom to flee from his attackers but collapsed and lost consciousness.
First responders, who arrived to find friends tending to the victim in the washroom, attempted to resuscitate Hagley.
He was rushed to a local trauma centre, where he was pronounced dead a short time later.
Speaking to CP24 Sunday, Hagley’s stepmother Trisha Samuels said the teen was a "nice guy" who wouldn't hesitate to help someone in the neighbourhood carry home groceries.
"He was a kind guy, very loving. He hugs everybody," Samuels said.
"We are just looking for closure."
Hagley leaves behind three young brothers, Samuels added.
"It hurts them to know that their brother is not here right now," she said.
Two of the boys told CP24 that their favourite memories of their brother include a trip to Canada's Wonderland and playing video games with him at their home.
Hagley moved to Toronto eight or nine years ago from Grenada, according to one of his relatives.
Teen's death is 'unbelievable,' family friend says
A man who identified himself as a family friend told CP24 at the scene that Hagley may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"He is not a troublemaker," the man said.
"It is unbelievable to me to know that this really happened to him."
Worden said investigators believe the shooting was “targeted.”
“He was with three other people sitting at a table having something to eat and we believe a person was targeted at that table,” he said.
Police have not released suspect descriptions at this time.
“There was good surveillance video at the Pizza Pizza store. We cannot obtain it until tomorrow though. I do expect very good images of the incident and the suspects,” Worden said.
“We are looking for more than one (suspect). We are still not clear on how many.”
The motive for the shooting has not been determined.
“There has been good information coming in. The friends of the deceased have been very cooperative. The Pizza Pizza store employees have been very cooperative. We do have some theories. We are not ruling anything out but we do believe there was prior contact between the suspect and the deceased and his friends,” Worden continued.
“It wasn’t a chance encounter at that time of the morning.”
Police are asking anyone with information about Hagley’s whereabouts prior to the shooting to contact investigators at 416-808-7400 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS (8477).So much for the not-in-my-backyard argument: California homes with solar panels installed on them sell for more than their panel-free counterparts, according to a study by the University of California at Berkeley.
The study found that homes with solar panels sold for an extra $5.50 per watt of solar power installed, for an average of $17,000 more per house.
Both solar power and wind power sources typically face resistance from communities due to a “not-in-my-backyard” mentality — meaning residents do not want large obtrusive pieces of equipment within line of sight. The argument is especially true for wind power because wind farms typically require massive turbines that are hundreds of feet tall that might become an eyesore for some residents.
But the Berkeley study, and an additional study conducted by the government in 2009, found that home prices were either unaffected or rose based on proximity to renewable energy sources like wind power turbines and solar panels. The space that wind turbines and solar panels occupy can also be used for other purposes — such as agriculture, in the case of wind power, or roofing, in the case of solar power.
Both reports suggest that the not-in-my-backyard argument doesn’t carry a lot of weight. After all, both of these renewable energy sources are rather iconic images of green technology — they’re supposed to carry a mentality of environmental conscientiousness with them.Share. Celebrate today's release of Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 ReMIX by picking up a few Sora-approved collectibles. Celebrate today's release of Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 ReMIX by picking up a few Sora-approved collectibles.
Exit Theatre Mode
So, who else out there has Keyblades on the brain? Today's release of Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 ReMIX has kicked my mind into its most nostalgic gear, thinking back to that first day 11 years ago when I first set off for adventure with Donald and Goofy in tow. If you're fondly remembering your first battles against the Heartless and want to grab a little something extra in addition to that new copy of ReMIX today, consider picking up one of the following Kingdom Hearts collectibles.
A Life-Size Replica Keyblade
Serious collectors might already own a few famous replica weapons from gaming's great franchises, like The Legend of Zelda's Master Sword or one of Capcom's many wearable Mega Man arm cannons they've released in recent years. This life-size re-creation of Sora's signature Keyblade would be a great pick to join your growing arsenal, though – and could be great for cosplayers, too.
Buy the Life-Size Replica Keyblade: $79.99
A Keyblade Paperweight
If having a full-size replica of Sora's key-shaped sword is a little too excessive or expensive for you taste, you can still capture the magic in this more compact form. The Keyblade Paperweight will keep you company at your computer desk as you, of course, do your daily browsing here at IGN.
Buy the Keyblade Paperweight: $21.00
A Heartless Plushie
Whether you opt for the Keyblade large or small, you wouldn't want to own a weapon without an enemy to wield it against, right? This most cuddly of Kingdom Hearts minions is ready and willing to have the stuffing knocked out of it by your furious Keyblade attacks. (Just pretend attacks, of course. You wouldn't want to actually damage this little guy!)
Buy the Heartless Plushie: $30.84
A Heartless Hat
Of course, a little stuffed Heartless isn't going to be much of a battle opponent for you – it's just going to sit there. Maybe a better idea would be buying a handful of these Heartless Hats, then blackmailing some of your friends to put them on and swarm around you as moving targets?
Buy the Heartless Hat: $8.72
Sora's Silver Crown Necklace
If you've been following my train of thought this far and find yourself spinning in circles in your living room, fending off your "Heartless" friends with your full-size steel Keyblade, then you might as well take the next step and grab this appropriate accessory. (Alternatively, if you're not insane, this is this week's most affordable option and a great pick to pick up for a small hit of KH nostalgia.)
Buy Sora's Silver Crown Necklace: $2.30
Keyblade Pendant Necklace Set
Finally, if necklaces are your thing, you can upgrade to an entire set of different wearable Keyblades for just a few dollars more.
Buy the Keyblade Pendant Necklace Set: $10.95
And those are our picks for Kingdom Hearts collectibles to help you celebrate today's release of Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 ReMIX. If you decide to grab any of them or have other KH-series items you think we should have mentioned, let us know in the Comments box below. Happy Heartless hunting!
You can follow Lucas M. Thomas on Twitter, @lucasmthomas.Please enable Javascript to watch this video
HARTFORD- A state supreme court ruling is opening the door for those with marijuana possession convictions to have their records cleared.
Now a Hartford lawyer will help those with convictions free of charge.
Attorney Corey Brinson said there are likely thousands of people in Connecticut with convictions for possession of a small amount of pot, and many probably have no clue they’re eligible to have it expunged.
"We all make mistakes and unfortunately for some people who make mistakes, they are forever tarred and feathered and branded with a criminal conviction,” said Brinson on Thursday.
On Monday the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled unanimously that convictions prior to the 2011 decriminalization of marijuana could be overturned.
It welcome news for 37-year-old Lebanon resident Jeffrey McCarthy. He was arrested in 2005 at his Vernon apartment and charged with possession of marijuana.
"Ten officers in my home, multiple cruisers, everyone in the neighborhood watching,” said McCarthy, recounting the experience.
Neighbors watched as police showed up at this apartment for a noise complaint but ended up arresting him.
"I lost just about everything I had in my life, that I cared about. Everybody, every thing, and it was over a small amount of marijuana,” said McCarthy.
He lost his apartment, his job, and his girlfriend. He also spent two weeks in jail.
"I was in jail with a rapist, I was in jail with a serial robber,” said McCarthy.
Ten years later, he’s moved to a different town and is a legally registered medicinal marijuana card holder for dealing with his seizures and PTSD.
McCarthy applauds the supreme court’s decision.
"I think it's a wonderful start and as soon as I have the ability to, I will start the process of erasing the marijuana conviction from my record that's happened me every since it's happened," he said.
Brinson’s also fond of the decision. That’s why he’s volunteering his legal services pro bono. He’ll help those with convictions file the court petitions to have their record cleared.
But there is a catch: his offer is only good for current and former clients, plus young people in the area.
"Any full time college student in Connecticut that had a conviction where they had one half ounce of marijuana or less, I would represent pro bono to clean their records,” said Brinson.
But why help strangers for free?
"I just think that as a lawyer in the community it's just the right thing to do. I just think that young people who haven't even really got a chance to start life shouldn't have to carry that burden around with them,” said Brinson.
He believes recreational marijuana will soon be legal in Connecticut and doesn't think lives should be ruined in the meantime.
McCarthy is a perfect example of that.
"This will affect people in positive ways so maybe other folks won't have to go through what I went through,” said McCarthy.
Now it is possible to just represent yourself in getting your record expunged |
the robot “turtles” or “tortoises,” Elsie and Elmer. Following a cybernetic approach rather than a computational one, Walter’s turtles were controlled by a simple electronic circuit with a couple of vacuum tubes.
Although the actions of this machine were trivial and exhibited nothing that even suggested intelligence, Grey has been described as a robotics “pioneer” whose work was “highly successful and inspiring.”69 On the basis of experimentation with a device that, speaking generously, simulated an organism with two neurons, he published two articles in Scientific American70 (one per neuron!), as well as a book.71
Cybernetics was the research program founded by Norbert Wiener,72 and was essentially analog in its approach. In comparison with (digital) computer science, it is moribund if not quite dead. Like so many other approaches to artificial intelligence, the cybernetic approach simply failed to scale up.73
Computerized Robots
The history of computerized robotics closely parallels the history of A.I. in general:
Grand theoretical visions, such as Turing’s musings (already discussed) about how his mechanical creature would roam the countryside.
Promising early results, such as Shakey, said to be “the first mobile robot to reason about its actions.” 74
A half-century of stagnation and disappointment. 75
Unrepentant grand promises for the future.
What a roboticist like Hans Moravec predicts for robots is the stuff of science fiction, as is evident by the title of his book, Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind.76 For example, in 1997 Moravec asked the question, “When will computer hardware match the human brain?” and answered “in the 2020s.”77 This belief that robots will soon transcend human intelligence is echoed by many others in A.I.78
In the field of computerized robots, there are three major approaches:
TOP-DOWN The approach taken with Shakey and its successors, in which a computationalist computer program controls the robot’s activities. 79 Under the covers, the programs take the same approach as good old-fashioned artificial intelligence, except that instead of printing out answers, they cause the robot to do something.
The approach taken with Shakey and its successors, in which a computationalist computer program controls the robot’s activities. Under the covers, the programs take the same approach as good old-fashioned artificial intelligence, except that instead of printing out answers, they cause the robot to do something. OUTSIDE-IN Consists of creating robots that imitate the superficial behavior of people, such as responding to the presence of people nearby, tracking eye movement, and so on. This is the approach largely taken recently by people working under Rodney A. Brooks. 80
Consists of creating robots that imitate the superficial behavior of people, such as responding to the presence of people nearby, tracking eye movement, and so on. This is the approach largely taken recently by people working under Rodney A. Brooks. BOTTOM-UP Consists of creating robots that have no central control, but relatively simple mechanisms to control parts of their behavior. The notion is that by putting together enough of these simple mechanisms (presumably in the right arrangement), intelligence will “emerge.” Brooks has written extensively in support of this approach.81
The claims of roboticists of all camps range from the unintelligible to the unsupportable.
As an example of the unintelligible, consider MIT’s Cog (short for “cognition”). The claim was that Cog displayed the intelligence (and behavior) of, initially, a six-month old infant. The goal was for Cog to eventually display the intelligence of a two-year-old child.82 A basic concept of intelligence — to the extent that anyone can agree on what the word means — is that (all things being equal) it stays constant throughout life. What changes as a child or animal develops is only the behavior. So, to make this statement at all intelligible, it would have to be translated into something like this: the initial goal is only that Cog will display the behavior of a six-month-old child that people consider indicative of intelligence, and later the behavior of a two-year-old child.
Even as corrected, this notion is also fallacious. Whatever behaviors a two-year-old child happens to display, as that child continues to grow and develop it will eventually display all the behavior of a normal adult, because the two- year-old has an entire human brain. However, even if we manage to create a robot that mimics all the behavior of a two-year-old child, there’s reason to believe that that same robot will without any further programming, ten years later, display the behavior of a 12-year-old child, or later, display the behavior of an adult.
Cog never even displayed the intelligent behavior of a typical six-month-old baby.83 For it to behave like a two-year-old child, of course, it would have to use and understand natural language — thus far an insurmountable barrier for A.I..
The unsupportable claim is sometimes made that some robots have achieved “insect-level intelligence,” or at least robots that duplicate the behavior of insects.84 Such claims seem plausible simply because very few people are entomologists, and are unfamiliar with how complex and sophisticated insect behavior actual is.85 Other experts, however, are not sure that we’ve achieved even that level.86
According to the roboticists and their fans, Moore’s Law will come to the rescue. The implication is that we have the programs and the data all ready to go, and all that’s holding us back is a lack of computing power. After all, as soon as computers got powerful enough, they were able to beat the world’s best human chess player, weren’t they? (Well, no — a great deal of additional programming and chess knowledge was also needed.)
Sad to say, even if we had unlimited computer power and storage, we wouldn’t know what to do with it. The programs aren’t ready to go, because there aren’t any programs.
Even if it were true that current robots or computers had attained insect-level intelligence, this wouldn’t indicate that human-level artificial intelligence is attainable. The number of neurons in an insect brain is about 10,000 and in a human cerebrum about 30,000,000,000. But if you put together 3,000,000 cockroaches (this seems to be the A.I. idea behind “swarms”), you get a large cockroach colony, not human-level intelligence. If you somehow managed to graft together 3,000,000 natural or artificial cockroach brains, the results certainly wouldn’t be anything like a human brain, and it is unlikely that it would be any more “intelligent” than the cockroach colony would be. Other species have brains as large as or larger than humans, and none of them display human-level intelligence — natural language, conceptualization, or the ability to reason abstractly.87 The notion that human- level intelligence is an “emergent property” of brains (or other systems) of a certain size or complexity is nothing but hopeful speculation.
Conclusions
With admirable can-do spirit, technological optimism, and a belief in inevitability, psychologists, philosophers, programmers, and engineers are sure they shall succeed, just as people dreamed that heavier-than-air flight would one day be achieved.88 But 50 years after the Wright brothers succeeded with their proof-of-concept flight in 1903, aircraft had been used decisively in two world wars; the helicopter had been invented; several commercial airlines were routinely flying passengers all over the world; the jet airplane had been invented; and the speed of sound had been broken.
After more than 50 years of pursuing human- level artificial intelligence, we have nothing but promises and failures. The quest has become a degenerating research program89 (or actually, an ever-increasing number of competing ones), pursuing an ever-increasing number of irrelevant activities as the original goal recedes ever further into the future — like the mirage it is.
References & Notes
Markoff, John, “A New Company to Focus on Artificial Intelligence,” New York Times, March 24, 2005, available at www.nytimes.com/2005/03/24/technology/24think.html Raine, George, “Palm Founders to Start New Firm,” San Francisco Chronicle, March 24, 2005, available at www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/03/24/BUG07BTARA1.DTL&type=business www.numenta.com Hawkins is also the author (with Sandra Blakeslee) of On Intelligence, 2004, as well as the director of the Redwood Neurosci-ence Institute (www.rni.org), a research company affiliated with the Helen Wills Neuro-science Institute (http://neuroscienceberkeley.edu) at the University of California at Berkeley. See www.rni.org/HelenWillisNeuroscienceInstitute.html For example: The Organization for Computational Neurosciences (www.cnsorg.org); The Swartz Center for Computational Neuroscience at the University of California at San Diego (www.sccn.ucsd.edu); The Computational Neuroscience Program at the University of Minnesota (www.compneuro.umn.edu); and The Laboratory for Computational Neuro-science at the Department of Neurosurgery of Presbyterian University Hospital (www.neuronet.pitt.edu/groups/lcn). The Journal of Computational Neuroscience, published by Springer, and another with the identical title from Kluwer Academic Publishers. These include pages from the project sponsored by the federal government’s National Institutes of Mental Health that started in 1993 (www.nimh.nihgov/neuro.informatics), as well as human brain projects (many of them funded by the NIMH itself) at Washington University (sig.biostr.washington.edu/projects/brain), the California Institute of Technology (www.gg.caltech.edu/hbp), University of Southern California (www-hbp.usc.edu), University of California at Davis and San Diego (neuroscience.ucdavis.edu/hbp), Cornell University (neocortex.med.cornelledu),.Stanford University (spnl.stanford.edu/tools/human_brain_proj.htm), and elsewhere across the country and the globe. See, for example: Adams, Bruce and Stephen Ottley, “Brain Simulation,” 2000, available at www.cybernetics.demon.co.uk/brainsim.html and “The Virtual Brain Machine Project,” 2001, available at www.cybernetics.demon.co.uk/VBM.html; Sloman, Aaron (moderator), “Grand Challenge 5: The Architecture of Brain and Mind,” 2004 [based on a draft by Mike Denham, 2003], available at www.nesc.ac.uk/esi/events/Grand_Challenges/proposals/ ArchitectureOfBrainAndMind.pdf; and Borisyuk, Roman, “The Grand Challenge for the 21st Century: A Theory of the Brain,” ND (2002?), available at www.nesc.ac.uk/esi/events/Grand_Challenges/paneld/d2.pdf. Hawkins, Jeff, with Sandra Blakeslee, On Intelligence, 2004. The mathematician generally considered to be the founder of computer science. Turing, Alan “Intelligent Machinery,” 1948, available at www.turingarchive.org/browse.php/C/11. This is one of at least five versions of what was originally a talk given in 1948 and eventually published. This and several other versions are avail able online at the Turing Archive, www.turingarchive.org. As John R. Searle (professor of the philosophy of the mind and language at the University of California at Berkeley) writes in The Mystery of Consciousness, 1997: “The dirty secret of contemporary neuroscience is … [that] [s]o far we do not have a unifying theoretical principle of neuroscience. In the way that we have an atomic theory of matter, a germ theory of disease, a genetic theory of inheritance, a tectonic plate theory of geology, a natural selection theory of evolution, a blood- pumping theory of the heart, and even a contraction theory of the muscles, we do not in that sense have a theory of how the brain works. We know a lot of facts about what actually goes on in the brain, but we do not yet have a unifying theoretical account of how what goes on at the level of the neurobiology enables the brain to do what it does by way of causing, structuring, and organizing our mental life.” Horgan, John, The Undiscovered Mind How: the Human Brain Defies Replication, Medication, and Explanation, 1999. The term “anti-progress” is Horgan’s. As Douglas R. Fields reports in “The Other Half of the Brain,” Scientific American, April, 2004, “Mounting evidence suggests that glial cells, overlooked for half a century, may be nearly as critical to thinking and learning as neurons are.” Claudia Krebs, Kertsin Hüttmann and Christian Steinhäuser, “The Forgotten Brain Emerges,” Scientific American [Mind] Special, Vol. 14, No. 5, 2004, write: “After disregarding them for decades, neuroscientists now say glial cells may be nearly as important to thinking as neurons are.” As James P. Hogan wrote in Mind Matters: Exploring the World of Artificial Intelligence (1997), “[W]e haven’t really come a long way. … [T]he early A.I. vision of reproducing all-around humanlike reasoning and perception remains as elusive as ever.” In “When Machines Outsmart Humans,” 2000, Futures, Vol. 35:7, available at www.nickbostrom.com/2050/outsmart.html, Nick Boostrom, Faculty of Philosophy, Oxford University, England, wrote: “The annals of artificial intelligence are littered with broken promises. Half a century after the first electric computer, we still have nothing that even resembles an intelligent machine, if by ‘intelligent’ we mean possessing the kind of general-purpose smartness that we humans pride ourselves on.” In the “The Complexity Ceiling,” in The Next Fifty Years (edited by John Brockman, 2002), Jaron Lanier (an eminent computer scientist known for coining the phrase “virtual reality” and for founding VPL Research, probably the first virtual reality company, later acquired by Sun Microsystems — see www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/1998-02/sunflash.980223.1.html) wrote, “The first fifty years of general computation, which roughly spanned the second half of the twentieth century, were characterized by extravagant swings between giddy overstatement and embarrassing near-paralysis. The practice of overstatement continues … Accompanying the parade of quixotic overstatements of theoretical computer power has been a humiliating and unending sequence of disappointments in the performance of real information systems.” Hawkins, Jeff, with Sandra Blakeslee, On Intelligence, 2004. A mathematician at Bell Telephone Laboratories and the inventor of information theory. A mathematician and founder of the science of cybernetics. A mathematician credited, among other things, with the architecture of serial computers. McCarthy, J, M. L. Minsky, N. Rochester, and C.E. Shannon, “A Proposal for the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence,” 1955, available at www.formal.stanford.edu/jmc/history/dartmouth/dartmouth.html Associationism is paradoxically both attributed to and rejected by John Locke. Others trace elements of this idea back as far as Aristotle and Plato. See Young, Robert M., “Association of Ideas,” Dictionary of the History of Ideas, available at etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhiana.cgi?id=dv1-19 See: Eliasmith, Chris, “Connectionism,” 2004, Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind, available at artsci.wustl.edu/~philos/MindDict/connectionism.html; Garson,James, “Connectionism, ”[1997–2002], The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2002, Edward N. Zalta (ed.), available at plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2002/entries/connectionism; “Connectionism,” 2003, FOLDOP3.0 Free On-Line Dictionary of Philosophy, Gian Paolo Terravecchia, Chief Editor and Project Coordinator, available at www.swif.it/foldop/dizionario.php?ind=fconnectionism; Aizawa, Ken, “History of Connectionism,” 2004, available at www.artsci.wustl.edu/~philos/Mind Dict/connectionismhistory.html; “History of Connectionism,” 2003, FOLDOP3.0 Free On-Line Dictionary of Philosophy, Gian Paolo Terravecchia, Chief Editor and Project Coordinator, available at www.swif.it/foldop/dizionario.php?query=connectionism+history+of; Pollack, Jordan B., “Connectionism: Past, Present, and Future,” 1989, available at demo.cs.brandeis.edu/papers/nnhistory.pdf; Berkeley, Istvan S. N., “A Revisionist History of Connectionism,” 1997, available at www.ucs.louisiana.edu/~isb9112/dept/phil341/histconn.html. Generally credited as having been invented by Warren McCullough (a psychiatrist at the University of Chicago) and Walter Pitts (a mathematician and logician at the same university). See McCullough, Warren and Walter Pitts and Walter Pitts, “A logical calculus of the ideas immanent in nervous activity,” 1943, Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics, Vol. 5, 1943. For a detailed analysis of this difficult-to-find paper, see Piccinini, Gualtiero, “The First Computational Theory of Mind and Brain: A Close Look at McCulloch and Pitts’s ‘Logical Calculus of Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity’,” ND, available at www.artsci.wustl.edu/~gpiccini/First%20Computational%20Theory.pdf. However, their ideas were similar in many respects to the work of W. Ross Ashby, a British psy chiatrist (see Ashby, W. Ross, “Principles of the Self-Organizing Dynamic System,” 1947, Journal of General Psychology, Vol. 37, 1947, and Ashby, W. Ross, Design for a Brain: The Origin of Adaptive Behaviour, 1952 [First edition], Donald Hebb, a psychologist at McGill University in Canada, (see Hebb, Donald, The Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory, 1949, as well, of course, as Norbert Wiener. Later seminal work on artificial neural networks include the Perceptron, credited to Frank Rosenblatt, a professor of Neuro-biology & Behavior at Cornell, working at the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory in the period 1957–1960. See Rosenblatt, Frank, “The Perceptron: A Probabilistic Model for Information Storage and Organization in the Brain,” 1958, Cornell Aero-nautical Laboratory, Psychological Review, v 65, No. 6, 1958 and Rosenblatt, Frank, Principles of Neurodynamics; Perceptrons and the Theory of Brain Mechanisms, 1962. See also Minsky, Marvin And Papert, Seymour, Perceptrons: an Introduction to Computational Geometry, 1969 [First Edition], 1987 [Expanded Edition]. These statistics are from Gerald M. Edelman and Giulio Tononi, A Universe of Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination, 2000, but they’re consistent with estimates from a variety of other sources. See www.ninds.nih.gov/news_and_events/proceedings/ computationalwkshp_technical.htm. Kristen M. Harris, a professor in the department of neurology at the Medical College of Georgia and the principal investigator at the Laboratory of the Synapse Structure and Function at the Medical College of Georgia (synapses.mcg.edu/lab/lab.htm) and the creator of the Synapse Web (synapses.mcg.edu), suggests that the numbers are in the megabytes (personal communication). Mark Ellisman, a professor of both neuroscience and bioengineering and the Director of the National Center for Microscopy and Imaging Research at the Center for Research in Biological Systems of the University of California, San Diego (www-ncmir.ucsd.edu), suggests that there are probably between five and twenty thousand macromolecules involved in the structure, function, and dynamics of each synapse (personal communication). Such as www.wormbase.org, www.wormatlas.org, and www.bio logie.ens.fr/bcsgnce. See Bessereau, Jean-Louis (group leader), “Genetics and Neurobiology of C. elegans” website, www.biologie.ens.fr/bcsgnce. For an example of an artificial neural network with 64 input neurons (and apparently only one output neuron), see “Who Wrote The Book of Life?: Picking Up Where D’Arcy Thompson Left Off,” 1999, on the NASA website, science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast28may 99_1.htm. This artificial neural network, it is said, will require the resources of a supercomputer to process its 10,000 training cases. James Martin, an eminent computer scientist known as “the Guru of the Information Age” and credited with writing over one hundred textbooks predicted this in PC Week, November 21, 1988. As James A. Whittaker, an associate professor and director of the Center for Software Engineering Research at the computer sciences department at the Florida Institute of Technology, wrote in How to Break Software: A Practical Guide to Testing, 2003: “Building nontrivial software is an enormously difficult endeavor and usually results in software that fails once it gets fielded.” As Jaron Lanier wrote in “The Complexity Ceiling,” in John Brockman (ed.), The Next Fifty Years, 2002: “ … [T]he complexity of software is currently limited by the ability of human engineers to explicitly analyze and manage it, we can be said to have already reached the complexity ceiling of software as we know it. If we don’t find a different way of thinking about and creating software, we will not be writing programs bigger than about 10 million lines of code no matter how fast, plentiful, or exotic our processors become.” As industry expert Capers Jones, Chief Scientist Emeritus at a company called Software Productivity Research (www.spr.com) put it in “Conflict and Litigation Between Clients and Developers,” 2004, unpublished manuscript: “[T]he development of large applications in excess of 10,000 function points [at about 125 lines of code per function point, that’s about 1,250,000 lines of code] is one of the most hazardous and risky undertakings of the modern world.” According to statistics reported by Jones, the probability of a project of 100,000 function points [that is, about 12,500,000 lines of code] failing is about two out of three. As Jaron Lanier wrote in “One-Half of a Manifesto: Why Stupid Software will save the future from neo-Darwinian machines,” Wired, December 2000, available at www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.12/lanier.html, “Getting computers to perform specific tasks of significant complexity in a reliable … way … is essentially impossible.” Moore, Gordon E., “Cramming more components onto integrated circuits,” Electronics, April 1965, available at download.intel.com/research/silicon/moorespaper.pdf. See also: Brampton, Martin, “Devil’s Advocate: More to Moore’s Law,” 2004, www.silicon.com/comment/0,39024711,39117869,00.htm; Tuomi, Ilkka, “The Lives and Death of Moore’s Law,” 2002, First Monday, Vol. 7, No. 11, 2002 available at firstmonday.org/issues/issue7_11/tuomi/index.html. An eminent computer scientist, now retired, formerly Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University and at the University of Zurich. Jones, Capers, Applied Software Measurement, 1996, and Software Quality: Analysis and Guidelines for Success, 1997. A function point is equivalent to about 125 lines of code. Hoffman, Donald D. Visual Intelligence, 1998. See www.cs.wpi.edu/~kfisler/Courses/Rice/210/Labs/lab09/univSize.html. Newell, A. and Herbert A. Simon [both researchers at the RAND Corporation, perhaps the world’s first “think tank”], “Computer science as empirical enquiry: symbols and search,” Communications of the ACM, Vol. 19, No. 3, 1976. Just as connectionism has its antecedents in the philosophy of mind known as associationism, computationalism has been said to be the modern equivalent of rationalist psychology, which has been traced back to Kant and said to have its roots as early as Aristotle. See Fodor, Jerry, The Mind Doesn’t Work That Way: The Scope and Limits of Computational Psychology, 2000; Schwarz, Georg, “What is Computationalism?,” 1990, available at www.aec.at/en/archiv_files/19902/E1990b_107.pdf; Horst, Steven, “The Computational Theory of Mind,” 2003, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta (ed.), available at plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2003/entries/computational-mind. As Jerry Fodor (a professor of philosophy at Rutgers University ) explains the idea in The Mind Doesn’t Work That Way: The Scope and Limits of Computational Psychology, 2000, “Mental processes (including … thinking) are computations, that is, they are operations defined on the syntax of mental representations, and they are reliably truth preserving in indefinitely many cases.” See also Aydede, Murat, “The Language of Thought Hypothesis,” 2004, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta (ed.), available at plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2004/entries/language-thought. A prominent computer scientist and author, currently Emeritus Professor of Computer Science at the Laboratory for Computer Science at MIT. Weizenbaum is the author of the notorious computer program ELIZA. Weizenbaum, Joseph, Computer Power and Human Reason, 1967. Volume 12 Number 2 2006. A professor of computer science at Stanford University. Winograd, Terry, Understanding Natural Language, 1972. As Daniel C. Dennett (a professor of philosophy and director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University) points out in Brainchildren: Essays on Designing Minds, 1998, one could imagine a world in which the committee advocated violence and the group seeking the permit feared it. Thomason, Richmond, “Logic and Artificial Intelligence,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2003), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2003/entries/logic-ai As Richmond Thomason wrote in “Logic and Artificial Intelligence,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2003, Edward N. Zalta (ed.), plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2003/entries/logic-ai: “[T]here is reason to hope that the combination of logical methods with planning applications in A.I. can enable the development of a far more comprehensive and adequate theory of practical reasoning than has heretofore been possible. As with many problems having to do with common sense reasoning, the scale and complexity of the formalizations that are required are beyond the traditional techniques of philosophical logic.” As Alexander Riegler (postdoctoral fellow at the Center Leo Apostel at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel) puts it in “When is a Cognitive System Embodied?” 2002, Cognitive Systems Research 3, available at www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/people/riegler/papers/riegler02embodiment.pdf: “The wrong assumption [of computationalist approaches] is that the world is a collection of facts that could be arbitrarily combined with each other. Even if we managed the combinatorial complexity, a question would remain: what is a fact?” See, for example: Klein, Gary, Sources of Power: How People Make Decision, 1999; and Dreyfus, Hubert L. and Stuart E. Dreyfus, Mind over Machine, 1986. As Jerry Fodor wrote in The Mind Doesn’t Work That Way, 2000: “[T]he failure of artificial intelligence to produce successful simulations of routine commonsense cognitive competences is notorious, not to say scandalous.” For one example of an attempted solution, see McCarthy, John, “Artificial Intelligence, Logic and Formalizing Common Sense,” 1990, available at www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/ailogic/ailogic.html. See also the “Open Mind Common Sense” page at commonsense.media.mit.edu/cgi-bin/search.cgi and the “Commonsense Computing @ Media” page at csc.media.mit.edu. As Steven Harnad (at the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, England ) puts it in “The Symbol Grounding Problem,” 1990, Physica D 42, 1990, available at www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad90.sgproblem.html, “How can the meanings of the meaning less symbol tokens, manipulated solely on the basis of their (arbitrary) shapes, be grounded in anything but other meaningless symbols?” See Shanahan, Murray, “The Frame Problem,” 2004, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta (ed.), available at plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2004/entries/frame-problem. See, for example, Fodor, Jerry, The Mind Doesn’t Work That Way, 2000. The story of CYC has been told many times in many books and on many websites, including on CYC’s own website (www.cyc.com). There is also an open-source version, known as OPENCYC (www.opencyc.org). Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation was (and apparently still is) part of the University of Texas, Austin. (In 1995, the effort was spun off into the separate corporation now known as CYCORP.) A computer science pioneer and a professor at Stanford University and elsewhere. As Lanier put it, the Turing Test “is the creation myth of artificial intelligence.” For a thorough introduction, see Oppy, Graham, Dowe, David, “The Turing Test,” 2003, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta (ed.), available at plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2003/entries/turing-test. Quoted in Copeland, Jack, Artificial Intelligence, 1993. Copeland, Jack, Artificial Intelligence, 1993. A small portion of Copeland’s work on CYC is available at ejap.louisiana.edu/EJAP/1997.spring/copeland976.2.html. Copeland, Jack, Artificial Intelligence, 1993. www.cyc.com/doc/articles/midterm_report_1990.pdf See www.opencyc.org/cyc/company/news/APArticle060902. A Ph.D. in computer science (Stanford University) and the coauthor of several papers about CYC, including the previously mentioned midterm report, as well as a book about the effort (Lenat, D. B. and R.V. Guha, Building Large Knowledge-Based Systems: Representation and Inference in the Cyc Project, 1990). Guha, R.V., quoted in D. Stipp, “2001 is just around the corner. Where’s Hal?” Fortune, 1995, cited by Deniz Yuret, available at home.ku.edu.tr/~dyuret/pub/cyc96/node1.html Baard, Mark, “A.I. Founder Blasts Modern Research,” Wired News, 2003, available at www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,58714,00.html See Lakoff, G., and Mark Johnson, Philosophy In the Flesh: The Embodied Mind And Its Challenge To Western Thought, 1999. See also Cowart, Monica, “Embodied Cognition,” ND, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, available at www.iep.utm.edu/e/embodcog.htm. As Pinker wrote in How the Mind Works, 1997, “Without goals, the very concept of intelligence is meaningless.” Dennett, Daniel, Brainchildren, 1998. A neurophysiologist working at the Burden Neurological Institute in Bristol, England. www.stcroixstudios.com/wilder/fastkarl/drgreywalter.html Walter, W. Grey, “An Imitation of Life,” Scientific American, May 1950, and “A Machine that Learns,” Scientific American, August 1951. Walter, W. Grey, The Living Brain, 1963. Wiener, Norbert, Cybernetics, 1948, 1961. As Hans Moravec (an adjunct research professor at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University) wrote in Moravec, Hans, Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind, 1998: “Cybernetics attempted to copy nervous system function by imitating its physical structure. The approach stumbled in the 1960s on the difficulty of constructing all but the simplest artificial nervous systems…” This characterization is ubiquitous. See for example www.sri.com/about/timeline/shakey.html. Shakey is widely discussed in the popular histories of A.I. and robots. For the official history, see www.ai.sri.com/shakey. As Moravec wrote in Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind, 1998, the results of all this work “…were like a cold shower … [T]he best robot-control programs, besides being … difficult to write, took hours to find and pick up a few blocks on a table-top, and often failed completely, performing much worse than a six-month-old child.” Moravec, Hans, Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind, 1998. Moravec, Hans, “When Will Computer Hardware Match the Human Brain?,” 1997, Journal of Evolution and Technology, 1998, 88. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense. See www.darpa.mil. 77. Moravec, Hans, “When Will Computer Hardware Match the Human Brain?,” 1997, Journal of Evolution and Technology, 1998, Vol. 1, available at www.transhumanist.com/volume1/mora. Again, this is evident from mere book titles, such as Kurzweil, Ray, The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence, 1999. See Dean, Thomas, “Robot Architectures,” 2002, available at www.cs.brown.edu/people/tld/courses/cs148/02/architectures.html. A professor of computer science at MIT and director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (www.ai.mit.edu/ projects/humanoid-robotics-group). For example, Brooks, Rodney, A, “Intelligence without Representation,” 1987, Artificial Intelligence 47, available at people.csail.mit.edu/u/b/brooks/public_html/papers/representation.pdf. See for example, www.eecs.mit.edu/100th/images/Brooks. For an indication of what those behaviors are, see www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/development/normaldevelopment.shtml and www.envisage design.com/ohbaby/develop.html. See, for example www.uh.edu/engines/epi434.htm. Brooks had expressed this as a two-year goal in Brooks, Rodney, A, “Intelligence without Representation,” 1987, Artificial Intelligence 47, 1991, available at people.csail.mit.edu/u/b/brooks/public_html/papers/representation.pdf. Quoting Hans Moravec in Robot again: “Today’s best commercial robots are controlled by computers just powerful enough to produce insect-grade behavior.” For a readable introduction to one type of insect, see Gordon, David George, The Compleat Cockroach: A Comprehensive Guide to the Most Despised (And Least Understood) Creature on Earth, 1996. Nils Nillson (principal researcher on Shakey, eminent and pioneering computer scientist, and now professor of engineering, emeritus, at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of the Department of Computer Science at Stanford University), personal communication. The issue of how to compare the brains of animals of different species is extremely complicated. See Walker, S.F., Animal Thought, 1983, of which Chapter 4, “The Phylogenetic Scale, Brain Size and Brain Cells” is available online at www.psyc.bbk.ac.uk/people/academic/walker_s/pubs/an-thought/at-ch4.html. For indications that even our closest living relative, the chimpanzee, is incapable of reasoning abstractly and forming true concepts, see Povinelli, Daniel J., Folk Physics for Apes: The Chimpanzee’s Theory of How the World Works, 2000. The airplane is every A.I. advocate’s favorite analogy. As Edward A. Feigenbaum and Julian Feldman wrote in “What Are the Limits of Artificial Intelligence Research?” in Edward A. Feigenbaum and Julian Feldman (eds.), Computers and Thought, 1963: “Today, despite our ignorance, we can point to that biological milestone, the thinking brain, in the same spirit as the scientists many hundreds of years ago pointed to the bird as a demonstration in nature that mechanisms heavier than air could fly.” The concept is that of Imre Lakatos, a philosopher of science at the London School of Economics until his death in 1974. See Lakatos, Imre, “Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmers,” in Lakatos, Imre and Alan Musgrave (eds.), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge: Vol. 4: Proceedings of the International Colloquium in the Philosophy of Science, 1965.
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Recommended by AmazonThis winter hasn't been a great one for LGBT rights in the South. Even as public opinion continues to shift toward marriage equality, and as courts around the country -- including those in conservative religious states like Kentucky, Oklahoma and Utah -- have ruled that laws banning same-sex marriage are unconstitutional, religious conservatives across the South have pushed bills that seek to enshrine anti-gay discrimination in law. But Patricia Todd, Alabama's first openly gay lawmaker, now seeking her third term as a state representative, sees a rosier picture.
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ever charging the brothers with a crime.
But some can’t afford to wait as Hirsch did.
Randy Sowers, who also appeared Wednesday, decided he and his wife couldn’t operate their Maryland-based dairy farm and creamery without their capital after the IRS took their entire business account balance of more than $62,000. They settled, forfeiting $29,500.
Sowers may have gotten an even harsher settlement than others because he talked to the press about his predicament, according to an email exchange shared with POLITICO.
His lawyer had asked assistant U.S. attorney Stefan D. Cassella why his client, as part of the settlement, had to acknowledge that the government had “reasonable cause” to take his assets even though he disagreed — despite the fact that another person in a similar case did not have to knowledge this.
Cassella retorted in an email that the other person didn’t have have to do that because he “did not give an interview to the press.” Sowers had just talked to a Baltimore-based newspaper, which ran a story on his predicament.
IRS has said from now on it will only focus on seizing the assets of those suspected of illicit activity unless it is an “exceptional circumstance,” but at least two former IRS experts weren’t sure how they could classify which accounts were illegal and which weren’t upon initial inspection and seizure.
Republicans intend to also push the IRS to apply the recent policy change retroactively, giving businesses that settled in recent years the opportunity to re-open their cases and get some sort of reprieve.
They’ll also be seeking more information for the hike in asset seizures in 2012 and 2013. While the number of IRS seizures between 2005 and 2014 often averaged around 1,500, totals reached more than 3,000 during 2012 and 2013. It decreased again in 2014.
Republicans want to know why they doubled, then dropped again. IRS will say the recent drop is because it had to scale back its resources, according to a panel source briefed on the position they’ll take.
The GOP also wants to know what percentage of assets seized were illicit and which were legally earned. The IRS has told the committee it does not have such a breakdown between what’s called “illegal source versus legal source cases.”People aren’t supporting Bernie Sanders because he is a democrat, they are supporting him because of his his ideology. Sanders is the only reason so many people have taken interest in this election and why they will only vote for him. If Hillary Clinton thinks that Bernie’s supporters will get behind her so easily or at all, she has gravely mistaken. Bernie’s whole message since the beginning has been against almost everything Clinton stands for and that is one of the reasons people like him so much.
If Sanders is not the democratic nominee many have said that they can not sacrifice their ideals to vote for a candidate who is currently under FBI investigation, a candidate that has accepted millions of dollars from institutions who have admitted to illegal behavior, a candidate that has been followed by voter fraud and voter suppression allegations that greatly benefit her campaign, a candidate that has continuously voter for war, a candidate that has been against same sex marriage, a candidate who is against eliminating fracking and accepts money from the fossil fuel industry..well as you can tell the list goes on.
Sanders has explained many times that this is a Political Revolution and revolutions don’t happen easily. Since day one he has been working against one of the most sophisticated political machines in the world, The Clinton Machine. Over the last few months we have seen all kinds of things happen which have made people feel that the primary process is rigged and favors the establishment candidate, in this case Clinton. Even the chair of the Democratic National Committee Debbie Wasserman Schultz who is a close ally of Clinton, has admitted that the super delegate system exists to undermine grassroots democracy within the party.
I guess we’ll just ignore the fact that the chair of the democratic party bluntly explained that the process is very much undemocratic but for some reason we should still trust it? Since the beginning of his campaign Sanders has had an uphill battle coming from 50 points behind Clinton to a virtual tie in national polls. What an achievement! but the race isn’t over. Mainstream media who shamelessly fund and support Clinton would like you to believe the race has ended and Clinton is already the Democratic nominee but this couldn’t be further from the truth.
Let’s see what’s coming up and what Sanders needs to win.
May 3 – Indiana | Open Primary
Total Delegates: 83
May 7 – Guam | Closed Caucus
Total Delegates: 7
May 10 – West Virginia | Semi-Closed Primary
Total Delegates: 29
May 17 – Kentucky | Closed Primary (Reg. deadline 18 April)
Total Delegates: 55
May 17 – Oregon | Closed Primary (Reg. deadline 26 April)
Total Delegates: 61
June 4 – Virgin Islands | Closed Caucus (Reg. deadline 4 May)
Total Delegates: 7
June 5 – Puerto Rico | Open Primary
Total Delegates: 60
June 7 – California | Semi-Closed Primary
Total Delegates: 475
June 7 – Montana | Open Primary
Total Delegates: 21
June 7 – New Jersey | Semi-Closed Primary
Total Delegates: 126
June 7 – New Mexico | Closed Primary (Reg. deadline 10 May)
Total Delegates: 34
June 7 – North Dakota | Open Caucus
Total Delegates: 18
June 7 – South Dakota | Semi-Closed Primary
Total Delegates: 20
June 14 – District of Columbia | Closed Primary
Total Delegates: 20
What these numbers show us is that out of the total 1016 pledged delegates left Sanders needs to win 658. This means that he needs to win 65% of the vote but for some reason the media is trying to convince us that the race is over.
Fighting someone as powerful as Clinton is not easy as many have seen during the primary season but Bernie has know this since the beginning and has every right to say that he is staying in it until the end. Clinton owns the media, Clinton owns the Democratic party and that’s why it is up to the people to fight against the system that is fighting very hard to suppress their vote and their interests. As Bernie has said only “When millions of people stand up and fight we can win.”Now that Marc Gasol and Robert Pera have come down from their tapas-and-wine bender across Barcelona, the last big-name free agent outside the LeBron Show is off the board. The first free-agency period of the NBA’s new money era mostly unfolded over a whirlwind 90 hours, starting with Al-Farouq Aminu’s move to Portland and ending when LaMarcus Aldridge broke away and headed to San Antonio.
Even when most players re-sign with their old teams, free agency jolts the league’s balance of power and explodes new trends in the player-sharing economy.
Let’s step back from the frenzy and pin down some early winners and losers.
Winner: The Spurs Borg Reboots
I’ve seen some hand-wringing over how Aldridge’s ball-stopping post-ups fit into the Spurs’ beautiful game, and about the depth San Antonio sacrificed — Cory Joseph, Aron Baynes, Tiago Splitter, Marco Belinelli — to make way for Aldridge. It’s fine to be cautious, but good god, Lemon, the Spurs’ old starting five was one of the best lineups in the NBA, and they just replaced Splitter with an All-Star who can defend almost as well, space the floor with a silky jumper, hit 3s, and bail out the offense with late-clock post-ups. This team is going to be ridiculous.
Remember when the Spurs benched Splitter against speedy postseason defenses who strangled their spacing? THEY JUST REPLACED THAT DUDE WITH LAMARCUS ALDRIDGE.
Aldridge feasts on the left block, Tim Duncan’s territory, and all that chucking masks what a well-rounded player he can be. He’s a skilled passer, and he can both dive and pop for jumpers out of the pick-and-roll with Tony Parker. It will take him a bit to feel the flow of the Spurs’ nonstop offense — the constant screening, the dribble hand-offs that connect one action to the next, the cutting and passing. But Aldridge is a high-IQ player who can adapt. The presence of a true no. 1 option eases the burden on both the aging stars and the young guys at risk of assuming too much, too fast.
Splitter’s strength was his combination of speed and true-center size. This was crucial to San Antonio’s defense: He could run Dirk Nowitzki off 3-pointers and bang with Zach Randolph. You know who else can do that? LaMarcus Aldridge! When he’s engaged, Aldridge is a very good defender — one of the best among bigs at switching onto smaller players, something that bodes well for a potential small-ball showdown against the Warriors.
Depth on the wing might be an issue, but Manu Ginobili, Boris Diaw, David West, and Patty Mills make for a nice first four off the bench. It appeared that the Spurs might have to deal Mills in order to fit Aldridge’s salary, but the smart money is on San Antonio finding a way to keep him — especially with Cory Joseph off to Toronto. West sacrificed $11 million (!) in declining his option with the Pacers and signing in San Antonio for the minimum — about $4 million less than Washington was ready to pay, and $2 million less than Golden State offered, per several league sources.
The Spurs don’t have an official backup center, but Aldridge can man up to the job against opposing reserves in lineups with Diaw or West that should feature five capable shooters. Ginobili is on his last legs, but if he has anything left, he should tear up opposing defenses running the pick-and-roll amid pristine spacing. Diaw and West have the heft to guard some backup centers if Aldridge prefers. This freaking team, man.
A lot of players will sacrifice major money so the Spurs can nab Aldridge and retain the foundational wing combo of Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green. That will not sit well with the players’ union. At the other extreme, players who wring out every dollar draw the ire of fans. Both lines of criticism are unfair. All humans should be free to choose the lifestyles they want. Duncan and West have placed a huge psychic value on winning, and that’s their choice. Guys like LeBron, Kobe Bryant, and Carmelo Anthony have fought for the most money possible, and that is their choice — a choice most of us make in our lives.
Chasing the max salary makes it harder to build championship-level rosters. That’s fundamental reality in a salary-capped league, and I haven’t heard one off-the-beaten-path solution that changes it. The Warriors couldn’t hoard championship depth without first inking Stephen Curry to an extension that looks beyond laughable today. Bryant’s insane extension has crippled the Lakers. Every dollar matters. That doesn’t mean we should criticize stars who fight for the money they deserve. The salary cap creates a zero-sum game they can’t win.
The Spurs? They always win. It’s too early to declare them undisputed favorites, especially since the reloading Cavs have a much easier path to the Finals. The Thunder could earn their way back into this stratosphere fast. The defending champs are young, and the Spurs are leaning on at least five key players over 30. But the Spurs have a chance to be devastating.
Loser: More Portland Sadness
What a sad story. This team coalesced into something special, and boom, 80 percent of the starting lineup is gone. I’ve seen some people wonder if Portland might win 35 or 40 games next year. The Blazers are going to be bad. Like, really bad. This is now a full-on rebuilding job, and they’ve started it well after paying the ultimate price for dancing with Aldridge until the very end. They made two nice trades around the draft, snagged Ed Davis on a solid contract, and made a semi-defensible bet signing Al-Farouq Aminu to a four-year deal. If you’re going to wager on uncertain upside, make sure you sign the guy for long enough that you actually reap the upside.
There was some snickering over Portland lavishing a five-year mega-max onto Damian Lillard, but that’s a no-brainer, despite his awful defense. Lillard slumped from deep last year, but a point guard who can nail 3s off the dribble is a foundational player in a pick-and-roll league. Lillard’s extension kicks in for the 2016-17 season, so it isn’t among the new deals that will look like bargains once the cap jumps to $90 million that season. But every rebuild needs a tentpole, and the extension takes Lillard through his prime. Signing it now and putting a huge cap number on the books for 2016-17 doesn’t crimp Portland’s flexibility, since they’ll have plenty of cap space anyway.
Rebuilding brings another bonus: Portland flipped Denver a first-round pick in the Arron Afflalo deal, but the Nuggets only get it if it falls outside the lottery in 2016 or 2017; after that, it morphs into a second-round pick. Denver shopped that pick ahead of the draft, per several league sources, but couldn’t find any takers, in part because teams expected the Blazers to sink upon Aldridge’s (likely) departure. Portland will probably keep that pick, and it’s set to carry more cap room into next season than anyone — space it could use to facilitate a trade or snag an asset from a team in need of tax relief.
The Blazers were second-tier contenders. If everything broke right, they might have made the Finals. First-tier contenders don’t need as much luck, which is why most second-tier teams rarely survive three playoff series — at least not in the West. Re-signing Aldridge might have trapped the Blazers in second-tier status — even with a cap boom that would have offered rare flexibility for a pseudo-contender. Watching a 50-win team is much more fun than watching a lottery crew, but at least the Blazers get to take a moonshot now.
Winner: 2016 Free Agents
Psst. Have you looked at next season’s free-agency class? Kevin Durant is the headliner, but it’s thin at the top after him. Among this season’s starry free agents, only Wade opted for a one-year deal that would plop him back into free agency for Year 1 of the cap extravaganza. Lillard and Anthony Davis, the two game-changers among next year’s potential restricted free agents, locked in deals a year early.
There are still some big names, including Al Horford, Mike Conley, Joakim Noah, and perhaps Dwight Howard, but next summer’s class lost star power when Kevin Love, Aldridge, and others chose security over higher-risk, higher-reward short-term deals. There will be more star-level salary slots next summer under the $90 million cap than star free agents.
That is very good news for Jeff Green, Luol Deng, Eric Gordon, Nic Batum, Wilson Chandler, Danilo Gallinari, DeMar DeRozan, Chandler Parsons, and other third-banana types. These guys are going to get paid. DeRozan and Parsons hold player options for 2016-17, and the best intel is that both will opt out to secure longer-term deals based on the higher cap.
A word on the Pelicans: They sacrificed about $10 million in cap space next summer by extending Davis now instead of letting him into restricted free agency as San Antonio did with Kawhi Leonard. The Pelicans could offload some salary between now and then, but that $10 million represents real lost chances — the chance to sign one more quality player, or the extra flexibility to court a tandem. The Blazers, with a roster stripped bare, faced no such opportunity cost in yanking Lillard out of free agency early.
It’s easy to look at a spreadsheet and criticize the Pelicans. The combination of restricted free agency and the ability to offer a super-max “Derrick Rose Rule” contract gave them about as much leverage as any team will have over a star player. Signing the one-year qualifying offer, as Greg Monroe did to shake free of Detroit, would have cost Davis $16 million in 2016-17 and as much as $30 million over the course of five years. He wasn’t going to do it.
But the Pelicans aren’t the Spurs, and Davis isn’t Leonard. He’s a generational superstar, and making him wait a year might have irked him. If things went poorly, Davis could have signed a three-year deal with another team, forced the Pelicans to match, and started the clock ticking toward his inevitable and premature divorce from New Orleans.
The Pelicans couldn’t afford even that small risk — not with a player like this, in a small market familiar with losing stars to glitzier places. Sometimes, spreadsheets don’t matter.
Noah Graham/NBAE via Getty Images
Winners and Losers: The DeAndre Jordan Edition
Predictions: The Clippers will be better than expected if healthy, the Mavs a bit worse, and Jordan will prove he can thrive without Chris Paul. The Clips will find a workable center somewhere, especially if they trade Jamal Crawford for Brendan Haywood’s non-guaranteed deal — a move, as reported by ESPN.com’s Marc Stein on Monday, that would give the Clips a trade chip to exchange for a big man.
But with Lance Stephenson and Paul Pierce onboard, the Clips can do damage with small-ball lineups featuring Blake Griffin at center. The Clips still have two of the league’s dozen best players, but they’re now doomed if one of them misses major time again.
Losing Jordan is still a disaster for a thin team that can’t afford any slippage on defense. The Clippers have almost certainly forfeited a precious season of title contention. Unless the Spurs, Warriors, and Thunder suffer horrible injury luck, it’s hard to see the Clippers without Jordan reaching a level high enough to compete with those teams — not to mention the Grizzlies and Rockets.
The Clips should have max-level cap space to chase a big man next season, but so will about 25 other teams, and most of the league’s top centers — including, ahem, Jordan — just signed long-term deals. The Clippers may join the sad ranks of the league’s great “what if?” teams after blitzing to within one quarter of the conference finals. They had an honest chance to win a championship, and they blew it. Doc Rivers sabotaged the team’s bench with a series of shaky moves, and he compounded that by banishing Spencer Hawes — a guy who could have actually helped them.
I’ve long defended Chris Paul, but he deserves some blame. As Kevin Arnovitz detailed at ESPN.com, a bunch of on- and off-court issues swirled around the Paul-Jordan relationship, and it degraded enough for Jordan to snap the connection. The tight friendship between Mark Cuban and Dan Fegan, the agent for both Chandler Parsons and Jordan, greased the wheels, but Paul played a role in busting up a contender.
But if Griffin and Paul stay healthy, hold off on booking these guys a seat at the lottery dais. They should still be really good. “Really good” just isn’t enough to get through the Warriors, Spurs, Thunder, Grizzlies, and Rockets.
Jordan is a major score for the Mavs, but this team needs to nail another offseason before we put them in the conversation with the best in the West. They’re thin, Wesley Matthews is coming off an Achilles tear (an injury that has ruined the careers of most who suffered it), and evidence suggests that Jordan alone can’t fix the Mavs’ leaky defense. But the offense should be fine, and the Mavs have proven over and over that Rick Carlisle, Dirk Nowitzki, and a semi-competent supporting cast is good for at least 45 wins.
The snark mob is waiting to pounce on Jordan if he struggles without Paul to loft feathery lobs that hang up like balloons. J.J. Barea, Devin Harris, and (maybe) Jeremy Lin are obvious downgrades, but they also represent just one piece in a five-man pick-and-roll puzzle. Nowitzki is the greatest shooting big man ever; he drags one opposing big out to the 3-point arc, freeing Jordan to rampage down the kind of wide-open lane he never saw with Griffin operating around the elbows.
Parsons is a solid pick-and-roll guy ready to take the reins, and while Rick Carlisle has had issues with flighty point guards, a bunch of otherwise blah ball handlers — including both Harris and Barea — have thrived playing within the spacing Nowitzki provides. Jameer Nelson had these guys humming early last season. He also had Monta Ellis to work as a lead ball handler, and there will be some adjustment with Ellis gone. But Jordan should be fine.
He might be even more valuable as a co-recruiter with Parsons next summer, should Parsons re-up. Dallas never found a franchise superstar in free agency, but the Mavs have now cobbled together an appealing support group for Nowitzki — one they can sell to future free agents. Nowitzki is playing on a Duncanesque discount, and the Mavs could have almost $20 million in cap room a year from now.
Steven Freeman/NBAE via Getty Images
Participation Ribbons: The Swing-and-Miss Crew
Labeling anyone as “losers” a week into free agency is dumb, but any team will tell you: If you swing big and miss, it doesn’t feel good.
New York Knicks: Among free agents who were realistic bets to switch teams in 2010, the last time the Knicks went shopping with cap room, Amar’e Stoudemire probably ranked behind James, Wade, Chris Bosh, and Joe Johnson. For all the hubbub about how last week proved that the allure of big markets has dissipated, the Knicks don’t have much history of convincing superstar free agents to join a wretched roster.
Losing Monroe to Milwaukee hurt, and as I wrote here, Monroe’s mean-spirited post game and deft passing will fit well with the Bucks. Having Aldridge cancel a meet-and-greet because the Knicks were the last humans to realize he doesn’t want to play center is a small humiliation.
But New York rebounded with normal basketball moves, and normal is a wonderful change after 15 years of James Dolan haphazardly bouncing from one crazy win-now scheme to the next. The soft bigotry of low expectations might be at play here, though. Robin Lopez is a nice two-way center who will fit well in the triangle, but $13.5 million per season is at the tippy-top of his market. Arron Afflalo is a versatile pro, but he has long been overrated on defense, and if he plays well this season, he will opt right back into free agency. The Knicks punted on Iman Shumpert for cap space, and while Shumpert rankled New York officials at times, he’s a more intriguing long-term wing than Afflalo.
Derrick Williams can run and jump, but the Knicks blew past his market, and he has never demonstrated the passing-and-cutting IQ to play in the triangle. There are no caveats necessary on Kyle O’Quinn; getting a smart passing big with some range and bounce for at least three years, at $4 million per season, is a fantastic low-risk bet.
There is a weird dissonance here. Carmelo Anthony is 31, Afflalo is at the edge of his prime, and Lopez is not changing your franchise. Kids make up the rest of the roster. It feels like a less than 50-50 proposition that Anthony finishes out his five-year deal in New York. But this is a no-harm, no-foul offseason that sets the Knicks up to be a competitive team that might battle its way into the playoff race.
Los Angeles Lakers: This team will not battle its way into the playoff race, and it flat-out embarrassed itself in blowing a meeting with Aldridge before scheduling a face-saver two days later. They should have tried harder to retain Ed Davis, though every team that spends time with Davis grumbles about his low motor, nonexistent range, and terrible foul shooting.
Brandon Bass is a workable Davis replacement, and the Lakers got Lou Williams at a below-market deal that will age well (and function as a trade asset). Reviving Roy Hibbert is a fine way to use leftover cap space, and he’ll provide resistance at the rim for an otherwise overmatched group who barely bothered to try on defense last season.
The Lakers are waiting out Bryant’s extension. Laugh at their tarnished brand if you want, but these guys still get meetings with everyone. Aldridge had serious interest in them when free agency started, per several sources, and the Lakers will eventually learn from three straight summers of unrequited free-agency love. In the meantime, swallow another awful season, develop all the fun young guys, and give yourselves at least a chance of being bad enough to keep the top-three protected pick you owe Philadelphia.
Sacramento Kings: Everyone is busy applauding Sacramento for not barfing all over itself with its weekend signings, but three ho-hum deals for Rajon Rondo, Marco Belinelli, and Kosta Koufos do not justify the ghastly trade that opened up the cap room for them. Sacramento outbid precisely no one to overpay Rondo on a one-year deal; by the time he accepted Sacramento’s handout, there were no teams left with cap room and interest in Rondo. Rondo is betting on himself, and if he wins, Sacramento might end up a pit stop for him.
Sacramento already had the cap room for one of these offers before gifting the Sixers a pile of draft assets. Clearing room for two of the three would have required just a little creativity, and maybe — maybe — the sacrifice of one trivial draft asset. I get all the explanations: The Kings need to win back DeMarcus Cousins’s fragile loyalty and field a competitive team when their new arena opens next season. They are sick of losing, and if a half-dozen huge things break right for them, they could chase the no. 8 seed. Belinelli provides spacing and a dash of playmaking, and Koufos is a starting-quality center.
I get all that. None of it justifies dealing Nik Stauskas, a future first-round pick, and swap rights — lottery balls, basically — when two-thirds of this spending would have been possible using only the stretch provision. Omri Casspi is a bargain on a two-year, $6 million deal, but the Kings had the means to sign him at that amount before Philly robbed them blind. And remember: This isn’t the East, where making the playoffs is easy and the Wizards, overeager to be above-average, could deal a future first-round pick for Marcin Gortat with borderline certainty the pick would fall outside the lottery.
The Koufos signing indicates that Karl’s voice carries weight after all; Karl loved coaching him in Denver. It also leaves the Kings with three bigs who operate around the basket, plus a fallback option should they trade Cousins. Vlade Divac, the Kings’ top personnel guy, insists the team has no intention of dealing Cousins, but this franchise hasn’t exactly behaved in predictable ways, and rival executives expect Cousins to be available.
Boston Celtics: The payoff was always going to be the hardest part. Stars rarely become available in their primes, and when they do, a half-dozen teams battle to get them. Love represented Boston’s best chance at a big score, and when he returned to the Cavs on a five-year deal, Boston pivoted back into asset-acquisition mode — a mode at which Danny Ainge is better than almost anyone.
In a season in which just about everyone tacked player options onto the end of their contracts, Boston somehow got Amir Johnson and Jonas Jerebko to accept non-guaranteed second seasons. They immediately become appealing trade targets, though the cap relief those non-guaranteed years represent isn’t as powerful a lure now that the whole league is flush with cap room. Jae Crowder’s five-year, $35 million deal will look cheap as the cap rises, and Boston was smart to retain him for as long as possible.
It was puzzling that Boston didn’t make a run at Tobias Harris, and the Celtics are clearly frustrated that Charlotte rebuffed a monster offer for the no. 9 pick. Fans are getting restless, but rebuilds take time. Boston will strike at some point, and the Celtics are among a pile of teams hoping Love will eventually force his way out of Cleveland.
Phoenix Suns: I’m not sure any team has experienced a crazier calendar year than Phoenix. They were a feel-good story with a point guard hydra, and in a flash, they transformed into a group of mouthy malcontents who traded two of their three point guards — plus that juicy top-three protected Lakers pick. And then, out of nowhere, they went all in for Aldridge. They signed Tyson Chandler mostly to lead their Aldridge recruiting mission, broke up the Morris twins with a cap dump on Detroit, and would have dealt Markieff Morris had Aldridge signed on.
That is a lot of trauma, spurred on in part by Robert Sarver, the team’s owner. Sarver has grown impatient with Phoenix’s playoff drought, and has urged the basketball staff to take huge swings in free agency, per several league sources.
The future feels murkier than it did before the trade deadline blow-up. Chandler is here, at age 32, to play four years in front of Alex Len — a young center the team considers a cornerstone. Brandon Knight has to live up to the Lakers pick, and a new $70 million deal. The Suns didn’t sacrifice much to free space for Aldridge, but they are moving in several directions at once.
There is a lot to unpack here; stay tuned for more.
Miami Heat: Stay tuned for more here, too. We all assume things will work out for Miami, because the Heat are the Heat, and Riles is the godfather with a pile of bling to toss in front of free agents over the next two summers. Hell, Justise Winslow just fell into their laps. But the Heat have traded three first-round picks and some cap flexibility to build around Goran Dragic, a 29-year-old speed demon working on a five-year deal, and two stars on the wrong side of 30.
There might not be a more fascinating long-term situation in the league. In the meantime, bringing Wade back on a one-year, $20 million deal puts the Heat about $13 million over the projected tax line, and Miami wants no part of the harsh repeater penalties that would come with paying the tax for a fourth time in five seasons. Mario Chalmers and Chris Andersen are available for nothing, per several league sources, and the Heat have even put out Shabazz Napier feelers with an eye on carving out extra cap room next summer.
Any team with a need at power forward — Toronto, Indiana, Utah — should see whether they might snag Josh McRoberts for a second-round pick (or two).
Detroit Pistons: Detroit was never going to land a home run with its cap space bonanza, but its free agency feels like a dull meal without one killer dish. Ersan Ilyasova is a really good 2011-era stretch big that the league has largely figured out. Aron Baynes has a niftier offensive game than you might think, but he’s a 28-year-old backup, and the Pistons paid him almost $7 million per season for some reason — more than Memphis will pay Brandan Wright. It’s possible a team over the cap might have offered Baynes the full midlevel exception, about $5.5 million per season, but I haven’t found one.
The Suns’ salary dump is fine; Marcus Morris will do well in Detroit, and we might actually get to see if Reggie Bullock can play. This still feels like insufficient return for the cap space that could have gone to Monroe — even if Monroe and Andre Drummond made for an awkward fit at times.
In cold financial terms, Detroit misread the market on Reggie Jackson in signing him to a five-year, $80 million deal late in free agency. Jackson did well running Stan Van Gundy’s spread pick-and-roll offense around Andre Drummond, but he can’t shoot, and the Pistons had no one to outbid. The point guard market dried up.
In emotional terms, you can explain away this deal. Jackson wants to be loved, and the Pistons just bought $80 million of good locker room vibes. Their experience with Monroe taught them to fear the threat of a restricted free agent rejecting a “lowball” deal, signing the one-year qualifying offer, and getting the hell out of town. Was Jackson going to risk that after banking “just” $5.8 million over his first four seasons?
Probably not. But the avalanche of cap room coming next summer gives Jackson leverage that past restricted free agents didn’t have. When only a half-dozen suitors were primed to spend, a team in Detroit’s position could dare their restricted free agents: “Go to the market. There are five teams who can bid for you, and four of them have someone at your position.” Point guard is loaded, but if Jackson had entered unrestricted free agency after a strong season, some team would have opened the vault.
Still: Detroit could have squeezed a better deal. Patrick Beverley isn’t on Jackson’s level as a playmaker, but he’s a good player who drew real interest, and Houston let him hang before re-signing him to a cheapo four-year, $25 million deal. Detroit had some leverage, and even with the cap booming, every dollar counts.
The damage isn’t serious, and at least everyone will be happy — a good first step in Detroit. I am curious to see if the Jackson-Ilyasova-Drummond spread pick-and-roll structure looks better on paper than in reality. It would have killed teams three years ago, but the league has gotten smarter about ducking under picks against point guards with shaky jumpers, and switching against bigs who can’t do much damage in the post.
Van Gundy will get the most out of these guys, and Jackson, at 25, might be a late bloomer now that he’s getting to run a team.
Gary Dineen/NBAE via Getty Images
Winners: Second-Level Contenders Nailing the Little Things
Memphis Grizzlies: The Grizz may never gather the firepower to win three series in the West, but they have nailed every fringe move since forfeiting a first-round pick to dump Marreese Speights’s contract almost three seasons ago. They butted their way into a three-way salary dump to steal Matt Barnes, and getting Wright at the full midlevel — three years, $18 million — is a heist. He’s better than Koufos, their old backup, at a lower cost.
Washington Wizards: There’s nothing fancy here, but they got Jared Dudley for nothing and Gary Neal for the biannual exception — just over $2 million. Dudley did great work in Milwaukee as a small-ball power forward, but he’s not a full Paul Pierce replacement. He doesn’t have a legacy of big-balls shot-making, and he can’t create shots off the dribble or from the post when a possession is dying.
But these are smart signings for a team making them on the regular these days. They are one of the few teams left who might realistically spend the full midlevel, and with West off to the Spurs, they have to move on to their second choice.
TBD
Toronto Raptors: I’m intrigued. Toronto has emphasized defense, 3-and-D wing play, and Canadian-ness in an interesting summer so far. Let’s see how the Raptors fill out the front line, which will hint at how serious they are about playing both DeMarre Carroll and James Johnson heavy minutes as small-ball power forwards. Toronto probably doesn’t want to start a Patrick Patterson–Jonas Valanciunas frontcourt after that pairing struggled on defense last season.
Indiana Pacers: This is another roster that will feel unfinished until they ink one or two more big men to flesh out a thin frontcourt. The Pacers for now appear serious about playing big minutes with Paul George at power forward, a move that would open up the offense but also expose George to major pounding in his first full season back from a catastrophic leg injury.
In the meantime, Monta Ellis brings some slicing off-the-bounce dynamism these guys badly need, and the Pacers are better equipped than almost anyone to hide him on defense. George Hill can defend most shooting guards, meaning the Pacers can shift Ellis around to the weakest perimeter player more freely than Dallas could. George has never been a great arc-to-rim driver, and though Hill excelled last season under a heavier scoring load, he can munch on spot-up looks when Ellis runs possessions. Rodney Stuckey feels redundant, especially since he’s a minus defender at any position, but the Pacers will need a lot of wings if they plan to go small a ton.McLaren has confirmed that at next week’s pre-season testing in Jerez, Fernando Alonso will be the first of its drivers to moan about the car.
‘It’s a show of faith,’ admitting one Woking insider. ‘We hired Fernando because we know what he’s capable of. He is as good as anyone out there, especially at moaning. So it’s only right that he gets first go in the car and then a chance to moan about it.’
However, McLaren is keen to point out that Jenson Button will also get plenty of chances to moan about the car in Spain next week. ‘There are no favourites here,’ our man insisted. ‘Jenson is a world class driver and can deliver world class moaning. Our ideal is for both drivers to get an equal amount of time to moan about the chassis and the engine, and then to sigh and tell reporters there’s a lot of work still to do.’
‘Simulations and data can only tell us so much,’ our mole continued. ‘It’s not until you get a real driver out there on a real track that you can really get a sense of what there is to moan about.’
McLaren is famed for the attention it devotes to pre-season moaning, even running all moans through a special measuring machine it developed in the mid-‘90s known as ‘the Mansellometer’.By: Margaret "Luperza" Krohn
After the first World Domination Preseason, we took all of your feedback and made some major changes to the rules, scoring and rewards. Today, we're happy to announce the start of PlanetSide 2 World Domination Preseason 2 on Friday, February 7th, 2014 at 12:00 AM |
the ways that the adult world can look positively frightening to kids — especially when it’s thrust upon them way too early in their lives. The movie was also a launching pad for Adrien Brody as our hero’s older buddy, and the cast includes future stars like Amber Benson, Katherine Heigl, and Lauryn Hill. King of the Hill was the first and only time Soderbergh would base a narrative around a child’s perspective — but it’s far too intelligent and nuanced to be thought of as just a kid’s movie.
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11. Logan Lucky (2017)
Soderbergh’s first film since his “retirement” feels like an old ballplayer stepping into the batting cage just to take a few practice swings, then proceeding to knock every pitch out of the park. A newscast in this film refers to Logan Lucky’s heist as “Ocean’s 7-11,” and while you smile at the meta joke, the film earns the comparison. Soderbergh has fun with his West Virginia redneck characters, but the joke is never on them: They’re all smarter and more on top of everything than anyone — including, at times, the audience — might give them credit for. Soderbergh has said he no longer wants to make “prestige” pictures, and instead just wants as many people to see and enjoy his movies as possible. If that’s the next step in his career, he is off to a fantastic start.
10. Che (2008)
The movie that drove Soderbergh crazy — he still talks today about how much the film burned him out — turned out to be worth all the trouble. Shown often in two parts, but shown gloriously as a piece in festival screenings, Che features Benicio Del Toro’s most lived in, deeply felt, gimmick-free performance as the rebel who is neither lionized nor demonized by Soderbergh. The first half is maybe a little stronger than the second, but the whole thing holds up well. Soderbergh, for his own mental health, may never make another movie like it, but this is Soderbergh working on a vaster canvas with equal mastery.
9. The Limey (1999)
Soderbergh is in pure gritty crime mode with this almost-too-hip-for-any-room thriller about an English father (Terence Stamp) coming to America to track down the people who murdered his daughter. Soderbergh raises the level of difficulty here by having flashback sequences feature a young Stamp from the 1967 film Poor Cow, but the real star is 1999 Stamp, who is all snarl and righteous menace as the former hitman bent on revenge. The movie is more style than substance, but heavens, what style.
In a career of left turns, Soderbergh’s interest in telling a fictionalized version of Channing Tatum’s pre-Hollywood life as a male stripper stands among his oddest digressions. And yet, Magic Mike is pure pleasure — albeit pleasure flecked with melancholy recognition that its aging main character can’t keep doing this forever. Tatum is Mike, the top draw at the Xquisite, a strip club run by the grandiose Dallas (Matthew McConaughey). Mike likes the attention he gets from the ladies — and he especially likes the money — but he dreams of walking away from the business and doing something respectable, like selling custom-made furniture. Magic Mike has the intoxicating rush of a Scorsese film as Mike and his cohorts live it up as the kings of Tampa but — like in a Scorsese film — eventually drugs, egos and money ruin everything. Soderbergh is amused by this quirky little subculture, but there’s also a lot of compassion for Mike, a hunky Peter Pan on the cusp of growing up. McConaughey has never been better, while Tatum demonstrated that he had the sex appeal, depth, and understated comic timing to be more than just the Step Up heartthrob. As an added bonus, Magic Mike ended up being one of Soderbergh’s biggest hits — maybe not as slick as the Ocean’s movies, but certainly more touching.
7. The Girlfriend Experience (2009)
A film shot during the build-up to the 2008 presidential election — not to mention the global financial meltdown — Soderbergh’s character study received a lot of attention initially because of its supposedly gimmicky casting of adult film star Sasha Grey as a high-class Manhattan escort. Seen now, though, The Girlfriend Experience is a perfect encapsulation of what life felt like as the fate of the world’s economy hung in the balance. The movie is all about transactions — mostly between Grey’s chilly Christine and her rich clients — and both the audience and the characters are keenly aware of how money impacts every decision, whether it’s in a romantic relationship or regarding career choices. Grey may be a limited dramatic actress, but she ably conveys a character who has learned to turn herself into an emptied-out plaything for her customers — it’s an apt metaphor for a culture in which everyone is either a buyer or a seller.
6. Erin Brockovich (2000)
The most rousing, most conventional crowd-pleaser Soderbergh will ever make. But it’s striking how much this still feels like a Soderbergh film. It has his smart, confident touch, it’s rousing without lapsing into sentimentality and, showing off perhaps Soderbergh’s most underrated trait, it points a camera at a movie star and lets them movie star their ass off. You’ve seen this sort of movie a thousand times, but Soderbergh makes it all seem new. And when it doubt, he just puts Julia Roberts and Albert Finney in a room and let’s them take over. For such an independently minded director, Soderbergh is sometimes at his best when he is in pure Hollywood mode.
5. The Informant! (2009)
For as much as Soderbergh has been credited with helping to elevate George Clooney’s film career — creating the right platform for his suave, slightly smirking silver-screen persona — not enough has been said about the rapport he’s had with Clooney’s Ocean’s costar. Matt Damon has done some of his funniest, most exciting work in Soderbergh’s films — let’s take a moment to recall how great he is as the kept man in Behind the Candelabra — but the apex of their partnership has to be The Informant! Lots of Soderbergh films involve cons, but the most intricate happens here: The true-life story of Central Illinois executive Mark Whitacre (Damon) is nothing less than the tale of a man whose entire life is an artful lie he’s constructing for the world — and for you, the audience. Brilliantly playing with the concept of the unreliable narrator, The Informant! could be Soderbergh’s The King of Comedy, as Mark’s friendly voiceover slowly starts to reveal the depth of the man’s mental deterioration — it’s an entire movie dedicated to probing the agony behind a liar’s peppy smile. Between its faux-cheery Marvin Hamlisch score and Soderbergh’s seemingly counterintuitive use of stand-up comics in serious supporting roles, The Informant! constantly flaunts its phoniness, which ends up being a perfect way to critique the story’s theme of the lengths ordinary people will go to construct new, better versions of themselves.
4. Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989)
It’s no insult to say that, in the years since Sex, Lies, and Videotape first hit theaters, Soderbergh has rarely topped it — even as his style has evolved and his technique only grown more dazzling and inventive. In truth, his debut is the very model of the Stunning First Feature, a groundbreaking planting of the flag that instantly cements a filmmaker’s name. The story behind Sex, Lies’ creation is now legend: A then-twentysomething unknown, Soderbergh wrote the script in eight days, inspired by the ugly end of a relationship. “I cut myself in quarters,” he would later say, meaning that the film’s four principal characters contained different parts of him. As such, Sex, Lies is an exquisite study of a married couple (Peter Gallagher and Andie MacDowell) whose sex life is on the blink. He’s having an affair with his wife’s sister (Laura San Giacomo) when his old college chum (James Spader) comes to town, advocating a belief that talking about sex is actually more satisfying than the physical act. Famously winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes over Spike Lee’s equally skilled Do the Right Thing, Soderbergh’s film now plays as a warning for a narcissistic society that soon would become more fascinated in documenting itself than in experiencing real life. In retrospect, Sex, Lies is one of the most straightforward things he’s ever done — and still one of the most insightful about people’s need to deceive and be deceived.
3. Ocean’s Eleven (2001)
Before he began production on his remake of the forgotten, Rat Pack-infused tale of some swingin’ Vegas crooks, Soderbergh referred to the project as “a wind-up toy.” There’s no more fitting description of this ace piece of star-powered studio moviemaking. No one had any right to expect much of this new Ocean’s Eleven, which on paper looked like a smug cavalcade of Hollywood royalty slumming their way through an ultra-stylish crime caper. And yet, the film stands as Soderbergh’s peak as a super-confident, give-‘em-a-show director. The man doesn’t entirely put away his auteurist idiosyncrasies, but here he allows his formidable skill with suspense, misdirection, and clockwork storytelling to take the lead. You don’t need a plot recap — the damn movie’s probably on cable right now — but let’s take a moment to remember how impossibly fun the whole enterprise was. Clooney finally wearing the Cary Grant comparisons as comfortably as he fills out that tux. Brad Pitt tapping into the goofball antics of his early career to play a cool guy who’s also a bit of a lovable dope. Matt Damon happily serving the Ringo Starr/younger brother role alongside his older costars. Andy Garcia at last getting the elegant villain role he’s always deserved. Revered icons Carl Reiner and Elliott Gould having an absolute ball. As for newcomer Julia Roberts, she shows a lot of promise — mark our words, she’s got “star” written all over her.
2. Traffic (2000)
Screenwriter Stephen Gaghan, a former addict, wanted to tell a story about the War on Drugs, but he was stuck after months of research and interviews. Then, he met Soderbergh, who was also interested in making something about the War on Drugs, suggesting the writer take a look at a British series called Traffik. From there came Traffic, which demonstrated the director’s talent for multi-pronged narratives that are both thrilling and thematically rich. This award-winning drama doesn’t pretend to have any answers, but it’s an exceedingly sober and intelligent look into how this unwinnable, maddening conflict ensnares so many lives and cuts across class and cultural barriers. Benicio Del Toro took home the Oscar for his role as a smart, savvy Mexican cop, but the film is the high-water mark for several of its actors, including Don Cheadle as a blasé DEA agent, Catherine Zeta-Jones as a kingpin’s wife suddenly thrust into a power position, and Michael Douglas as a judge who quickly learns how little he knows about America’s drug problem. The opposite of a message movie, Traffic is shot through with Soderbergh’s trademark detachment, which makes its chronicling of wasted lives and the endless hamster wheel of inefficient law enforcement all the more despairing.
1. Out of Sight (1999)
The film that announced Soderbergh as a top-shelf director of off-kilter-but-still-mainstream talent, and, notably, the first film that unlocked the cinematic charm of George Clooney (remember The Peacemaker?), Out of Sight manages to feel like a ‘70s crime flick, a hip citizen of Tarantino-land and a classic ‘50s dames-and-fellas fedora thriller all at once. Soderbergh minces and matches genre here, but does it effortlessly — so effortlessly you’ll never notice. And the hotel room scene remains a standard for movie sensuality still today. He’d swing bigger both before and after this movie, but this remains the one he got exactly right.
Grierson & Leitch write about the movies regularly and host a podcast on film. Follow them on Twitter or visit their site.Texas Rangers pitcher Yu Darvish continued his journey back from Tommy John surgery tonight, putting up a quality 50 pitch outing in a rehab start for the Round Rock Express. Darvish allowed one run on two hits and a walk in three innings, striking out three, with a fastball that was registering in the mid-90s. After missing all of last season, the reports seem to indicate that Yu is back, with it primarily being a matter of when he works up to being able to throw enough pitches to re-join the major league rotation.
The plan is for Yu to make another rehab start on May 11, likely going 4-5 innings. There has been talk that Darvish could return to the big leagues on May 16, but it seems likely that he will make another rehab start then, putting him on schedule to return May 21. That said, indications are the Rangers will activate him when he says he is ready to go, so if he goes 70 pitches in the 11th and says he's good, he could be back in ten days.Today’s Telegraph front page runs with the story that Jeremy Corbyn has “snubbed” the Queen today by refusing to meet her. Corbyn could today have joined the Privy Council, which would mean him being given the title Right Honourable, but has had to miss the opportunity, citing “prior engagements”.
The story has been widely picked up by other media outlets, and used as further proof that the Labour leader is unpatriotic. This follows Corbyn standing in silence for the national anthem during a service for Battle of Britain veterans last month, and his hesitation when asked whether he was prepared to kneel before the Queen for his Privy Council induction. In a speech yesterday, David Cameron described Corbyn as “Britain-hating”.
However, Corbyn has been leader for less than a month – and there was a three-month period when Cameron became leader of the Tories before he took the oath and joined the Privy Council, where he will have missed two meetings with the Queen. As Lord President of the Privy Council, Nick Clegg missed four consecutive meetings with the Queen while he was Deputy Prime Minister of the country. Both have largely escaped accusations of hating Britain.
While Corbyn’s prior engagements have not been confirmed, it is believed he may have taken a short holiday. This would also explain why he did not personally respond to Cameron’s speech yesterday – reactions came from Jon Ashworth and a Corbyn spokesperson.
Having campaigned in he General Election, and then for the leadership through the summer (in which he made over 100 public appearances), Corbyn’s first weeks as leader were dominated by appointing a new frontbench and preparing for his first conference as leader. With the media focus finally on the Conservatives during their conference week, and with Parliament returning next week, this will have been his first and only chance to get away.Apple has been ordered by a court to pay $234 million to the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) after losing a patent infringement case filed by the group in 2014.
The patent (U.S. Patent No. 5,781,752) related to an invention that increases the speed and efficiency of computer processing. Although the damages are significant, they are much less than the $862 million some reports earlier this week indicated Apple might have to pay in the event of a legal defeat.
"This is a case where the hard work of our university researchers and the integrity of patenting and licensing discoveries has prevailed," Carl Gulbrandsen, managing director of WARF, said in a statement on the group's website on Friday. "The jury recognized the seminal computer processing work that took place on our campus. This decision is great news for the inventors, the University of Wisconsin–Madison and for WARF."
A jury in a federal court in the Western District of Wisconsin found that Apple's system on chip designs for the A7, A8 and A8X chips infringed on patent claims made by WARF. According to WARF, the Apple devices affected by the patent issue include the iPhone 5S, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and several iterations of the iPad.
"We believed our technology was ahead of its time," Professor Gurindar Sohi, a University of Wisconsin researcher, said in a statement on the WARF website. "Almost two decades ago we tried to anticipate how computers would need to operate today. Our team invested the equivalent of more than 11 years of work to solve this problem."
However, despite the costly defeat, Apple plans to appeal the verdict, according to the Wisconsin State Journal.
"Although patent verdicts like this one are typically appealed," said Gulbrandsen, "we hope to continue to work with Apple to resolve this matter and build a stronger relationship between our two institutions."It’s that time of year again. NBC Sports has released its 2017-18 broadcast schedule, and that means that fans of NHL teams that have eight fans will complain about how their team is never on national television.
Meanwhile, as fans of a team that lots of people do like, we get to complain about how often our team is on the national feed. It’ll be the second-most in the league for Philadelphia, with 16 of 82 games on NBC or NBCSN this coming season. That’s tied with the Penguins, and it’s one shy of Chicago, who will have 17 games on national TV.
Here’s our schedule:
Philadelphia Flyers 2017-18 NBC Sports schedule Date Game Network Time (ET) Date Game Network Time (ET) Wed., Oct. 4 Philadelphia vs. San Jose NBCSN 10:30 p.m. Thurs., Oct. 5 Philadelphia vs. Los Angeles NBCSN 10 p.m. Wed., Nov. 1 Philadelphia vs. Chicago NBCSN 8 p.m. Wed., Dec. 20 Detroit vs. Philadelphia NBCSN 8 p.m. Tue., Jan 2 Pittsburgh vs. Philadelphia NBCSN 7 p.m. Tue., Jan. 16 Philadelphia vs. NY Rangers NBCSN 7 p.m. Sun., Jan. 21 Philadelphia vs. Washington NBC 12:30 p.m. Tue., Jan. 23 Philadelphia vs. Detroit NBCSN 7:30 p.m. Wed., Jan. 31 Philadelphia vs. Washington NBCSN 8 p.m. Mon., Feb. 26 Philadelphia vs. Montreal NBCSN 7:30 p.m. Wed., Mar. 7 Pittsburgh vs. Philadelphia NBCSN 8 p.m. Tue., Mar. 20 Philadelphia vs. Detroit NBCSN 7:30 p.m. Sun., Mar. 25 Philadelphia vs. Pittsburgh NBC 12:30 p.m. Sun., Apr. 1 Boston vs. Philadelphia NBC 12:30 p.m. Thur., Apr. 5 Carolina vs. Philadelphia NBCSN 7 p.m. Sat., Apr. 7 NY Rangers vs. Philadelphia NBC 3 p.m.
Three teams — Washington, Detroit and Boston -- will appear on the Networks Of NBC™ a total of 15 times. The expansion Vegas Golden Knights have five games on national television, and I’m a bit surprised it’s that low.
Other highlights:House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) said Wednesday that “nobody knows” if Republicans’ tax bill, which would overwhelmingly benefit corporations and the wealthy while adding more than $1.4 trillion to the deficit, would pay for itself.
“Are you saying that the growth you’re going to get from this tax cut will equal the amount it would cost on the deficit side, so that it’s a wash?” Savannah Guthrie asked Ryan in an interview Wednesday.
“Nobody knows the answer to that question, because that’s in the future,” Ryan said. “But what we do know is that this will increase economic growth.”
The CBO estimated in late November that the tax bill would add more than $1.4 trillion to the deficit over 10 years.
Ryan also said, incorrectly, that “every study under the sun” showed that Republicans’ tax bill would spur economic growth.
He specifically cited surveys from the National Association of Manufacturers, an advocacy group, which he said showed “the vast majority of businesses are going to do just what we say: reinvest in their workers, reinvest in their factories, pay people more money, higher wages.”
The question of higher wages, Ryan said, was not a question of “if” but “how much.”
He was responding to an op-ed from Michael Bloomberg, cited by Guthrie, which read: “It’s pure fantasy to think that the tax bill will lead to significantly higher wages and growth.”
In fact — as highlighted by an embarrassing video from a Wall Street Journal event for CEOs but also in a survey from a Bank of America Merrill Lynch strategist John Shin, reported in Bloomberg in November — corporations will likely use their massive tax windfalls to pay down debts and buy back shares, boosting their stock prices and pleasing investors.
“You can point to these anecdotes, but I will just tell you, every study under the sun shows us, you lower the tax rates, make us more competitive, you will see faster economic growth in America,” Ryan responded to that criticism.
The National Association of Manufacturers’ survey, incidentally, allowed respondents to choose more than one answer for what they would do with their saved tax dollars, including “increase capital spending,” “expand your business” and “hire more workers.” “Buy back shares” wasn’t an option.
Several of America’s largest corporations — including what would be the tax bill’s largest beneficiary, Apple — have not indicated they intend to expand their hiring or raise wages as a result of the tax bill’s likely passage.
Ryan noted separately that, in addition to Republicans’ tax cut bill, “we’ve got to control our spending. That, we have more work to do.”
“We clearly have to go after spending control.”
Watch below via NBC:As Twitchy reported, Texas Gov. Rick Perry was booked on charges of abuse of power today, and as part of the process had his mugshot taken. That might be an embarrassment for some, but Perry came out looking like a winner.
My Governor takes a better mug shot than your Governor. pic.twitter.com/ffiVvNm1Kk — Josh Perry (@MrJoshPerry) August 19, 2014
Like a boss “@ZekeJMiller: Rick Perry booking photo pic.twitter.com/Yg0vUloEbD” — Brittney Gamble (@MissGriffith87) August 19, 2014
@ZekeJMiller He look a lot better than Butch #Lehmberg did in hers!! — Tom Thurman (@Tommm1954) August 19, 2014
@ZekeJMiller @GottaLaff if he goes down in flames, he could always audition to be the new Marlboro Man ……………. 🙂 — Jean Valjean (@PaulSGreene) August 19, 2014
Hottest mug shot ever. pic.twitter.com/8wPCK9luBD — Kathleen McKinley (@KatMcKinley) August 19, 2014
@BretBaier That smile says…."Go ahead, Make my day"! — Mrs Bossypants (@Jo_Beatrice) August 19, 2014
@BretBaier Lookin Good Rick! Don't give up! — Yappy Warrior (@kaycee_sue) August 19, 2014
@BretBaier Makes me like him even more. — Bella (@RushGirl13) August 19, 2014
@BretBaier nicest looking mug shot ever!!! — ceil bravo (@bceil) August 19, 2014
@BretBaier presidential he should use this on his campaign posters, this indictment is a disgrace and a misuse of our criminal legal system — Brian Cummer (@BrianCummer) August 19, 2014
@BretBaier his popularity is completely exploding right now. Have to love a good backfire on the left lol — 5gentexan (@5gentexan) August 19, 2014
@BretBaier Not a single thing to be ashamed of with this one. I stand with @GovernorPerry.?? — Sean DuVall (@duvall172) August 19, 2014
https://twitter.com/SteelersSlob/status/501864645955948544
Editor’s note: The headline of this post has been changed to avoid confusion with another post.With her long blonde hair, blue eyes and pale complexion, Alexandra Jenkins was constantly compared to Queen Elsa by customers while working as a John Lewis shop assistant.
The 20-year-old would even be pestered by young Frozen fans who kept mistaking her for the fictional Disney character on a daily basis.
Now Alexandra, who was forced to wear a disguise to look less like the cartoon queen, has decided to embrace her features - and has launched a career as a lookalike.
Scroll down for video
Alexandra Jenkins was pestered by children who constantly mistook her for Disney's Queen Elsa
Alexandra, from Portbury, Bristol, now leads a double life, appearing at children's parties and corporate events during the evening and at weekends.
She said her new venture became an obvious option after an increasing number of people began comparing her to the Disney princess.
And she has even started singing lessons to perform Let It Go.
'It all kind of took off in January last year really. I was told by a lot of people I looked similar to Elsa and then it just kind of escalated from there,' she said.
'By the start of December I was getting told I looked like Elsa all the time; I get parents come up to me all the time telling me I look like Elsa, as well as the kids.'
Alexandra says she can't go a day without someone pointing out her likeness to the Frozen character, right
As well as continuing her job at John Lewis Alexandra can now be hired to appear at children's parties
Alexandra says that she was'recognised' so often by customers at John Lewis that she took to wearing thick spectacles in order to disguise herself.
'At work the only thing which is able to disguise me is the fact I have glasses, or sometimes wearing my hear down works,' she said.
'If I don't wear my glasses, or even when I do sometimes, the likelihood is I get a lot of people coming up to me telling me I look like Elsa.
'Over the summer lots of kids come in to get their back to school stuff and they tell me I look like Elsa, or their parents start pointing me out.'
Alexandra will often do a shift in the department store and then go straight on to make an appearance as Elsa
Due to her icy blonde hair and pale complexion it takes Alexandra under an hour to make a full transformation
Alexandra has worked in the children's clothes section in John Lewis at Cribbs Causeway, Bristol, for almost three years but has found it easy to incorporate her new career into her life.
Her blonde plait and poignant face-shape mean it only takes her half an hour to transform herself into the famous Princess after work or at weekends.
'My hair is real so I don't have to wear a wig which makes it a lot more believable for the kids.
'It takes me no longer than half an hour to transformed into Elsa, I just put on my dress, put my hair in plait and then put some purple eye shadow and the rest of my make-up on.
Alexandra is so convincing as the Disney princess she was even offered the role of Elsa at Disneyland Paris
'The make up takes the longest amount of time but it really isn't a big job.'
Alexandra says that, thus far, her business has been a huge success and she has been thrilled with the response.
'I've had a great reaction. People are always asking me if I do events or parties. It helps that I genuinely look like her. People stop me in the street quite a lot.'
Single Alexandra's likeness to Elsa has even been noticed by Disney who offered her the role of the character at Disneyland Paris.
Alexandra decided to turn it down but is now booked for around four appearances a week.
She has even taken up singing lessons to perfect the voice of the popular film character making her likeness even more authentic.
'I'm having singing lessons at the moment so that I can perfect Let it Go,' she said.
Alexandra has even started singing lessons so she can belt out Let It Go
Alexandra, who can be booked for children's parties, says she's surprised how much it's taken off
'With the role you get quite a lot of kids asking you to sing it, I don't want to let myself down. It also really helps you to get into character, blasting it out.'
Despite her triumphs, Alexandra says that her new job can be quite testing and she does occasionally resent her uncanny appearance with the Frozen star.
'It can be frustrating sometimes. However much I look like her obviously I am still Alexandra as well and sometime people forget that.'
Despite this she adds that she is flattered to be compared to Elsa and is very grateful for the attention.
'However it's lovely to be compared to such a popular character. People can obviously see the similarities as it draws attention to me all the time.
'I'm so surprised by how much it has taken off. There are so many other lookalikes around so I was amazed at how many people started booking me.'It's extreme, but Leonia is in an unusual position. When slow traffic steers people through the town, it can prove a nightmare for residents who might not even have a chance to leave home until the traffic clears. Police chief Tom Rowe told the Times that Leonia had tried limited closures and warning navigation app providers, but that just foisted problems on to other streets -- and that's assuming drivers heeded the redirections in the first place.
A Waze spokeswoman said it would honor any changes that legally declare a road to be private. The Google-owned service wants to "work holistically" with cities, drivers and map editors to improve driving "for all."
The question is whether or not Leonia's strategy will hold up under scrutiny. These are supposed to be public roads, after all. It might also wind up passing the buck to other communities. And of course, there's the reality that people might have genuinely good reasons to pass through Leonia at peak periods besides living or working there. What if you're visiting someone or have an urgent situation? Short of widening roads, there's no straightforward answer here. Navigation apps may create headaches for small towns not equipped to cope with morning rush hour, but a drastic attempt to thwart them may create its own share of problems.About the Press Team
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If you would like further information about a specific person you can find biographies and images on their profile page by searching our staff and volunteer list and you can access some of the many appearances online, in print, on TV and radio from our press hits.But in addition to the lobbying and protests, taxis—according to the rules of the market—should be expected to respond by trying to make their service more attractive to consumers.
In the face of new competition, the first thing an industry would likely see is a decrease in prices. In this case, however, taxi fares tend to be regulated—so prices change slowly and an individual driver has little control over them. It’s also expected that new competition will cause existing firms to increase quality. Over time, taxi companies might improve service by modernizing their fleets and introducing new technologies. And, in fact, some cities have introduced apps to hail taxis.
But the quality of a taxi ride depends on much more than just the fare and the condition of the vehicle. As my angry D.C. cabbie demonstrated, taxi drivers have some control over the quality of the ride. This raises an important question: Are taxi drivers themselves trying to improve quality in the face of competition?
Last fall, a writer for DNAinfo in Chicago quoted a driver who said that cabbies were “trying to behave themselves,” and noted a decrease in the number of taxi complaints. But quotes are anecdotal, and the number of complaints will fall as the number of taxi trips fall, regardless of competition. In order to determine empirically whether taxi drivers are responding to competition from the likes of Uber and Lyft, I set out to assemble a dataset that would help answer it. In a new paper based on data from New York City, Chicago, and Google search trends, I present evidence that cab drivers do seem to have started offering better service.
Like Uber and Lyft themselves, my analysis is possible thanks to data sources and tools that did not exist—or, at least, were not inexpensively available—just a few years ago. New York maintains a publicly available database of taxi complaints online going back to 2010, and cities are putting statistics online through various “open data” projects, making other large datasets available upon request. Through Freedom of Information Act requests, the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission provided me with data on every taxi ride between 2009 and 2014 and the city of Chicago gave me a similar set of complaint data. For New York City, I was able to look at data for more than one billion rides.
The data showed that in New York, complaints per trip to the Taxi and Limousine Commission have decreased as Uber has grown—even controlling for factors unrelated to Uber such as weather.
Number of Complaints Submitted to the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission
Scott Wallsten
That decrease in the relative level of complaints is consistent with improvements in taxi quality, but it might also be due to dissatisfied customers switching to Uber rather than bothering to file complaints. But data from Chicago, where Uber also entered the market in 2011, suggest that at least some of the decrease in complaints is related to drivers making an effort to improve the quality of the ride.
Unlike New York, Chicago collects data not just on complaints, but on the nature of the complaint. As the total number of complaints has fallen since 2012, as one would expect given the falling number of taxi rides, so have the types of complaints that one would expect if drivers were making an effort to offer better customer service. In particular, complaints about messy cabs and talking on cell phones fell as a share of total complaints in Chicago. Complaints about cab climate and “broken” credit-card readers, which can be controlled by drivers and the companies that maintain the cabs, also decreased as a share of the total. (The spike in complaints in 2012 can be chalked up to a new rule requiring taxis to display a bumper sticker that read “How’s my driving? Compliments or Concerns, Call 311.”)UPDATE
The AFP has published an update to this story including the following phrase:
In Israel and the Palestinian territories, car-ramming attacks have featured heavily in a wave of violence that has killed at least 215 Palestinians, 34 Israelis, two Americans, an Eritrean and a Sudanese since October last year.
This update is as problematic as the original article: because nowhere does it ever state that Palestinians are using their cars to ram Israelis and other innocent victims.
In fact, the total number of Israelis who have committed car ramming attacks against Palestinians is exactly zero, but a reader would have no way of knowing that. To the contrary, the AFP’s language gives the incorrect appearance that more Palestinians are targeted by car ramming attacks than Israelis.
By referring only to an abstract “wave of violence,” (rather than specifically referring to Palestinian attacks) the AFP creates moral equivalence between Palestinian terror and Israeli defense against terror, in a manner that they do not with respect to any other country mentioned in their article. Why the double standard?
In addition, the original AFP article, which does not mention Israel at all, continues to circulate on many news sites.
****
One of the largest news agencies in the world, Agence France-Presse (AFP), published a story entitled “When vehicles become weapons.”
The first sentence of the article begins: “Transforming a vehicle into a simple but deadly weapon of terror…” (emphasis added) which clearly identifies these as terror attacks: not “militant,” attacks, “activist” attacks, or even “extremist” attacks: but terror, plain and simple.
The AFP went on to list a number of other examples of vehicular terrorism around the world: in Canada, England and Scotland, as well as threats of similar terrorism issued against America and France.
And what did the AFP say about Israel, the country that has experienced no less than 45 vehicular terror attacks since September 2015?
Nothing.
For example, take this vehicular terror attack in Israel, which was caught on video: the terrorist killed 59 year old Rabbi Yeshayahu Krishevsky. (Warning: the video is rather gruesome).
In the past, the AFP has called vehicular terrorists in Israel merely “assailants,” and has called the terrorism itself, merely “attacks.”
Is this because the AFP has a problem using the word “terrorism?”
No.
Because according to the AFP, ideologically motivated vehicular attacks are “terror” everywhere in the world…except Israel.
Why the double standard?
Share your considered comments with the AFP by clicking on THIS LINK to fill out their contact form. Be sure to click on “contact editorial” in the form, and to mention the article’s headline.
Featured image: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90
Mission May 2019Microsoft, IBM and Intel have given Chinese officials short shrift after the government demanded to see their top-secret source code and blueprints.
Last month, the Middle Kingdom passed a tough cybersecurity law that will, among other things, require any technology company doing business in the Asian superpower to submit their designs to Chinese regulators, which will check the code and schematics for security holes.
The government says such a measure is needed to ensure that its national security isn't threatened, but Western tech giants are concerned over the measure. The Wall Street Journal reports that Intel, Microsoft |
URL!= 'undefined.json' ) { $.ajax({ dataType: 'json', url: dupeURL, }).then(function(data) { if(data.length > 1 && data[1].data.children.length >= 1) { re = /\/comments\//; newURL = 'https://www.reddit.com' + data[1].data.children[0].data.permalink.replace(re, '/duplicates/') + '.json'; $.ajax({ dataType: 'json', url: newURL, }).then(function(data) { dupeJSON = data; nextStep(); }).fail(function() { printQuitMessage(); }); } else { message = 'Sorry, but this script only works if a post has at least one result in the Other Discussions tab.'; console.log(message); alert(message); printQuitMessage(); } }).fail(function() { printQuitMessage(); }); } else { message = 'Sorry, but this script only works if a post has at least one result in the Other Discussions tab.'; console.log(message); alert(message); printQuitMessage(); } $.ajax({ dataType: 'json', url: apiURL, }).then(function(data) { apiJSON = data; nextStep(); }); }());">Reddit Restore</a> (drag to toolbar) </p> <p><a href="https://i.imgur.com/0vqGPPq.jpg">Example usage</a> (imgur.com)</p> <p> Reddit Restore checks for moderator deletions on Reddit. It does <b>not</b> track deletions that users made themselves (and errs on the side of caution in cases of ambiguity), and it does <b>not</b> track deleted comments.</p><p>Drag the above link into your bookmarks toolbar to install it.</p><p>v1.1 <a href="https://www.reddit.com/u/SuperConductiveRabbi">/u/SuperConductiveRabbi</a> <ul> <li>Visit a Reddit post you wish to check</li> <li>Click "Reddit Restore" in your bookmarks toolbar</li> <li>Wait a few seconds for a pop-up and/or check the Javascript console (F12) then "Console."</li> </ul> <p>This script currently requires that the post has at least one "other discussion" listed. If you see "Other discussions (1)" or greater, it should work!</p> <p> Stay tuned to <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/undelete">/r/undelete</a> for new versions or bug fixes. </p> <p>Thanks to <a href="https://www.reddit.com/u/go1dfish">/u/go1dfish</a> for the JS help and for his tireless work to make censorship and removals more transparent on Reddit</p> <p>Code licensed under the GPL</p> </ul> </p>
!A trio of environmental groups warned Monday they would sue the operator of three coal-fired power plants in Maryland for allegedly discharging excessive amounts of nutrient pollution into Chesapeake Bay rivers and trying to mask their violations by transferring pollution "credits" among facilities.
Food & Water Watch, the Patuxent Riverkeeper and the Potomac Riverkeeper contend that NRG Energy has been violating state-imposed pollution discharge limits for the past three years at its Chalk Point, Morgantown and Dickerson power plants.
In 2010, for instance, state documents show that the Chalk Point plant in Prince George's County discharged more than 2,200 times as much nitrogen into the Patuxent River as it was permitted to do, the groups said. All three plants exceeded their limits on nitrogen pollution, the groups contended, and the Dickerson plant in Montgomery County also discharged more phosphorus into local streams than it was allowed. The Morgantown plant in Charles County discharges into the Potomac River.
The groups said they would sue NRG for damages and an injunction if it did not stop its excessive discharges in 60 days, or begin negotiations to settle the matter.
A spokesman for NRG, which is based in Princeton, N.J., emailed that company executives had received the groups' warning letter but need to review it in detail before responding.
Nitrogen and phosphorus from farm runoff, sewage plants and other sources are responsible for the Chesapeake Bay's algae blooms, fish kills and massive "dead zone," where oxygen levels in the water drop so low that fish and shellfish have a hard time surviving.
Samantha Kappalman, communications director for the Maryland Department of the Environment, acknowledged that the three plants have been violating their discharge limits. She said regulators have been conferring with NRG Energy and the plants' former owner, GenOn, which was acquired by NRG last year.
"They're in ongoing discussions right now about the permit limits not being met," she said.
The nutrients discharged by the power plants are contained in wastewater from air pollution control equipment the facilities installed a few years ago to comply with state law, Kappalman said. The power plants treat the wastewater before discharging it, she said, but not enough.
The environmental groups said the alleged violations at the three power plants raise a red flag about efforts by Maryland and other bay states to allow so-called pollution trading.
Maryland regulators permitted NRG to bend the plants' individual pollution caps by taking credit for discharges below the limit at one plant to offset excessive discharges at another. But even with that plan, the company was not able to meet its nutrient limits. So it sought the state's permission to further offset its plants' pollution by paying farmers to apply more conservation practices on their lands.
"It's a shell game," said Michele Merkel of Food & Water Watch. Her Washington-based environmental group has filed suit as well against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, contending the federal agency is violating the Clean Water Act by allowing bay states to use trading to clean up the Chesapeake.
The states are developing programs in which, for example, a sewage plant discharging too many nutrients into the bay could pay farmers to reduce the nutrients washing off their fields by planting trees or converting croplands into wetlands.
Proponents of trading say it can help reduce the staggering costs of restoring the bay, estimated in the tens of billions of dollars, since reducing farm runoff by planting trees or "cover crops" is far less expensive than upgrading a sewage treatment plant. But Merkel and other critics argue trading will allow polluters to evade their legal responsibilities and likely could leave poor and minority communities with degraded waterways.
Kappalman said the pollution juggling NRG was doing did not constitute trading since no money changed hands. Because the company owned all three plants, it was permitted to shift nutrient "credits" among the facilities, she said. The environmental groups said such internal swaps are illegal.
NRG's request to buy pollution credits from Maryland farmers has not been approved, the MDE spokeswoman said, because state officials are still studying how to oversee such trades. Pollution washing off land is not as easy to measure and monitor as when it comes out of a pipe.
tim.wheeler@baltsun.comA man was shot at an intersection while driving his pickup truck in Playa Vista last night. He continued driving, crashing into several parked cars before he finally died over a mile from where he was shot.
Tomas Gomez, 21, was identified as the victim of the shooting, according to City News Service. He was initially shot in his silver Dodge Ram pickup near Inglewood and Jefferson boulevards, but he was found in his truck at the 4700 block of Slauson Avenue near Braddock in Del Rey around 8:25 p.m.
Witnesses say Gomez was shot at least a half dozen times and he rammed several cars at a red light in an effort to get away from the shooter, according to NBC Los Angeles. No others were injured as Gomez tried to flee the scene, crashing into parked cars. Investigators say that surveillance footage might help them track down the suspect. Police believe that this shooting was targeted but it's too soon to say whether it is gang-related. Gomez leaves behind a daughter.
Violent crime is pretty rare in Playa Vista. The last homicide in the neighborhood, according to the Los Angeles Times' homicide map, happened in 2011. The shooting happened just a half-mile down the street from Playa Vista's luxury movie theater that just opened last week.
Witnesses haven't been able to offer an ID of the suspect or car. Anyone with information on the crime was urged to call West Bureau homicide detectives at (213) 382-9470, or (877) LAPD-247.(NASA) – MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. — The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, successfully completed its most significant early mission milestone Tuesday with a lunar swingby and calibration of its science instruments. The satellite will search for water ice in a permanently shadowed crater at the moon’s south pole.
With the assist of the moon’s gravity, LCROSS and its attached Centaur booster rocket successfully entered into polar Earth orbit at 6:20 a.m. PDT on June 23. The maneuver puts the spacecraft and Centaur on course for a pair of impacts near the moon’s south pole on Oct. 9.
“The successful completion of the LCROSS swingby proves the science instruments are functioning as expected. It is a testament to the hard work and dedication of the entire team” said Dan Andrews, LCROSS project manager at NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif. “We are elated at the results from the maneuver and eagerly anticipate the impacts in early October.”
During its swing by the moon, the spacecraft’s instruments were turned on and calibrated by scanning three sites on the lunar surface. These sites were the craters Mendeleev, Goddard C and Giordano Bruno. They were selected because they offer a variety of terrain types, compositions and illumination conditions. The spacecraft also scanned the lunar horizon to confirm its instruments are aligned in preparation for observing the Centaur’s debris plume.
“Each instrument returned good data that the science team will spend the next few weeks analyzing,” said Anthony Colaprete, LCROSS project scientist at Ames. “These data will ensure we are as prepared as possible for monitoring and interpreting data we receive during impact.”
LCROSS and its attached Centaur upper stage rocket are now in a long, looping polar orbit around Earth and the moon. Each orbit will be roughly perpendicular to the moon’s orbit around Earth and take about 37 days to complete. Before impact, the spacecraft and Centaur will make approximately three orbits.
LCROSS and the Centaur separately will collide with the moon at approximately 7:30 a.m. EDT on Oct. 9, creating a pair of debris plumes that will be analyzed for the presence of water ice or water vapor, hydrocarbons and hydrated materials. The spacecraft and Centaur are targeted to impact the moon’s south pole near the Cabeus region. The exact target crater will be identified 30 days before impact, after considering information collected by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and observatories on Earth.
Nine hours before impact, about 54,000 miles above the surface, LCROSS and the Centaur will separate. LCROSS will spin 180 degrees to turn its science payload toward the moon and fire thrusters to create distance from the Centaur. The spacecraft will observe the flash from the Centaur’s impact and fly through the debris plume. Data will be collected and streamed to Earth for analysis. Four minutes later, LCROSS also will impact, creating a second debris plume.
Feel free to discuss this article in the forum… or chat…On Friday, HTC shares jumped 9.75 percent. On Monday, the HTC stock price increased by another 10% in just a few hours, which forced the Taiwan stock exchange to close out trading of the stock for the day, according to regulations. HTC's shares are currently priced at $99 TWD, the highest price since June 2015.
Interestingly, the revival of HTC's ailing stock appeared to be unnaffected by the fact that on Friday, the company announced February revenues of NT$4.20 billion (about $129 million USD), or the lowest monthly revenue figure in HTC's modern history.
While many primarily see HTC as a smartphone maker, it looks like the company is currently banking hard on VR and wearables. The newfound investor confidence in HTC stocks can largely be attributed to what looks like a pre-order success for HTC Vive. While HTC has yet to report detailed figures, company officials revealed that the first 10 minutes of pre-order availability saw 15,000 Vive units being reserved
Furthermore, HTC also announced on Friday that its has fully shipped its first batch of HTC UA HealthBox units. The connected health system, which costs $400, consists out of three components, a fitness band, a heart rate monitor, and a smart scale. The company said that it is now speeding up its shipment cycle in response to the strong market receptance.
Although this boost in stock price is surely welcome by HTC executives, the company will probably need to make its upcoming flagship smartphone, the HTC 10, a hit before it can hope for a complete turnaround of its financial woes. Interestingly, while HTC stocks were making impressive jumps in the market, renders of the HTC 10 started leaking online. According to rumors, the HTC 10 will be officially unveiled at some point in April and launched in the US in May.
In just a couple of trading days - Friday and Monday - HTC shares soared nearly 21%, and this despite the fact that Friday saw the company announcing its lowest monthly revenue in recent history.Review – Cooler Master | CMStorm Mizar
Disclaimer: A review sample of this product was provided by Cooler Master
Product Name: Cooler Master | CMSTORM Mizar
MSRP: $59
Ergonomic Laser Gaming Mouse
Specifications:
Sensor: Avago ADNS-9800
DPI/CPI: Up to 8200
Polling Rate: 1000 Hz / 1ms
Mouse Acceleration: 30 G
Tracking Speed: 150 ips
Lift Off Distance: < 2.1 mm
Programmable Profiles: 4
LEDs: 7 color / 4* modes
Interface: USB 2.0 70.9in / 1.8 m Braided cable
Dimensions: 4.91(L) x 2.38(W) x 1.58(H) inches / 124.8 x 60.4 x 40.2 mm
Weight: 0.27lbs / 121 g
Warranty: 2-year
First Impressions
The Mizar is inspired by a classic right-handed ergonomic design of undeniable pedigree – certainly a more utilitarian design than a lot of mice that we’ve seen in the gaming segment recently. It has the chops to be in the gaming segment at an attractive price point, though, with a high precision laser sensor boasting up to 8200 DPI, 7 fully programmable buttons and an impressive software suite (highly complex macros and all!) to go with it. Soft touch rubber pads on either side provide extra grip to go along with the soft touch matte painted plastic outer shell. It’s designed ergonomically for a right handed palm grip-type, and contoured gently to feel comfortable in hand. Using more of a fingertip grip, myself, the contour of the shell just felt like a natural fit. It’s clean, it’s appropriately sized, and carefully sculpted.
At 121 grams including the braided cable (100 grams without), the Mizar is a bit lighter than my personal preference these days, but it still manages to feel substantial in hand (I’ve been using a Logitech G500 loaded with all of its additional weight for a couple of years). It glides effortlessly on its tiny low-friction pads over every mousing surface I’ve tested, but not in a way that makes me really wish for additional mass. It has a solid build quality, but lacking that mass it can give you the impression that it’s just barely more than a plastic shell. Luckily that plastic shell feels good to hold, and the switches beneath the left and right click in particular feel solid and responsive.
I knew something was familiar with this mouse from the moment I held it… kind of a welcome familiarity that I couldn’t figure out. Having rather large hands, I’ve used a fingertip grip all of my life – I could mostly accommodate for any shape. I wouldn’t generally be swayed by the contour of a mouse, or expect it to fit my hand perfectly. Something about this Mizar, though, reminded me of a long forgotten piece of hardware that I’d relied on for many years. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it… until I did, literally.
Aesthetics
During the course of my evaluation, I stumbled upon a Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer 1.0 and suddenly it clicked. The classic ergonomic design was none other than of the tried-and-true IntelliMouse. In my opinion, the Mizar is pretty much the spiritual successor to the IntelliMouse Explorer, a mouse that I personally put a significant amount of mileage on. I’m not sure the IntelliMouse Explorer (Version 3.0 pictured below) ever truly hit iconic status, but there was a time that just about everyone I knew was using one. Like the Mizar, it had a subtle right handed ergonomic design, boasted solid construction, (at the time) an above average sensor, all at an attractive price point. It’s no small wonder that Cooler Master might have channeled its essence in designing the Mizar.
Functionality
Thanks to its rather impressive configuration program, the Mizar boasts 4 adjustable DPI levels from 200 to 8200 and a ten position slider for USB polling rates from 100 Hz to 1000 Hz (10ms to 1ms) for each of its FOUR profiles. That gives you plenty of flexibility in finding that mouse movement that’s just perfect for your needs, even on a game by game basis. These profiles also give you the opportunity to set one of seven different LED color options (red, white, yellow, green, blue, teal, pink), and 3 different LED modes (well, 4 if you count LED-off – Always On, Always Off, Breathing, Rapid Fire).
All 7 buttons are able to be configured to your liking – you can even disable a button, or use it to shut the sensor off entirely. I’m not quite sure why you’d want to do that but maybe someone can clue me in below in the comments.
I’m not exactly big on macros, but there’s an entire panel dedicated to macro creation and assignment – I’m not sure I could train the Mizar to do my job for me, but one of these days I might give it a shot. Kudos to Cooler Master for building out a robust software application to compliment a relatively low cost product for another value-add.
Value
The Mizar finds itself in a very reasonable price segment with the MSRP of $59 and yet is equipped with the aformentioned Avago ADNS-9800 Laser Sensor – that’s a sensor that you’ll find on the likes of the SteelSeries Sensei (Sensei Wireless & Sensei MLG), the Roccat Kone (Kone[pure] & Kone[XTD]), the Logitech G600, and the Tt eSports Level 10M – all quality mice at a slightly higher price point.
Here’s where the Mizar gets very enticing: according to PCPartpicker historic price data, the Mizar has frequently been available on sale between $30 and $40 – in my opinion that’s a steal. It seems like Cooler Master invested in the right areas of the Mizar to make it successful, without needlessly inflating the price of the mouse by over-engineering it. It’s certainly not a cheap or budget mouse, but it is rather a bargain in the segment based off of the internals, the fit and finish, and the available featureset.
Hope for Improvement
I’m hopeful that with firmware and software updates (or even the next revision of the product), we might see a bit more functionality out of the onboard LED for aesthetic purposes. Granted, when in use it’s a bit of a non-issue – the LED is entirely obscured by your hand, and only the scroll wheel and DPI switches are visible, illuminated in white. In forthcoming iterations, I might like to see the DPI switches moved ever so slightly forward, or perhaps to a new location entirely (ala the Logitech G500 for example). In their current location they’re not easily accessed without a very, very deliberate action and could pose a problem if you game in a way that requires frequent DPI changes. I would also very much like to see a customizable weight solution. That might be asking for a bit much in this price segment, but 100 g (not including the braided cable) is just too light in my opinion. I have to imagine that there is free space available to take advantage of underneath the shell for weight inserts of some type.
Final Thoughts
It’s the right size, the right contour, and has the right blend of performance and featureset to be your next mouse. It’s close to being great and with a little more weight, and a slightly different exterior coating it could be.
Performance Aesthetics Functionality Value Summary: Bottom line: it's got a great sensor and a comfortable body paired with an excellent configuration application - it's built in a manner that doesn't break the bank. If you're in the market for a reasonably priced mouse with a good feature set and a high quality sensor, look no further. 4You finally get up the courage to say what you think about something that is important to you. It could be a social, religious, or political issue, or maybe it’s how you or someone else are being treated. You’ve rehearsed what you want to say in your head. You’ve written, deleted, and rewritten to strike the right tone. You don’t want to sound too accusatory but you don’t want to come off like a pushover either. You want the other person to see where you’re coming from, to be open to your perspective and to have a productive conversation, but all too often it turns into a debate that feels like everyone loses just for participating.
It’s a familiar story and in fact, new brain imaging studies show that logical arguments are unlikely to change minds at all. Given our stubborn beliefs, how can we have meaningful conversations with people who have different views than our own? It’s a crucial question for those of us on the political left. Most of the left tears out their collective hair over how to talk to problematic coworkers, friends, and family who seemingly won’t listen to reason. A critical look at recent psychological studies concerning behavioural change offers some interesting answers. It may seem an unusual comparison, but FBI hostage negotiation techniques use these findings in an interesting way and actually bear strong similarities to our own organising conversations as union activists. Talking union with a work mate is nowhere near as high-stakes a game as hostage negotiation but useful comparisons can be made when attempting to navigate an emotionally charged exchange or dealing with the open hostility of an anti-union co-worker. Ultimately the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and the FBI both aim to be effective at engaging with people whose beliefs are different from our own. Both the IWW and the FBI jettison the head-on, logical argumentation approach in favour of “an approach that takes emotions fully into account”. Strange company to be sure, but the truth is an arrow that pierces all persuasions.
What Not to Do
When it comes to changing someone’s mind, or bringing them around to a new idea, not much is as ineffective as head-on confrontation. In fact, a multi-year University of Southern California (USC) study sought to map how our brains react when challenged directly about political beliefs. The results showed consistently emotional responses, including anger, tied to a deep defense of the participants’ very identities. Ultimately, when logical arguments were presented, emotions kicked up, and people were unlikely to change their minds.
Despite believing that we’re rational people who hold evidence-based beliefs, the study shows the opposite.
Consider also a 1979 Stanford University study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, that shows how elastic our beliefs can be even when shown direct evidence to the contrary.
The study tested for what authors Charles G. Lord, Lee Ross, and Mark R. Lepper called “the polarisation hypothesis.” This is what they had to say about it:
This “polarisation hypothesis” can be derived from the simple assumption that data relevant to a belief are not processed impartially. Instead, judgments about the validity, reliability, relevance, and sometimes even the meaning of proffered evidence are biased by the apparent consistency of that evidence with the perceiver’s theories and expectations. Thus individuals will dismiss and discount empirical evidence that contradicts their initial views but will derive support from evidence, of no greater probativeness, that seems consistent with their views.
In other words, the authors’ hypothesis was that evidence that supports our already-held beliefs is weighted in higher favor than legitimate contradictory evidence.
During the study, participants who both supported and opposed the death penalty were presented with data that contradicted their beliefs. They were then presented with a round of counter arguments, and a rebuttal to the counter arguments. Participants ended up showing that they were even more polarized than they were before the study began–accepting evidence that supported their beliefs, and discounting evidence that contradicted it.
So, if charging through the front door with truth and facts doesn’t work, what should we do?
To answer that, let’s look at what does bring people around to new ideas.
How and When Do Changes Happen?
A 2014 article in Time magazine discusses techniques developed by the FBI’s hostage negotiation unit used to redirect behavior. Time underscores that people are not “fundamentally rational,” and techniques that assume they are will fail. In hostage situations, that’s a matter of life or death. Taking as a starting point what Chris Voss, former head of FBI international hostage negotiations says: “…instead of pretending emotions don’t exist in negotiations, hostage negotiators have actually designed an approach that takes emotions fully into account and uses them to influence situations, which is the reality of the way all negotiations go.”
Hostage Negotiating
To go from start to finish in a hostage situation negotiators follow this outline:
Active Listening: Listen to their side and make them aware you’re listening. Empathy: You get an understanding of where they’re coming from and how they feel. Rapport: Empathy is what you feel. Rapport is when they feel it back. They start to trust you. Influence: Now that they trust you, you’ve earned the right to work on problem solving with them and recommend a course of action. Behavioral Change: They act. (And maybe come out with their hands u
Digging Deeper
Time looks more deeply at FBI techniques for active listening–a method that most of us leave out entirely when talking with others whose opinions differ from our own. This method also assumes that conversations are much more effective when we get the other person talking about what they care about.
The following are some active listening techniques used in hostage negotiation situations.
Ask open-ended questions: You don’t want yes/no answers, you want them to open up. Effective pauses: Pausing is powerful. Use it for emphasis, to encourage someone to keep talking or to defuse things when people get emotional. Minimal Encouragers: Brief statements to let the person know you’re listening and to keep them talking. Mirroring: Repeating the last word or phrase the person said to show you’re listening and engaged. Yes, it’s that simple — just repeat the last word or two Paraphrasing: Repeating what the other person is saying back to them in your own words. This powerfully shows you really do understand and aren’t merely parroting. Emotional Labeling: Give their feelings a name. It shows you’re identifying with how they feel. Don’t comment on the validity of the feelings — they could be totally crazy — but show them you understand.
There are some great takeaways in these techniques. Notice that this approach is the exact opposite of what most frustrated leftists wind up doing. How often do we go into a conversation with a goal of building trust? Telling someone what they should care about, or why they’re wrong, no matter how diplomatically, will shut down the conversation and leave both parties wondering why the other doesn’t understand their point of view. Get the other person talking and actively listen to what they care about. This is how the IWW does it.
What We Teach Organisers: The Basics of Conversation
It may seem ridiculous to think that we would need to be taught how to talk to others, but the IWW’s organising conversations are more than just shooting the breeze with friends. Putting a little thought beforehand into how we engage others can get big results.
The active listening techniques used by the FBI’s hostage negotiation unit show another organisation’s approach that also assumes that conversations are based on emotion, not logic. Both organisations go into a conversation wanting a certain outcome. For the FBI, this outcome is putting the gun down. In the case of the IWW organiser, this outcome is joining the union. Both approaches understand the need to meet the other person where they’re at, how to actively listen to the other person, and how to move forward from there.
To be an organiser is to have conversations that allow the other person to open up about what’s really going on with them. Just like the hostage negotiation techniques, we want to let the other person really tell us what’s going on, from their perspective. If you ask any worthwhile organiser what the most important part of their work is, they will all tell you the same simple but surprisingly difficult thing: listening.
Let’s look at some other basic concepts that the IWW teaches. Leftists take note.
The One-on-One
The fundamental building block of good organising is building relationships. The one-on-one conversation is how we do it. One-on-ones are the exact opposite of idle workplace chit-chat. They are focused conversations with an end-goal in mind.
Since organising is ultimately about building power to make change, many people immediately think that they need lots of people to join their cause. They’ll pass out flyers and leaflets to anyone who will take one. The idea is that the flyer, probably advertising a meeting or event, creates an opportunity for the organiser to have further conversations and then develop a relationship with the recipient of the flyer or leaflet. Do this once or twice and you’ll notice who, if anyone, shows up to your meeting: people who are already politically engaged. This approach also gets the order wrong by asking people to turn out for something before they really know who’s asking them. Are you more likely to go to an event when your friend asks you specifically to go to or when you receive an impersonal email blast in your inbox?
Importantly, a one-on-one conversation also sets up a space where the other person can feel comfortable to speak candidly and you can do your most important work: listening.
Agitate
To “agitate” is not the same as to “antagonise.” We spend a lot of emotional energy pushing away the things that bother us at work every day. You know you’ve touched a sore spot when someone says “I’d rather not talk about it”—a common response to talking about work when we’re not on the clock. Imagine what kind of toll it takes day after day to gloss over things that we don’t like but don’t know what to do about. Polite conversation would have you avoid talking about what the other would rather ignore. Agitation insists on deeper conversation and focuses on what’s really going on. Crucially, when we agitate, we don’t just piss off the other person by reminding them how much work sucks (for instance) and then walk away.
Agitation is the point in the conversation where you ask open-ended questions that give your coworker the space to talk about what’s going on with them on a personal level. You’re certainly not using their precious time outside of work to tell them what you think their issues should be. What do they really care about? Why? Yes, it may be frustrating that the paychecks bounce regularly, but what is it about their paycheck bouncing that is frustrating for them? How do they personally relate to the issue? You may be one question away from your coworker sharing that they were counting on that paycheck because they had a trip planned with their kid. What’s going on every day at work and in life is what needs to be talked about if you want to make a connection with your coworker.
It’s important to keep in mind that you’re not just collecting information on your coworkers, though. This is an opportunity to affirm what your fellow worker is sharing with you and for you to share too. This isn’t just about getting something from someone else. Have you thought about how these issues affect you too? Trust is built-in the give-and-take of sharing what’s real. Why would you expect someone to trust you later, when the stakes are high, if you haven’t established trust in the little things first?
Educate
Agitation without education is irresponsible. An organiser does more than just highlight the problems that come up during agitation. We all already know that there are problems at work; that’s why we spend so much energy trying not to think about it when we’re not there. Now that those uncomfortable realities have been agitated to the surface, what next?
We aren’t therapists. We don’t listen to people’s problems so we can offer an individual therapeutic fix. The IWW trains workers to become organisers who educate their fellow workers about the how to change things for the better by acting collectively.
When beginning the education part of the conversation, we ask questions like:
“Ideally, what would you want to see here?” We ask this question to get our coworkers to imagine how things could be different. Normally we think of work as totally static and unable to change. Now is the time to begin imagining something else. “If the boss is the one who can resolve this problem why do you think they haven’t yet?” We ask this to illustrate that the problems they described earlier are likely due to an imbalance of power, with us workers on the wrong end of the deal. “What would happen if just you went to talk to the boss about this? What do you think would happen if 5 of us went together and asked him to resolve this?” We ask these questions to help our coworkers imagine using collective action to get the boss to fix the issue(s).
The organising approach to conversation isn’t a magic wand. The reality is that when people’s beliefs change it usually happens very slowly. Engaging in that kind of process with someone takes a lot of conversation, a lot of patience, and honestly, it’s emotionally demanding. But this is the approach that’s been proven to work and it’s what needs to be done for liberatory politics to flourish beyond the small group of people who already agree with us. Now, stop wasting your time arguing and go organise.
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The Minnesota State Board of Investment is honor bound when it invests monies from Minnesota’s public employee pension funds. Each of the Board members, which includes Governor Mark Dayton (Chair), State Auditor Rebecca Otto, Secretary of State Steve Simon and Attorney General Lori Swanson know, or should know, that the Board has violated its fiduciary responsibility to only invest public pension funds prudently by investing in Israel Bonds. Israel Bonds are government bonds issued by the State of Israel.
Earlier this month, I appeared before the Board members to urge them not to invest in Israel Bonds. Immediately after I ended my presentation, the Governor handed the other Board members a previously prepared written motion to continue investing the state’s pension funds in Israel Bonds. All of us in the packed hearing room understood that my testimony had been wasted. Facing members of the pro-Israel Lobby who had been seated in the front row, three of the four board members voted to invest. Only the State Auditor, Rebecca Otto, voted against the motion.
I’ve seen this pressure before. It usually consists of a subliminal threat by the pro-Israel Lobby to cut off any campaign money to those who defy what the Lobby wants. That is the same kind of threat that allowed Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu to travel to the United States to dictate to our Congress how American foreign policy should be conducted. I believe that the 36 standing ovations for Bibi and the 47 Republican Senatorial signatures on the letter to Iran were eager messages to the Israeli Lobby telling them how much Congress appreciated the campaign money given each election cycle to its obedient members. When I served in the US Senate I well remember the threats directed against me for not being obedient enough to the Lobby.
The Board of Investment’s vote to use Minnesota pensioners’ money to buy the low-yield bonds issued by Israel is, without question, highly imprudent and illegal, especially because the Board knows how the money will be used. American money plunged into Israel Bond sales is fungible, meaning that the money is lumped into Israel’s General Fund, and then used for anything Israel wants, without
restriction. That also means that the money sent to Israel is used for settlements. Israel’s settlements are illegal under Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits an occupier from transferring any part of its civilian population into the territory it occupies. Article 49 was adopted by the international community after WWII as a direct response to Nazi Germany’s illegal and brutal occupation of lands belonging to its neighbors. Both the United States and Israel have signed the Fourth Geneva Convention. Even the United States Government has acknowledged that Israel’s settlements are illegal.
Beyond just exploiting American elected officials in their political zeal to become complicit in financing illegal Israeli settlements by using money from taxpayer funded public employee pension plans to do so, Israel has a long history of inflicting damage on American interests. During the 1967 Middle East War, Israel’s military attacked and attempted to sink a fully flagged American Navy vessel—the USS Liberty—which had been ordered to monitor the War by assuming a listening post off the coast of Egypt and Israel. Using fighter jets, as well as torpedo boats, Israel killed 34 American sailors and wounded another 171 sailors in the process.
What was painful for the survivors and the families of those Americans killed and wounded by Israel were the duplicitous actions of our own public officials, starting with President Lyndon Johnson, by refusing to allow fighter jets of the Sixth Fleet to come to the aid of the Liberty when it was under attack and working to cover up evidence of Israel’s deliberate attack on our ship and the killing and wounding of our sailors.
That wasn’t the last injury against American interests by our so called “ally.” In the 1970s, Israel recruited and paid a Pentagon employee, Jonathan Pollard, to sell to Israel a “truckload of secret documents,” as described by our then Secretary of Defense, Caspar Weinberger.
More recently, a Pentagon official, Larry Franklin, was indicted by the Justice Department in 2004 for handing over classified information on Iran to two |
takes to follow this career path.
After all, most of us have heard someone, somewhere casually announce “but ANYONE can be a real estate agent!”
That’s simply not true. Becoming a real estate agent takes a lot of determination and hard work (a lot more than we could fit into one infographic, in fact). Whether you’re looking to get into the biz or are a practicing agent wanting to share your experience with others, this post is for you.
For a look at the financial side of this conversation, see How Much Do Real Estate Agents Make?
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One thing that isn’t covered by the 5 steps on this infographic is financial preparedness. It can be a long time between your decision to become a real estate agent and the day you sell your first house, so we recommend stashing away a nest egg before beginning your journey.
Here at Point2, we can’t help you every step of the way, but we can help you with #5. When it comes time to begin marketing, make sure you’re getting the most exposure for your business without spending too much using the online marketing tools provided by Point2 Agent. Get listing syndication, social media tools, email campaigns, property sites and a killer real estate agent website all in one place! If you’re not already a member, click here to start your 30-day free trial now.
The road to becoming a real estate agent has many twists and turns, but the destination is worth it! Agents, what advice would you give to a friend who is thinking about getting into real estate?President Rodrigo Duterte has promised his Chinese counterpart that he will align his foreign policy toward China-led Asian economic development, further reinforcing his shift toward China amid his hostile stance toward the U.S.
Duterte met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Apec summit in the Peruvian capital of Lima. He also talked to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, whom he has called his political idol.
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Duterte first met Xi in a state visit to Beijing last month, where their governments forged mostly trade and economic accords. They also discussed longstanding territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
After the China trip, Filipinos went back fishing in the disputed Scarborough Shoal, which Chinese coast guard vessels have guarded since seizing the rich fishing area in 2012.
In their meeting in Lima, Duterte told Xi that “we will cooperate with you.”
He added: “With my thrust of an independent foreign policy, we will find ourselves mutually agreeing in so many things and align our foreign policy towards the development of Asia, strengthening of ties among the countries in the region, with China leading the way in the economic development.” CBB
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A record sold-out crowd on July 3, 2014 enjoyed a Hillsboro Hops victory and a spectacular sunset at Ron Tonkin Field.
(Craig Mitchelldyer/Hillsboro Hops)
A release from the Hillsboro Hops:
The No. 15 Oregon Ducks baseball team, led by head coach George Horton, will face Seattle University on Wednesday, April 1 at Ron Tonkin Field in Hillsboro.
The game will mark the first-ever Division I college baseball game to be played at Ron Tonkin Field, home of the short-season Single-A Hillsboro Hops. First pitch is scheduled for 6 p.m. on April 1.
"We are very excited that the University of Oregon and Seattle University will play the first-ever Division I college baseball game at our home field," said K.L. Wombacher, the Hillsboro Hops Executive Vice President and General Manager. "There are many University of Oregon alumni and fans in this area and I'm sure they will love seeing a national power like the Ducks take on Seattle University at our state-of-the-art ballpark."
The Ducks finished with a record of 44-20 for the 2014 season, including a record of 18-12 in the Pac-12.
"We would like to thank the Hillsboro Hops organization for the opportunity to play at Ron Tonkin Field," Horton said. "It will be a great opportunity to watch the Ducks play in the Portland area in a first class facility."
Tickets for the Oregon vs. Seattle University baseball game on April 1 at Ron Tonkin Field are on sale at www.hillsborohops.com. Ticket prices are $5, $11, $14 and all inclusive club seats for $35.
The Hillsboro Hops open the 2015 season on Thursday, June 18 in Spokane. Opening Night at Ron Tonkin Field in Hillsboro will be Tuesday, June 23 against South Division-rival Salem-Keizer. Season tickets, mini-plans and flex plans are now available at www.hillsborohops.com, or by calling 503-640-0887.
-- Hillsboro HopsWE DO knot ALWAYS LOVE YOU Part 13 Full translation.
Marriage Registration
5
pages 138-148
6th sector - Kuchiki clan mansion.
On the morning of the day they were to head to the Kinin Noble Assembly, Renji passed through the Kuchiki clan’s huge main gate with a nervous expression. As he advanced on the stone pavement that had been swept clean, he was greeted by an old man with white hair wearing a pair of round spectacles - Seike Nobutsune, an attendant attached to Byakuya.
“Abarai sama, we have been expecting you”
Calmly bowing, he opened the door of the (genkan) entryway, “please come inside”
“Nah, I’ll meet her in front of the entrance……”
“I have been informed to tell you that you are to join Byakuya sama for breakfast”
“With the captain!? U-understood”
Renji became increasingly nervous, moving awkwardly, he followed behind Seike.
Three food trays were placed in the banquet hall, Byakuya, Rukia and Renji silently moved their chopsticks. The tray’s lacquerware was lined up with a variety of small bowls overflowing with side dishes and white rice, appearing as if he couldn’t resist it any longer, Renji posed a question.
“Is it always this quiet……?”
He felt awkward that nothing but the sound of him eating stood out, given the fact that the other two were eating almost without making a sound.
“We usually eat separately. Nii-sama eats here, I eat in my room. Since the 13th division is quite far away from the mansion……If I don’t finish breakfast beforehand and depart earlier than Nii-sama, I won’t make on time for the start of work”
When Rukia calmly put down her chopsticks, the waiter, who was standing by at the corner of the room, immediately removed her food tray and placed down another tray with Mizugashi* (*a type of Japanese Jelly dessert) and tea on it. Rukia responded with a “Thank you”.
“You could live in the lieutenant’s quarters couldn’t you? It’s more comfortable being able sleep until just before the start of work isn’t it~? Captain, you also stay overnight when it gets too late right? In the captain’s office”
“……I do not stay overnight”
“I see……pardon me”
“……are….-licious……”
“……huh? What was that?”
Renji turned his face towards her, Rukia’s head remained lowered as she murmured something.
“The meals are delicious……in this house……! I think It’s normal to want to eat here every day right……!?”
Her face became bright red as she said this. Seike and Chiyo who were waiting back wore smiling expressions that looked as if they wanted to say ‘goodness!’ and 'oh my!’ Appearing as though he was suppressing the expression in his eyes, the waiter was overcome with emotion.
“That’s rather gluttonous……”
“Shut up!”
“But yes, it’s certainly extremely tasty. I’m not surprised if you’d want to come back here every day just for that”
After emptying out his 4th bowl of rice, Renji set his chopsticks down, he brought his hands together showing appreciation for the meal. Looking at Rukia who was eating a pear whilst her cheeks were still stained with red, Byakuya coughed once.
“It’s fine if you want to come back here to eat anytime”
“Awesome! Thank you very much, captain!!”
“……I wasn’t talking to you”
Looking at an astounded Byakuya, Renji laughed and said “I understand that!” In a loud voice.
“Nii-sama, thank you very much……!”
As her eyes lightly filled with tears, Rukia smiled. Seeing Byakuya’s eyes tenderly narrow in a soft expression, Renji’s mouth gaped wide open.
"Ca……c-ca……ca- captain smiled……!?”
“What do you mean 'C-c-c-ca'……? Even Nii-sama smiles sometimes……”
“Rukia”
Perceiving the will in Byakuya’s voice that 'no more has to be said’, Rukia held her tongue.
“I have finished affixing my seal on these documents…… I will go now”
Byakuya promptly exited the room leaving the other two behind. Without a sound, Seike also follows.
“……Captain, he was feeling a bit embarrassed wasn’t he?”
As Renji uttered that, Chiyo who looked as if she was unable to restrain herself any longer, burst into laughter. “Hey” the senior waiter chided, with a bow of her head she apologised. However her shoulders were still shaking.
“We should get going too, Renji……Chiyo don’t keep laughing forever, please help me with this kimono”
“Certainly!”
Chiyo quickly walked up to Rukia who had stood up, carefully she adjusted her clothes which were slightly disheveled.
“Abarai sama this way”
An elderly servant who was in front of a (fusuma) sliding screen that lead to an adjoining room, called out to Renji.
“Huh? Even me?”
Saying that Renji looked to Rukia, but she inclined her head like she also knew nothing.
When Renji stood before the sliding screen, two servants immediately drew back the panels.
Placed at the center of the room was a beautiful clothing rack with two mounts, there a five crested kuromontsuki and haorihakama* was hanged up. (*Traditional Japanese formal wear for men)
“Cool……! ……huh? Is this for me!?”
“It is indeed. Byakuya sama ordered that you receive this.”
“Nii-sama……!”
Finished with her adjustments Chiyo stepped back, Rukia stood lined up beside Renji.
“Come to think of it…… on the evening we reported to Nii-sama our intention to marry, after Renji had returned home, I was asked "does he have a ceremonial suit to wear?” but I answered that well, at any rate he probably doesn’t have one……"
“Why’d ya make up your mind on something like that, you don’t know maybe I do have one!? I don’t have one but still!!”
Rukia looked at Renji with an expression that said 'I thought so’. Renji turned his face away, he then approached the montsuki.
“These crests……they’re camellias?”
Attached on the black fabric there were crests, dyed in white, representing the 6th division’s squad flower, the camellia.
“We were informed that Abarai sama doesn’t have a family crest……but if it’s the squad’s camellia flower, then it’s suitable as a crest is it not?”
Saying that, the servant calmly bowed. “A camellia crest was Seike sama’s idea” Chiyo added.
“Ah! That old guy!”
“Byakuya sama said everything including this crest is fine……”
“Even if that was kept private, he would accept it wouldn’t he?……”
Picturing Byakuya with an extremely troubled expression, Renji let out a small sigh.
“That was so thoughtful of him……this is great, Renji”
“Right! ……'but well, in the end even with this montsuki, Rukia hopefully won’t feel awkward walking next to him’, that’s what this probably means am I right?”
With a “eh?” Rukia looked up at Renji.
Renji laughing, pat her small back and said, “……everything he does, it’s for you, Rukia”
———-
Central first sector.
When Rukia and the others arrived with the documents at the window of the reception desk of the Kinin Noble Assembly, one of the officials, who appeared to have been contacted already, greeted them with a respectful bow.
“The head of the family, this way”
The man opened up the massive double doors that were at his back, Byakuya proceeded inside.
“The two of you, please wait there”
Rukia and Renji sat down side by side on the dark green sofa he indicated to. Making sure they were seated, the official headed inside the room and closed the doors.
The waiting room fell silent. Although the space wasn’t that wide, Rukia thought the place was built too large for merely four clans.
“Before they see to us, he has to affix his seal right?”
Unaccustomed to wearing montsuki, that are apparently quite uncomfortable, Renji turned his head several times.
“This morning Nii-sama said that he had already finished affixing his seal on the documents, so because of that……here, he only has to submit those documents isn’t it?”
“If he’s just submitting a document then it’s not necessary to go into a separate room, ya kno-……”
Quicker than Renji could finish talking, the doors of that inner room were opened up again. Entering the waiting room themselves, the male official passed through the doors followed by Byakuya.
“You’ve finished already……!?”
He looked at the clock that was hanging on the wall. Not even five minutes had passed since the two had entered that separate room.
“Abarai Renji sama, -Abarai- Rukia sama”
Watching as Rukia’s shoulders sprang up with a start, the man smiled softly.
“Congratulations on your marriage”
Saying that, he presented a single sheet of paper before the two.
It was a 'Certificate of Marriage Acceptance’.
“Thank you……very much……”
As a consequence of the fact that the formalities had gone by so fast, it was Renji who listlessly accepted the certificate, but as soon as he saw the characters 'Abarai Rukia’ written there, he stood up from the chair.
“We did it Rukia!! With this, we were finally……finally able to get married!!”
Taken aback at being named “Abarai” herself, Rukia’s mind went blank, but she regained her composure when Renji shook her shoulder.
“Abarai Rukia sama”
“Ye-yes!”
Rukia looked in the official’s direction whilst willing herself to stay in control so as not to lose that composure she had just regained.
The man took out a yellow coloured form that said “Notification of Gotei soldier name change” before speaking.
“If you’re going to be using the surname 'Abarai’ whilst on duty from now on, then please submit this form to the 'Gotei Soldier Record Administration Bureau’……”
“It’s fine, I will keep the Kuchiki surname as it is”
“What? You’re not changing it?”
“I absolutely cannot change it!!”
Although Renji seemed to be somewhat dissatisfied with this, Rukia decided to refuse altering her gotei soldier registered name as she thought there was a real danger that her mind would get distracted if person after person that encountered her called her 'Abarai’.
Giving a slight nod to the official, Byakuya headed outside. The couple also followed suit.
(My last name is Abarai now)
Rukia thought it was quite strange how her family name had just changed In a matter of minutes. As she walked, Rukia wondered whether or not a day would ever come where she’d get used to being called 'Abarai’, Byakuya who was walking several steps ahead of them, stopped abruptly.
“….…You two are husband and wife now”
He said this whilst his back remained turned towards them. They instinctively straightened their posture.
“……Renji”
“Yes!”
Renji’s facial expression stiffened as he waited for Byakuya’s next words. Slightly lowering his head, Byakuya spoke.
“……Take care of Rukia”
Bowing deeply, Renji answered with sincere conviction, “of course……!”
Rukia held back her tears and bit her lip.
“Captain……! I will, absolutely……at all costs for Rukia-……”
"I’ve made arrangements for you to be able to announce your marriage at the captains meeting this afternoon……don’t be late.”
Byakuya coolly spoke, interrupting Renji who was about to say something good.
“This……afternoon……? Eh….!?”
“……Eh? Eeehh!? Today!?”
Feeling a sense of vertigo from their emotions, the pair fell into a slight state of panic.
“But……about that……I still have to prepare myself……!”
Losing the senses in her teary eyes, Rukia’s gaze darted about.
“I-isn’t this a bit too sudden!? Perhaps after we’ve settled down a bit more……”
“Are you saying……my efforts have been rendered futile……?”
Byakuya slowly turned his head to look over his shoulder, he looked at the pair with eyes that had cast aside emotion.
“We’ll announce it today”
“Please accept our sincere apology for your troubles”
At that moment, the pair had collected themselves again.
“If that is the case, then make haste”
With a final sharp look, Byakuya immediately shunpo’d away.
For a moment they stood there in a daze before coming to their senses, in a mad dash they headed back towards the Kuchiki mansion to change into their shihakushou.
End.cryptogon.com news – analysis – conspiracies
July 20th, 2009
This one is absolutely exploding around the intertubes this morning.
I don’t know where it started but someone found a datasheet about a vaccine called Prepandrix that’s made by GlaxoSmithKline.
This thing contains the following entries:
Regulatory/Status Index:
biodefense stockpile (U.S.)
biodefense stockpile, European countries
controlled/gov’t distribution in European counties
controlled/gov’t distribution in U.S.
EU200 Currently Approved in EU
EU666 Biodefense stockpile
UM100 Controlled/Gov’t Distribution in US
US666 Biodefense stockpile
EM160 Controlled/Gov’t Distribution in EU
Now, I’m not taking any vaccine regardless of what number sequences are associated with it, but let’s clear something up:
PREPANDRIX IS A BIRD FLU VACCINE. Bird flu. H5N1.
Not swine flu, H1N1.
The EU666 and US666 status codes are also associated with a smallpox vaccine, and on a more individual basis, about two dozen other substances.
Maybe it’s interesting that vaccines that are stockpiled for “biodefense” purposes carry the 666 designation, but for purposes of the swine flue H1N1 vaccination that will be coming out in a few months, this US666 and EU666 wouldn’t apply because it hasn’t been stockpiled; it’s new.
Out of curiosity, I tried to determine what EU666 and US666 mean beyond the phrase “Biodefense stockpile” that appears next to the entries.
This is the reference for the Regulatory/Status index codes.
Here are the entries for biodefense stockpiles for the U.S. and European countries:
biodefense stockpile (U.S.) — 104; 105; 321; 392; 393; 394; 395; 396; 446; 447; 448; 450; 451; 452; 573; 574; 575; 618; 619; 650
biodefense stockpile, European countries — 312; 392; 393; 449; 452
There’s no reference for 666 listed. I don’t know why the 666 code isn’t listed here, but when you click on any of those codes above and then look down, though the text, it says US666 Biodefense stockpile, or EU666 Biodefense stockpile or both on all of those.
I don’t know what the implications of all of that are, but there you have it.
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You must be logged in to post a comment.WONG FOR-KAM has long ceased to make her living only from catching grouper and snapper, but she still fishes and is proud of her profession. She is chairwoman of the Aberdeen Fisherwomen Association, whose 230 members work from a harbour crowded with sampans and trawlers. That obscure post gives her unexpected influence. Unlike most residents, the association has voting rights in the choice of Hong Kong’s chief executive, as the city’s leader is known.
The group is one of about 160 farming and fishing organisations which fill 60 of the 1,200 seats in the committee that selects the chief executive. The same farming and fishing groups also elect one of the 70 members of Hong Kong’s legislative council, or Legco. Granting special voting rights to businesses and professions is a practice dating to Hong Kong’s days as a British colony. Pro-democracy politicians want to end the system, but neither China’s ruling Communist Party, nor the interest groups themselves, are keen. “Our contributions, if you ask me, are very big,” says the 58-year-old Ms Wong, surrounded by piles of baskets, boxes and bamboo poles. “Because everybody eats fish.”
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When the current chief executive, Leung Chun-ying, was chosen in 2012, delegates to the selection committee were chosen from four sectors: the professions; businesses; labour, social and religious groups; and politicians, including local legislators and delegates to the parliament in Beijing. A frequent complaint about the voting system is that it gives disproportionate representation to certain occupations. The 60 seats controlled by agriculture and fishing (aquaculture accounts for less than one-tenth of a percent of Hong Kong’s GDP) compare with a mere 18 seats allocated to financial firms. Ms Wong does not see a problem. “I don’t think we have enough seats,” she says firmly.
The Communist Party does not operate openly in Hong Kong—a nod to its “One country, two systems” principle. But it cultivates groups like Ms Wong’s which support its policies. Hong Kong’s fishing fleet of 4,000 vessels cannot afford to offend the Chinese authorities, who control vital fishing grounds.
On August 31st China’s parliament announced that, in the election for the post of chief executive due in 2017, the winner would be chosen by popular vote for the first time. But candidates must be pre-approved by a committee comprising representatives of much the same interest groups as before. Next month the government is expected to publish a bill that will be needed to implement these changes. Pro-democracy legislators have vowed to block it.
If the bill fails to pass, the current system will be preserved at least until 2022. Any attempt to scrap Legco’s “functional constituencies”, as the 50% of seats reserved for special interests are known, would then have to wait until 2024. The fisherwomen of Aberdeen harbour are likely to retain their peculiar political role for years to come.When Charles Darwin published his groundbreaking theory of Natural Selection in 1859, it was received by the public with considerable vexation. Although the esteemed naturalist had been kind enough to explain his theory using mounds of logic and evidence, he lacked the good manners to incorporate the readers’ preconceived notions of the universe. Nevertheless, many men of science were drawn to the elegant hypothesis, and they found it pregnant with intriguing corollaries. One of these was a phenomenon Darwin referred to as artificial selection: the centuries-old process of selectively breeding domestic animals to magnify desirable traits. This, he explained, was the same mechanism as natural selection, merely accelerated by human influence.
In 1865, Darwin’s half-cousin Sir Francis Galton pried the lid from yet another worm-can with the publication of his article entitled “Hereditary Talent and Character.” In this essay, the gentleman-scientist suggested that one could apply the principle of artificial selection to humans just as one could in domestic animals, thereby exaggerating desirable human traits over several generations. This scientific philosophy would come to be known as eugenics, and over the subsequent years its seemingly sensible insights gained approval worldwide. In an effort to curtail the genetic pollution created by “inferior” genes, some governments even enacted laws authorizing the forcible sterilization of the “insane, idiotic, imbecile, feebleminded or epileptic,” as well as individuals with criminal or promiscuous inclinations. Ultimately hundreds of thousands of people were forced or coerced into sterilization worldwide, over 65,000 of them in the country which pioneered the eugenic effort: The United States of America.
From the beginning, Sir Francis Galton and his league of extraordinary eugenicists were concerned that the human race was facing an inevitable decline. They worried that advances in medicine were too successful in improving the survival and reproduction of weak individuals, thereby working at odds with natural evolution. Darwin himself expressed some concern regarding such negative selection:
“[We] do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. […] Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. […] Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature.”
Gaussian distribution of IQ scores in a large population
The early proponents of eugenics were also distressed over the observation that the poor segments of an industrialized society tend to have more children than the well-off, an effect now known as the demographic-economic paradox. It was feared that this lopsided fertility would dilute the quality of the human gene pool, leading to the deterioration of socially valuable traits such as intelligence. Indeed, this “reversion towards mediocrity” was suspected by some historians to be a major contributor to the fall of the Roman Empire. The gloomy prediction of mankind’s decline was dubbed dysgenics, and it was considered to be the antithesis of the eugenics movement; but it was not considered inevitable. It was believed that a society could reverse its own genetic decay by reducing breeding among the feebleminded and increasing fertility of the affluent.
The cornerstone of eugenics was that everyone has the right to be “well-born,” without any predisposition to avoidable genetic flaws. The 1911 edition of The Encyclopædia Britannica looked fondly upon the philosophy, defining it as “the organic betterment of the race through wise application of the laws of heredity.” Prominent people gravitated towards the idea and engaged in vigorous intellectual intercourse, including such characters as Alexander Graham Bell, Nikola Tesla, H.G. Wells, Winston Churchill, George Bernard Shaw, and US presidents Woodrow Wilson and Calvin Coolidge. Supporters popularized eugenics as an opportunity to create a better world by using natural processes to elevate the human condition, both mentally and physically.
The eugenicists’ concerns regarding a falloff in average intelligence were not entirely unreasonable. It had long been observed that intelligence is inheritable to a large degree, and history had illustrated that science and culture owe much of their advancement to the contributions of a few gifted people. Ingenious composers such as Beethoven and Bach advanced the art of music, thinkers such as such as Pascal and Newton improved the power of mathematics, and insights from scientists such as Einstein and Hawking have furthered the field of physics. Deprived of any one of those men, today’s world would be a measurably poorer place. Even before modern IQ tests existed, it was evident that a population’s intelligence adheres to a Gaussian distribution, or “bell curve.” Consequently, even a small decline in average IQ causes a sharp reduction in the number of geniuses. For instance, if the average intelligence of a community were to decline by five IQ points, the number of individuals in the 130+ “Gifted” category would drop by 56%. A ten-point decline would result in an 83% drop. Although IQ testing is far from perfect, it is clear that even modest erosion of average IQ could severely compromise the long-term progress of a society.
The archives room of the Eugenics Records Office
As a cautionary measure, many US states enacted laws as early as 1896 prohibiting marriage to anyone who was “epileptic, imbecile or feeble-minded”. But in 1907, eugenics truly passed the threshold from hypothesis into practice when the state of Indiana erected legislation based upon the notion that socially undesirable traits are hereditary:
“…it shall be compulsory for each and every institution in the state, entrusted with the care of confirmed criminals, idiots, rapists and imbeciles, to appoint upon its staff, in addition to the regular institutional physician, two (2) skilled surgeons of recognized ability, whose duty it shall be, in conjunction with the chief physician of the institution, to examine the mental and physical condition of such inmates as are recommended by the institutional physician and board of managers. If, in the judgment of this committee of experts and the board of managers, procreation is inadvisable and there is no probability of improvement of the mental condition of the inmate, it shall be lawful for the surgeons to perform such operation for the prevention of procreation as shall be decided safest and most effective.”
Although this particular law was later overturned, it is widely considered to be the world’s first eugenic legislation. The sterilization of imbeciles was put into practice, often without informing the patient of the nature of the procedure. Similar laws were soon passed elsewhere in the US, many of which withstood the legal gauntlet and remained in force for decades.
Meanwhile the founders of the newly-formed Eugenics Record Office in New York began to amass hundreds of thousands of family pedigrees for genetic research. The organization publicly endorsed eugenic practices, and lobbied for state sterilization acts and immigration restrictions. The group also spread their vision of genetic superiority by sponsoring a series of “Fitter Families” contests which were held at state fairs throughout the US. Alongside the state’s portliest pigs, swiftest horses, and most majestic vegetables, American families were judged for their quality of breeding. Entrants’ pedigrees were reviewed, their bodies examined, and their mental capacity measured. The families found to be most genetically fit were awarded a silver trophy, and any contestant scoring a B+ or higher was awarded a bronze medal bearing the inscription, “Yea, I have a goodly heritage.”
The eugenics movement took another swerve for the sinister in 1924 when the state of Virginia enacted a matched set of eugenics laws: The Sterilization Act, a variation of the same sterilization legislation being passed throughout the US; and the Racial Integrity Act, a law which felonized marriage between white persons and non-whites. In September of the same year, this shiny new legislation was challenged by a patient at the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded. Eighteen-year-old Carrie Buck— child to a promiscuous mother, and mother to an illegitimate child— refused her mandatory sterilization and a legal challenge was arranged on her behalf. A series of appeals ultimately brought the Buck v. Bell case before the Supreme Court of the United States. The Supreme Court’s ruling was delivered by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.:
“It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes…Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”
With the apparent vindication of these myopic eugenics laws, sterilization procedures were ordered by the thousands. Carrie Buck and her daughter Vivian were among them. It was later discovered that Carrie had been become pregnant with Vivian after being raped by her foster parents’ nephew, and that her commitment into the Colony had been a gambit to preserve the family’s reputation. It seems that Carrie was neither feebleminded nor promiscuous, she was merely inconvenient.
These sorts of negative eugenics policies enjoyed widespread adoption in the US and Canada throughout the 1920s and 30s, with some lawmakers contemplating plans to make welfare and unemployment relief contingent upon sterilization. In the years leading up to the Second World War, however, the eugenic philosophy received the endorsement of the Nazis, and their “racial hygiene” atrocities rapidly dragged the eugenic philosophy from public favor. When Nazi leaders were put on trial for war crimes, they cited the United States as the inspiration for the 450,000 forced sterilizations they conducted. The eugenic laws in the US remained in force, however, and sterilization programs continued quietly for many years thereafter. One by one the state laws were repealed, and by 1963 virtually all US states had dismantled their sterilization legislation— but not before 65,000 or so imbeciles, criminals, and fornicators were surgically expelled from the gene pool. As for the legal precedent of Buck v. Bell, it has yet to be officially overruled.
Even with the shifts in public opinion, concerns regarding the decline of the species still remained. It was believed that certain undesirable diseases could be reduced or eliminated from humanity through well-informed mate selection, including such maladies as hypertension, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis, hemophilia, and certain types of cancer. In an effort to improve general quality of life, some scientists hypothesized that the ideal way to save humanity would be for healthy and attractive women to breed with men of science. Unfortunately, no orgy of intellectuals ensued.
Robert Klark Graham
In 1980, millionaire inventor Robert Klark Graham took a similar positive eugenics approach when he established the Repository for Germinal Choice in an underground bunker in Escondido, California. His goal was to procure and propagate the crème de la crème of genius DNA. It was his earnest hope that this institution would spawn thousands of gifted children to offset the unbridled copulation among the “retrograde” population. For nineteen years he courted the semen of Nobel Prize laureates, prosperous scientists, Olympic gold medalists, or anyone with a proven high IQ. Even as news reports decried Graham’s scheme to produce a “master race” of “superbabies,” hundreds of pre-screened women made the pilgrimage to his fortress of fertility. Owing to the popularity of the Repository and the stiff requirements demanded of the donors, there was never quite enough sperm on hand, and the founder was forced |
civil-rights advocates and organization and even harboring, amazingly, sympathies for the KKK. These are false charges. The voter-fraud case my office prosecuted was in response to pleas from African-American, incumbent, elected officials who claimed the absentee-ballot process involved a situation in which ballots cast for them were stolen, altered, and cast for their opponents. The prosecution was sought to protect the integrity of the ballot, not the black voting. It was a voting-rights case.
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A brief explanation of the facts of the case: Albert Turner, a black man from Perry County, Ala., began work in the late 1960s persuading fellow African Americans in the region that the 1965 Voting Rights Act had made it safe for them to vote. He and wife Evelyn formed the Perry County Civic League, which, among other things, helped poor, black citizens in the area register to vote. In Perry and other counties where the black population was 60 percent or more, the league began to support particular black candidates running for office.
As this transpired, opposition began to arise, according to a detailed New York Times report on the case:
But by the early 1980s, a local group, Concerned Citizens of Perry County, and a branch of the White Citizens Council, historically a white supremacist network, were working against Turner’s group to elect what they called a “coalition” of white and black candidates. A handbill from nearby Greene County urged voters to “support good, responsible blacks” to defeat “the radical forces of the black front.”
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When white voters used the absentee-voting process to keep their vote totals up in this region and overwhelm the burgeoning black vote, Turner and his fellow activists started making house calls to help black individuals fill out absentee ballots and mail them in. Before the 1984 primaries, suspecting Turner and his group of possible illegal activity, the district attorney and a black candidate from the black-and-white coalition requested that the state’s U.S attorney investigate. That attorney was Jeff Sessions.
In the course of this investigation, Sessions stationed an agent outside the Perry County post office, and the agent witnessed the Turners and their fellow activist, Spencer Hogue, mailing hundreds of absentee ballots. An FBI inspection of these ballots revealed that 75 appeared to have been erased or remarked; that number was later reduced to 27.
Here's what the altered ballots looked like in the Perry County case – pretty obvious why Sessions brought the case. pic.twitter.com/iQ4wpQtuO2 — Carrie Severino (@JCNSeverino) January 11, 2017
The NYT reports that, at the conclusion of the ensuing investigation, “Albert and Evelyn Turner and Spencer Hogue were indicted in January 1985 on 29 counts, for mail fraud, conspiracy to commit voting fraud and voting more than once.” But in the end, all three were acquitted.
Though the complaining candidate in this case was also a black man, it seems evident that there was demonstrable racial animus on the part of those Sessions helped by bringing the case. But bringing the case happened to be Sessions’s job as a U.S. attorney, and there’s no evidence that his decision to do so was motivated by any racism on his part. In fact, as the case was brought back into the spotlight in the context of Sessions’s confirmation hearing, the Turners’ son, Albert Turner Jr. — who currently serves as a Perry County commissioner — released a letter endorsing Sessions for the position of attorney general:
I have known Senator Sessions for many years, beginning with the voter fraud case in Perry County in which my parents were defendants. My differences in policy and ideology with him do not translate to personal malice. He is not a racist. As I have said before, at no time then or now has Jeff Sessions said anything derogatory about my family. He was a prosecutor at the Federal level with a job to do. He was presented with evidence by a local District Attorney that he relied on, and his office presented the case. That’s what a prosecutor does. I believe him when he says that he was simply doing his job. I believe that he is someone with whom I, and others in the civil rights community can work if given the opportunity. I believe that he will listen, as he has in the past, to the concerns of my community. More than most I am very familiar with him. I believe he will be fair in his application of the law and the Constitution; as such I support his nomination to be the next Attorney General of the United States.
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Sessions yesterday proved himself capable of defending his record on race relations, but the facts of the Perry County case demonstrate that he shouldn’t be forced to absolve himself at all. Like the other flimsy claims against him, the charge that Sessions opposes black voting rights highlights Democrats’ compulsive need to oppose the incoming administration regardless of the facts.Image caption The Merpati Airlines plane was "smashed to pieces"
There were no survivors from the crash of an Indonesian passenger aircraft into the sea with up to 27 people on board, a navy officer says.
The plane went down in poor weather just short of the airstrip serving the small port town of Kaimana, in the eastern province of West Papua.
Fifteen bodies have been recovered by rescue teams.
The Indonesian archipelago relies heavily on air transport and has one of Asia's worst air safety records.
"I can confirm that all the passengers were killed when the plane exploded as it crashed into the sea," the unnamed navy officer, who took part in the search and rescue operation, told ElShinta radio.
"The aircraft was smashed to pieces... We found 15 bodies floating on the water and the other passengers are trapped inside the wreckage."
Transport ministry official Bambang Ervan told AFP news agency there were 21 passengers and six crew on board the twin turbo-prop plane, operated by Merpati Airlines, which was flying from the coastal city of Sorong.
Indonesia has seen a number of commercial airline crashes in recent years.
In 2007, the European Union banned all of Indonesia's airlines including the national carrier Garuda.
In 2009, Garuda and three other carriers were taken off the EU's list, but Merpati Airlines remains on it.If you’re looking to find out what the hot/new trends are in the food world, you need look no further than the countless social feeds chronicling this year’s showing at Expo West. Taking place in sunny Anaheim, California, this enormous natural food and health expo is an absolute must for anyone who is interested in health, sustainability or more generally, straight-up amazing eats.
While many people were in awe of the celebrity showings at the Anaheim Convention Center, including none other than Alicia Silverstone and Channing Tatum, we couldn’t help but notice that these famous faces were hardly the stars of the show. The second we stepped foot into the massive exhibition halls, our highly attuned Green Monster senses noticed there was something magical in the air … and it didn’t take us long to figure out what it was: vegan food!
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There were over 60,000 people and companies in attendance at the Expo, but by and large the whole show was being run by vegan food companies. And why wouldn’t it be?! The focus of Expo West is not only centered around food and health, but sustainability and mission-driven businesses. So where do all of these amazing things collide? You got it, in the vegan food space. We have long said that the fight against climate change starts on our plates, and if this battle is going to be fought with the kinds of products we saw at the Expo, sign us up for permanent duty!
Seriously though, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that livestock production is responsible for 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, while other organizations like the Worldwatch Institute have estimated it could be as much as 51 percent. Not to mention, consumption of animal products is linked to obesity, cancer and other serious illnesses that we could all live without (and CAN thanks to the rising number of plant-based food options out there). It’s time for us to forget all about the convoluted “sustainable” meat trends and get on board with the future of truly sustainable food, vegan noms.
Plant-based eaters not only use a whopping 160 times fewer land resources than meat-eaters, but they also save six times the land resources that people who eat eggs and dairy use. PLUS, one calorie of animal protein requires about 10 times the input of fossil fuel energy than a single calorie of plant protein. And, if we’re going to get into water usage, let’s just say that you can save 162,486 gallons a year just by skipping the burgers, nuggets and bacon. Phew! So, really, if you’re looking to help create a more sustainable food system (and healthier environment), really the best way to go is via the plant-based express.
Luckily, there’s no need to wait around for this future to realize itself because we noticed some pretty strong signs, this future is already here to stay!
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1. Plant-Based Meat is Hot
We are well aware that Americans suffer from a very odd, yet highly pervasive fear of not getting enough protein. How else would you explain the “Double Down,” snack packs made entirely of meat and cheese cubes and the fact that “Slim Jims” are still a thing… For years, people thought the only way to get their daily overdose of protein was by consuming entire animals, but the plant-based meat industry is changing that game. Something humans and animals everywhere can celebrate! Peace out animal protein and say hello to these sizzling, plant-based morsels.
Micky D’s goes vegan … and cue simultaneous mind explosions.
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Although we can’t prove that vegan enchiladas give you super powers, they come pretty darn close.
Think going vegan means saying goodbye to barbecues? You don’t know jack … fruit.
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2. Vegan Cheese is the New Black
Seriously, anyone who uses the excuse, “I love cheese too much to go vegan,” needs to take a giant bite of Miyokos Creamery’s “Double Cream Chive” and never look back. From plant-based nacho cheese to deli slices to cream cheese and every other form of cheese imaginable (except maybe not spray form, but that’s really in humanity’s best interest), you can find it in a vegan variety. And trust us, after sampling any and every vegan cheese offering out there, we can tell you once you go to the plant side, there ain’t no coming back!
Vegan gouda’s my favorite! *Giggles and bats eyelashes*
There are few things in life more important than vegan pizza, thank goodness the only thing standing between you and this hot slice is 15 minutes in the oven.
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Thought going vegan meant no more wine and cheese parties? Oh, do think again.
Okay, okay, back away from the computer screen … you’re getting drool on the keyboard.
3. Hottest New Natural Snacks Are All Free of Eggs and Dairy
The days of plant-based snacking limited to plain nuts and dried fruit are over! From kale chips flavored with every savory seasoning known to man, irresistible falafel bites, chia pods, and plant-based puddings, the vegan snack game has reached 10 new levels of awesome.
These chickpeas are ready to party.
Not only can you get cool-ranch kale chips, but they make brussel sprout chips, parsnip chips, carrot and beet chips … name a vegetable and it can be “chipped.” (Added bonus, all the flavorings are egg and dairy free as well – score!)
4. Nut Milks Take No Prisoners
Almond milk has become quite the staple in the plant-based kitchen, but the rest of the nut world is stepping up and joining in on the plant-based milk fun. Entering the scene is coconut milk and cashew milk, both of which can be enjoyed as a simple beverage … or frozen into one of these amaze-balls ice cream varieties.
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Anything a cow can do, plants can do better.
Seriously, ditch those dairy pints of ice cream and join us here in the light.
5. High-Powered Energy Comes From the Ground
When you’re looking for a reliable source of energy that will power you through that intense session of weight-lifting or marathon training, where do you turn? If your answer is a protein shake, outfitted with milk, whey powder and any number of animal-based supplements, you might want to start thinking again. (If you’ve even resorted to the cricket/mealworm craze for power bars, we sincerely apologize to your mouth.) Ever wonder where all these creatures get their energy? Well, the answer is plants. So why not skip the step that involves having to industrial animal agriculture and just stick to the source? Chia seeds, hemp seeds, macha, baobab and countless other superfoods can give you the boost of energy you need without all the nonsense you don’t!
We like to call this Seed Lightening.
Whatchu know ’bout plant-based protein bars?
NewHope360
Seriously, doesn’t this make you want to go on a run?
Lead image source: The Ultimate Vegan BurgerWhen you label yourself the first next-generation RPG, people take notice. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is not only the conclusion to one of the most highly regarded trilogies in recent memory, but the first true, big-budget role-playing game to come exclusively to next-generation platforms and PC. Everything we saw from the game at last month’s E3, from the combat to the expanded world, was encouraging, but the 45-minute demo just wasn’t enough. We decided to reach out to developer CD Projekt RED to get further details on the project, as well as pick the team’s brain on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
StickSkills: We keep hearing about Wild Hunt’s open world, and how the geography players will be able to explore is more than 30 times bigger than what was seen in The Witcher 2. Does that mean the game’s quests and personality might be more dispersed, or will The Witcher 3 continue the series’ trend of being a “dense” RPG?
Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, Game Director: The quest per pixel (we should trademark this!) metric is as high as it’s humanly possible in The Witcher 3. We’ve added quite a few people to the departments responsible for quest design and writing – we’re willing to go very far make side-quests seamless and coherent with the whole world you’ll get to explore. Nothing is generic; we try to avoid clichés as much as we can. There’s a lot of hard work involved as everything is being done by hand, we try to give every NPC a convincing backstory and every part of the land a bit of their own folklore. If you remember our E3 demo, where we showed the Leshen and the monster’s impact on the local folk who build something of a ritual around it, yeah, that’s what we mean. And it was “just” a side-quest.
SS: At this point in development, are you sick of hearing the Skyrim comparisons? What do you think sets your game apart?
KT: Skyrim is a great game and it’s always a good thing when people think well of your game. Having said that, The Witcher 3 is a story-oriented experience. What we excel at is reaching that center of the brain that’s responsible for evoking emotions – we constantly put stuff in and observe a full palette of gamers’ reactions. Sapkowski created a really believable and dark universe and this is something really unique to us. In this regard, adding the open world to The Witcher is just another step to make it a more complete experience and not the main feature of the game. We’re still focusing on the narrative, the world just got a lot bigger and the borders within it disappeared.
SS: Does The Witcher’s narrative priority at all hurt the combat? This is a franchise built on its story, but what are you doing in this third game to keep players interested in the mechanics?
KT: It’s not like the narrative ever hurt the mechanic, or at least we hope so! To cater to the needs of those who prefer a good brawl, we’ve completely redesigned the combat while retaining the things that gamers told us worked in The Witcher 2. The fighting will be more intimate and the pace will be a bit slower making the whole experience less chaotic and more tactical. We’ve had several approaches to what we thought would be the sweet spot of a superior combat mechanic and this time, with all lessons learned, we think we nailed it.
SS: With Wild Hunt coming to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, what are the biggest challenges the team is facing as a traditionally PC-focused studio?
KT: We’re creating a really big game for three major platforms at the same time – if something’s a challenge, it’s that. Additionally, developing on next-gen consoles is always a process to look forward to – working to get the max out of the hardware and thinking how one can creatively use the technology is always a blast.
SS: What next-generation features interest you the most, and which ones do you think will actually benefit The Witcher 3?
KT: The horsepower of the new hardware is something that will really help in terms of adding to the visual side of things. As far as the features, we’re very cautious about saying anything at this point because we don’t want to spoil the fun. Plus, we’re in the middle of testing various features now. To be perfectly honest, we’d rather wait for the official launch of the next-gens and present a full list of awesome features already implemented than to speculate. Get back to us closer to the launch date, we’ll gladly share a thought or two by then.
SS: Do you ever see your team attempting to create an RPG similar to The Witcher that incorporates cooperative multiplayer?
KT: No, not at this point. We’re focused on a strong narrative and this is something multiplayer games, even the ones offering cooperative play, do not offer at this point. When we tell a story we want it to resonate within gamers and some choices of plot elements we show are best to be experienced alone with no-one to say “I’d do this differently” shouting behind you. Cooperative play introduces an element of dissonance to the choice and consequence process and we’d like to avoid that.
SS: We know this is the end of Geralt’s story, but could there be future games focused on other characters in this universe?
KT: Honestly, it’s too early to talk about these things at this moment.
What are you most excited for when it comes to Wild Hunt? Let us know what you think about the upcoming RPG in the comments below!BetaflightF3 Flight Controller | REVIEW AND HOW TO by by Joshua Bardwell
BetaflightF3 is the flight controller designed to use every possible feature of Betaflight. More than the last half year has been spent in development. Boris B has worked with us to go over features and design aspects to help give us insight into what betaflight users want/need.
This board features a 3A power draw giving users extra room for added attachments through uart ports. The six layer PCB is a more expensive design approach but was needed to give the ability to have a PDB that was capable of having wiring pads on both the top and bottom of the board. By using the six layer design we were able to increase the size of the pads and work around all the components all the while giving esc connections in the corners of the board rather than bunching all connections on either the top OR the bottom. Featuring a fully functioning OSD that can be configured in Betaflight this board will make configuring your OSD a breeze.
The team at betaflight have been hard at work developing DSHOT and this board is also compatible with the latest release. But we didn’t stop there, this board also features a micro adapter to accept TF cards for those of you that like to follow up your flights with reviewing black box logging...we think we know of at least one guy that will like that.
Features
Integrated PDB
Built in OSD customizable via Betaflight OSD
Current sensor
Intuitive layout
SD card slot for BlackBox
Tailored to support Betaflight
When running 8K/8K, CPU usage remains low
F3 Processor
MPU6000 Gyro/ACC Sensor
BEC Max current 5V 2A
Built in OSD – configurable via Betaflight GUI
SD Card adapter for BlackBox
Current sensor
Power distribution board with six-layer PCB
OSD Max Current: 145A
Weights 8.6g
***Note: Please do not connect to any equipment with the loading over 1.5A.
Friendly Reminder: Choosing your power supply for video is relatively simple. Betaflight FC has two options, 5v and battery voltage. Choose your camera voltage by jumping RAM with either the 5V solder section or the Vbat solder section. (its recommended to use Vbat, Most cameras and Video transmitters can run off battery voltage) If using 5v it is recommeded to only power your camera and get the power for Vtx from another source.Psst! Hey, Australians, want to make an easy buck?
As long as you’re not creeped out by the idea of sitting at your computer for hours watching live video of unsuspecting Brits, that is.
That’s because the U.K. company Internet Eyes, which streams video from stores’ security cameras to its users and offers them potential cash prizes if they spot a criminal, has expanded its user base to Australia. It was already the case that users couldn’t watch video of stores closer to them than 30 miles; now, Internet Eyes will pay users to monitor strangers on a different continent, more than a thousand miles away.
Internet Eyes has gathered criticism since it first started operations in 2009. Technically speaking, it doesn’t pay users to monitor strangers, but rather charges them a monthly fee to view preselected videos feeds, then PayPals a reward to whoever spots the most criminal activity.
Spy Blog, a site critical of the U.K.’s use of surveillance technology, has called Internet Eyes “suspiciously like an illegal Lottery” for its rewards system, and claimed it’s “worse than useless from an anti-crime alert point of view,” as users who witness violent criminal activity can only send an alert, not tell the police.
That doesn’t seem to bother its users, who gather on the Internet Eyes Facebook page to swap tips on using the service, or to complain about the grind. “I wish shop assistants would stop using carrier bags to carry price tickets and out of date items,” user Barbara Morrow
noted Thursday. “Looks like someone stealing.”
To its credit, Internet Eyes has created a YouTube channel where it’s posted nine videos it claims are of criminal activity its users have successfully flagged in the company’s more than two years of operation.
Internet Eyes didn’t respond to the Daily Dot’s request for comment.
Photo via @InternetEyes/TwitterNSW weather: Sydney homes evacuated as king tide combines with east coast low
Updated
A huge low pressure system that brought flooding and strong winds to New South Wales over the weekend has combined with a king tide to bring widespread coastal destruction, forcing people to flee homes.
Key points: Residents of about seven houses and a unit block at Collaroy moved
Backyards washed into ocean as waves continue to erode coast
21 flood warnings in place statewide, after 9,000 calls for help
As towns from Lismore in the state's north to Wollongong and south-west Sydney dealt with flooding, on Sydney's northern beaches, a number of houses and a unit block were evacuated when the wild weather battered the coast.
People were removed from about seven houses and the unit block at Collaroy as large waves up to eight metres high continued to erode the coast, crossing 50 metres over the coastal road, police said.
A number of properties have been damaged with backyards washed away, police said.
"One of the properties along that strip actually lost an entire in-ground pool which had moved above five metres out to sea," Inspector Jason Reimer said.
Narrabeen resident Adam Deere-Jones and his family stayed with relatives after the Narrabeen Lagoon burst its banks and threatened to flood his home.
"It was pretty scary. It all happened pretty quickly," he said. "We woke up about 8:00am and it was just coming across the road.
"Then within an hour it was sort of up to these front steps here. Then SES and cops came around and said 'time to evacuate'."
On Sunday night, a number of sinkholes opened up along the foreshore and emergency services worked into the night to save the homes.
One local resident, David, said the erosion was immense.
"There is no beach at Collaroy," he said. "I wouldn't be calling it Collaroy Beach anymore, I'd be calling it Collaroy Point."
Sydney's eastern suburbs were also badly hit, with Coogee's historic surf club suffering extensive damage.
The eastern wall of the club, which has stood since 1907, has collapsed and fire crews are trying to secure the first floor.
"We've had significant damage in our boat shed, we've lost almost all of our lifesaving gear," the club's president, Mark Dopell, said.
Elsewhere in the state two people were found dead after floodwaters swept away their cars.
Police recovered the body of a man from floodwaters at Leppington, in Sydney's south-west, while another man's body was found in Bowral in the Southern Highlands.
In the ACT, the body of man who was trapped in a car and swept away in floodwaters near Canberra has been recovered.
Flooding hits across the state
Across NSW, 21 flood warnings were in place and thousands were without power on Monday.
In Lismore, the river peaked at 9.1 metres, damaging roads, parks and infrastructure, although newly installed levees on the Wilson River prevented more widespread damage to property.
In Sydney's west and south-west, residents were evacuated from low-lying areas near the Georges River, Chipping Norton and Woronora due to flooding and several roads in the area were closed.
In Picton, about 30 businesses were flooded after two metres of water swept through the town, coating properties in mud.
Communities near the Nepean River in Sydney's west and south west are also watching river levels with several properties affected in Camden.
Phil Perkins, from the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM), said there are still areas of concern in Sydney and in the state's far south.
"We've got major flooding or a major flood warning for the Nepean and a minor but pushing major for the Hawkesbury as well as the Georges River," Mr Perkins said.
"We've got moderate in the Bombala river in the Snowys, Moruya as well as the Shoalhaven, Queanbeyan and Molonglo."
On the Central Coast, Terrigal was badly hit by the tidal surge when the rising lagoon forced the evacuation of a motel.
A large number of main roads, including across the Sydney metropolitan area, are not in use.
By Monday afternoon there had been about 10,000 calls for assistance statewide, the State Emergency Service said.
The heaviest rainfall in Sydney's metropolitan area was Ingleburn in the south-west, with 379 millimetres falling.
On the South Coast, Jervis Bay received 400mm while Robertson in the Southern Highlands received 618mm.
"I grew up in a town called Parkes in the Central West and that's our annual rainfall in a weekend," said the Bureau of Meterology's Rob Taggart.
"Its quite unbelievable."
In Coffs Harbour, huge waves that caused damage to the marina on Saturday continued into Sunday.
Waves reaching 11 metres bashed the pontoon and sank two more yachts on Sunday night.
The system is currently moving southwards, with the clean up starting in Sydney and the north coast.
James Morris from the State Emergency Service said the focus was shifting to the Illawarra and South Coast region, but problems still remained for other areas.
"Most of the North Coast, Mid North Coast and Sydney will see very little rainfall," he said.
"In saying that we are obviously reminding people [that] there is still the threat of rising floodwaters in numerous areas."
Schools keep doors closed
Parents are also being advised to check their local schools, with many affected, including on Sydney's northern beaches.
Narrabeen Lakes Public School is closed today due to storm damage.
Other schools open today with limited supervision include Cromer Public School and Marrickville High School in Sydney's south-west.
Albion Park Public School and Kira High School have also been affected.
Historic wharf damaged on NSW south coast
A huge northerly swell has moved one of the pylons under the historic Tathra Wharf, which was built in the 1860s, causing the pedestrian platform to buckle and break away from its support.
Bega Valley Shire Council general manager Leanne Barnes said engineering teams would assess the damage once conditions improve.
"The wharf platform structure has slipped off at least one of the pylons," Ms Barnes said.
"It is therefore lifted. It is obviously too dangerous to have any structural engineering assessments done at this point.
"The area is absolutely off-limits to people while we go through and get an assessment of the heritage wharf."
The ward, which was in use from 1862 to 1952, was recently restored by the National Trust, Department of Planning, and local residents.
Topics: storm-event, floods, sydney-2000, nsw, collaroy-2097, lismore-2480, chipping-norton-2170, terrigal-2260
First postedNews Mogoeng: Be prepared to die for the rule of law
Governments can pose a threat to the judiciary, and judges should even be willing to die for the ideal of an independent judiciary and rule of law, Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng told judges from across Africa.
He was opening the fourth congress of the Conference of Constitutional Jurisdictions of Africa in Cape Town.
The theme for this year’s congress is “The promotion of an independent judiciary and the rule of law”.
Mogoeng referred to judges in Ghana, who were killed because they had integrity and would not bow to pressure.
Three high court judges, plus an army officer, were murdered on June 30 1982. The perpetrators have not been brought to book, and their motive remains unknown, but every year, the Ghana Bar Association holds a memorial service in their honour.
“So when you become a judge you know that there are risks. But remember that most of the African countries are free because people have died. So if you have to die for the sake of the many, so be it rather than corrupt yourself and live with a guilty conscience because you are unprincipled and people have to suffer because you pretend to be a judge when in fact you are a puppet.”
He referred to American judge Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr, who was appointed to the United States Supreme Court by his friend, President Theodore Roosevelt, in 1902. Roosevelt expected the friendship to work to his advantage. But Holmes later ruled against Roosevelt in an important case.
Roosevelt expected Holmes to oppose the “big railroad men and other members of large corporations”. But in the railroad monopoly case of Northern Securities Company versus the United States, Holmes found for the railroads – infuriating Roosevelt.
Mogoeng said Holmes “preferred judicial independence, integrity and character over the favours that politicians might dish out to those who are weak and prepared to have the system corrupted.”
When Mogoeng was appointed as chief justice of South Africa, he was chalked up as a “Zuma man”.
He has since come out as an unapologetic fighter for the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary.
Mogoeng said governments usually praise the judiciary when they win cases and do the opposite when decisions are made against them.
“Our independence requires that we be alive to it possibly being compromised by foreign interests, war lords and modern day dictators.”
He said the judiciary was a critical component of any genuine democracy as opposed to a fake democracy or mobocracy.
“Integrity is what defines us.”
Mogoeng said: “Corruption will be perpetrated in your country, you will have one opportunity after the other to say no, as is your responsibility as the judiciary – but because you are hungry for power, for prestige and positions and even money, you will forget about the suffering of the millions of people in Africa suffering from poor education and health and abject poverty Africa has been characterised by.”
Mogoeng said the way judges were appointed would have to be examined.
“It cannot be that a politician can just wake up one day and say I like that one. There must be systems in place to authenticate the suitability of those assuming judicial office, their competence must be tested and we need to look at the renewability of terms of office of judges.”
Judges also needed to be paid properly, he said.
“We will have to look at any other aspects relevant to ensuring that the possibility of being beholden to other players in the state or outside is reduced.”I get a sense that almost all individuals feel better for having regular, easy, complete bowel motions. Should someone be having problems in this area, the usual first-line approach is to up the intake of fibre. This can come in the form of fruits and vegetables, but many will see ‘healthy wholegrains’ such as wholemeal bread and high bran breakfast cereals as good and convenient options. However, a recent study suggests that if overcoming a sluggish bowel is the aim, one of the last things we should be doing is upping our fibre intake.
The study focused on 63 adults (average age 47) individuals who had persistent constipation for which no medical cause could be identified [1]. Stool (bowel motion) frequency was less than once every three days for at least three months. All participants were on a high-fibre diet and/or were taking fibre supplements.
Study participants were instructed to adopt a low-fibre diet, and specifically to eliminate fruit, vegetables, breakfast cereals, wholemeal bread and brown rice for two weeks. After this, participants were asked to continue eating as little fibre as possible if this helped their symptoms.
6 months after the start of the study, 41 patients had persisted with the ‘no-fibre’ diet, 16 were eating a reduced fibre diet, and 6 were on a high-fibre diet for a variety of reasons (including being vegetarian or religious reasons).
In the 41 patients on the no-fibre diet, average bowel frequency had increased from an average of once every 3.75 days to once every day. In the 16 patients on the reduced-fibre diet, average bowel frequency had increased from an average of once every 4.19 days to once every 1.9 days. In the 6 patients who remained on a high-fibre diet, bowel frequency was once a week initially, and it remained the same on the high-fibre diet (as expected).
Symptoms of bloating occurred in 0 and 31 per cent of the low- and reduced-fibre eaters respectively. Of those on the no-fibre diet, no one had to strain to pass a stool. Abdominal pain also improved in this group and any anal bleeding they had resolved completely.
The authors of this study start their discussion of these results with these words:
This study has confirmed that the previous strongly-held belief that the application of dietary fiber to help constipation is but a myth.
They then go on to attempt to explain their findings:
It is well known that increasing dietary fiber increases fecal bulk and volume. Therefore in patients where there is already difficulty in expelling large fecal boluses through the anal sphincter, it is illogical to actually expect that bigger or more feces will ameliorate this problem. More and bulkier fecal matter can only aggravate the difficulty by making the stools even bigger and bulkier. Several reviews and a meta-analysis had already shown that dietary fiber does not improve constipation in patients with irritable bowel diseases.
The authors also provide this handy analogy:
The role of dietary fiber in constipation is analogous to cars in traffic congestion. The only way to alleviate slow traffic would be to decrease the number of cars and to evacuate the remaining cars quickly. Should we add more cars, the congestion would only be worsened. Similarly, in patients with idiopathic constipation [constipation of no known cause] and a colon packed with feces, reduction in dietary fiber would reduce fecal bulk and volume and make evacuation of the smaller and thinner feces easier. Adding dietary fiber would only add to the bulk and volume and thus make evacuation even more difficult.
It’s difficult to argue with the logic of this, nor the results they achieved in their study subjects.
And these results more-or-less mirror my own in practise. What I find tends to work well with individuals suffering from constipation and other ‘irritable bowel’-like symptoms is the elimination of grain, particularly wheat, from the diet. In practice, I’ve found leaving vegetables and some fruit (rich in ‘soluble’ fibre) in the diet allows individuals to attain and maintain good digestive function. My hunch is it’s the much-lauded ‘insoluble’ fibre in wholegrains that does the most damage, here. A review on the role of diet in managing irritable bowel syndrome concluded pretty much the same thing [2].
References:
1. Ho KS, et al. Stopping or reducing dietary fiber intake reduces constipation and its associated symptoms. World J Gastroenterol 2012;18(33):4593-4596
2. Heizer WD, et al. The role of diet in symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome in adults: a narrative review. J Am Diet Assoc. 2009;109(7):1204-1407 September 2016
Salem, NH - With his drive at New Jersey Motorsports Park to win the 2016 Atlantic Championship Series title, K-Hill Motorsports driver Ryan Norman has earned himself a spot at the Mazda Road to Indy USF2000 $200K Scholarship Shootout. The winner will receive a $200,000 reward to join the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda in 2017.
The 18-year-old clinched the 2016 Atlantic title in round 12 of the 14-race season after putting together a dominating year of victories and podium finishes in the No. 48 Swift 016/Mazda Atlantic entry in his debut Atlantic season.
"The plan from the beginning was to make a run for the championship. I knew we had the team and car to do it and I just had to give it everything I had," said Norman, who also graduated high school between races earlier in the year.
In 12 starts, Norman took seven victories for K-Hill, and rarely finished off the podium. The inaugural Mazda Road to Indy USF2000 $200K Scholarship Shootout will be held at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, December 6-7.
Norman got his start in the |
at the one conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh promoted.
G20 leaders meet. The summit leaders—including President Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and Russian President Vladimir Putin—are meeting in St. Petersburg this week to discuss the Syria crisis, among other global issues. Putin, who delivered the G20 summit’s opening remarks, strongly opposes the Obama administration’s push for limited strikes against the Assad regime.
State Department’s list of countries publicly backing military intervention. On Thursday, the US State Department listed ten countries, including the US (the State Dept. did not state which nations have offered to assist in military action, however):
The United States
Australia
Albania
Canada
Denmark
France
Kosovo
Poland
Romania
Turkey
GOP Rep says Syria intervention would help Al Qaeda. Texas Republican John Culberson said Thursday that military action in Syria would aid Al Qaeda, adding that he hopes the House votes on Wednesday—September 11—to emphasize that point:
I believe the House vote on the resolution authorizing the use of military force in Syria should be held on Wednesday, September 11, the twelfth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks…This will give clarity to the debate, and by defeating the resolution, the House will honor the victims of 9/11 by refusing to support al Qaeda.
“I was elected to end wars, not start them.” On Friday, President Obama held a press conference from the G20 summit. During the presser, he said that he asked Congress for a vote on a strike resolution because he could not honestly claim that the Assad regime posed a direct imminent threat to the United States. He also said the following, regarding the chemical weapons attack and his attitudes toward engaging in another military effort:
This is not something we fabricated. This is not something that we are using as an excuse for military action. As I said last night, I was elected to end wars, not start them. I’ve spent the last four and a half years doing everything I can to reduce our reliance on military power as a means of meeting our international obligations and protecting the American people.
The White House also released the following joint statement on Syria on Friday morning:
Meanwhile, Putin will continue to send weapons to Assad, support him if the US intervenes. As expected.
“Iran Plots Revenge, U.S. Says.” The Wall Street Journal reports: “Officials Say Intercepted Message to Militants Orders Reprisals in Iraq if Syria Hit.”
Did Obama create a political mess with the Syria crisis simply because he thought it was the right thing to do? Mother Jones Washington bureau chief David Corn weighs in.
Madonna weighs in… In case you were wondering.
Sunday, September 8 — Friday, Sept. 13
“Cheerios.” On Sunday, USA Today ran a report on limited-strike options for the Obama administration. It included this paragraph:
A second senior official, who has seen the most recent planning, offered this metaphor to describe such a strike: If Assad is eating Cheerios, we’re going to take away his spoon and give him a fork. Will that degrade his ability to eat Cheerios? Yes. Will it deter him? Maybe. But he’ll still be able to eat Cheerios.
As you can imagine, Twitter snark ensued.
Kerry and “unbelievably small.” On Monday, Secretary of State John Kerry said the following at a joint presser with British foreign secretary William Hague:
We will be able to hold Bashar al-Assad accountable without engaging in troops on the ground or any other prolonged kind of effort in a very limited, very targeted, very short-term effort that degrades his capacity to deliver chemical weapons without assuming responsibility for Syria’s civil war. That is exactly what we are talking about doing—unbelievably small, limited kind of effort.
This did not sit well with people like Sen. John McCain, who has been especially aggressive about intervention in Syria:
Kerry says #Syria strike would be “unbelievably small” – that is unbelievably unhelpful — John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) September 9, 2013
Here’s video of Kerry’s comment, via the Guardian:
Obama’s mixed message on Syria. The president’s policy is complicated—and a hard sell. Read David Corn on why.
“Russia proposes Syria put weapons under international control in attempt to avert attack.” On Monday, Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister who conveyed the message to the Syrian government, said that he expected “a quick and, I hope, a positive answer.” A senior White House official told NBC News that this seemed like merely a delay tactic.
The Russian proposal was similarly to a comment (but not a formal offer) that US Secretary of State John Kerry had made earlier on Monday.
“Additional countries.” On Sept. 6, the US issued a joint statement condemning the Assad regime and supporting reinforcement of the prohibition on chemical-weapons use. The list has grown, and, as of Monday, the countries formally signed on to the joint statement are:
Albania Australia Canada Croatia Denmark Estonia France Germany Honduras Hungary Italy Japan Republic of Korea Kosovo Latvia Lithuania Morocco Qatar Romania Saudi Arabia Spain Turkey United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States
The White House is updating the list of countries supporting the statement here.
Hillary Clinton speaks out. As expected, Clinton weighed in on Monday following a meeting at the White House. She said that she supports the president’s call for intervention in Syria and that she hopes Congress will do the same. She also stated that if Syria accepted a proposal to turn over control of its chemical weapons to the international community, that would be an “important step.”
“Accidentally solving a real problem.” Kevin Drum considers how Kerry’s “gaffe” might—might—give the US a way to avoid striking Syria.
Obama calls Russian proposal a “potentially positive development.” President Obama said Monday Russia’s proposal that Syria turn its chemical weapons over to international monitors to avoid a US attack was a “potentially positive development” and could be a “significant breakthrough.” He also said, though, that he was skeptical Syria would follow through. In an interview with CBS News, Obama said:
The importance is to make sure that the international community has confidence that these chemical weapons are under control, that they are not being used, that potentially they are removed from Syria and that they are destroyed. And there are a lot of stockpiles inside of Syria, it’s one of the largest in the world. Let’s see if they’re serious. But we have to make sure that we can verify it and enforce it, and if in fact we’re able to achieve that kind of agreement that has Russia’s agreement and the Security Council’s agreement, then my central concern in this whole episode is resolved. It doesn’t resolve the underlying terrible conflict in Syria.
Reid delays Senate test vote. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced Monday that he is delaying a test vote on authorizing US military strikes in Syria while international discussion continues about potential solutions. Reid told the Associated Press that it’s not important to “see how fast we can do this…We have to see how well we can do this.”
Obama embraces UN idea. President Obama believes the United Nations Security Council should take the lead in negotiating a plan for Syria to give up its chemical weapons, an anonymous White House official told the Associated Press on Tuesday morning. Earlier in the day, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney called the Syrian regime’s acceptance of Russia’s proposal that it give up its chemical weapons a “potentially positive development” that was “a clear result of the pressure that’s been put on Syria by the fact that the president has been moving forward.”
Syria says it is ready to hand over its chemical weapons. Syrian foreign minister Walid al-Moallen said Tuesday that the Assad regime is ready to sign on to the chemical weapons ban and place its existing stockpile under international control. In response, Secretary of State John Kerry expressed his hope that Syria would take advantage of this opportunity to make peace, according to the Associated Press.
President Obama makes his case to the nation. In a primetime speech on Tuesday night, President Barack Obama made a forceful case for a possible strike against the regime of Bashar al-Assad. He reiterated the argument that the United States has both a humanitarian obligation to respond to the horrific use of chemical weapons against civilians, and a national security interest in preventing Assad from using such weapons again and signaling to other tyrants that such attacks will not be tolerated. The president tried to deploy both emotion (referring to the dreadful images from the August 21 chemical weapon attack near Damascus) and logic (contending that an assault would lessen the odds of future attacks, limit the possibility that chemical weapons fall into the hands of extremists, and prevent US troops from facing chemical weapons in conflicts down the road). He tried to respond to the main reservations raised by lawmakers and voters. (Should the United States be the world’s policeman? No, but no one else can respond to this particular attack now.) The news of the night was that he asked Congress to put off any vote on a resolution authorizing him to launch a limited strike against Syria so that the United States could pursue the deal proposed by Russia that would place Assad’s chemical weapons under international control. And Obama announced he was sending Kerry to negotiate with the Russian foreign minister. Still, the speech was aimed at bolstering support on Capitol Hill and within the public for military action against Syria, if diplomacy fails. Obama summed up his case:
Our ideals and principles, as well as our national security, are at stake in Syria, along with our leadership of a world where we seek to ensure that the worst weapons will never be used. America is not the world’s policeman. Terrible things happen across the globe, and it is beyond our means to right every wrong. But when, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act. That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional. With humility, but with resolve, let us never lose sight of that essential truth.
There’s no telling whether this speech will win over skeptical citizens and legislators. But with a diplomatic resolution possible—though by no means a given—and a showdown in Congress postponed, perhaps Obama did not have to. –David CornFor a player on a professional tryout, Tomas Fleischmann sure knows how to leave an impression on a team who could potentially sign him long-term.
Fleischmann scored the first goal of the night on a line with David Desharnais and Dale Weise during his pre-season debut with the Habs against the Washington Capitals. He also showed great on ice chemistry between himself and Desharnais, as he picked up an assist during the second period power play with Desharnais tying the game 3-3.
The 31-year-old left-winger was invited to the training camp on September 12th, after spending last year’s season split between the Florida Panthers and the Anaheim Ducks. In 66 games, he had 8 goals and 19 assists along with 1 assist in six playoff games with the Ducks during the Western Conference finals. His most productive season, however, was during the 2011-12 season with the Panthers, where he scored 27 goals and 34 assists in 82 games.
While he did show great potential in his first game with the Habs, there are still a lot of questions about where he would fit in, the cost of signing him, who to trade, and if he’s a right decision for the Habs. In my opinion, I’ve only seen one pre-season game with “The Flash.” Could he help generate offense? Could he possibly be the key to bringing out the best in Desharnais? Let’s take a look.
If Bergevin wants to grab Fleischmann, the perfect time is now and for cheap. Yes, the Habs have a great number of young players that are close to coming up to the NHL. With that said, there’s also a lot of clogging on both the young guns’ side and Fleischmann’s side.
The Habs already have 5 centres, 2 of which are capable of playing on the left-wing and 1 who can play the right. If you grab a kid like Michael McCarron or Charles Hudon, who have both shown potentials as centre, who do you move? We already know Alex Galchenyuk is playing centre this season, so do you move Torrey Mitchell to right-wing permanently for McCarron? If we also look at the current lines coming up this season, where would Hudon fit? Lars Eller is already on the left-wing and Galchenyuk doesn’t seem to be moving back to the left any time soon. Then, we have the case of where Fleischmann would be put.
If Therrien decides to keep Eller, Galchenyuk, and Alexander Semin together, then the lines for this season should look somewhat like this:
Pacioretty – Plekanec – Gallagher
Eller – Galchenyuk – Semin
Smith-Pelly – Desharnais – Kassian
De la Rose – Mitchell – Weise
Replacing a left-wing on the third or fourth line would be taking out Devante Smith-Pelly or Jacob De La Rose. This is a problem since Smith-Pelly adds depth while De La Rose is an up and coming Swede dream centre, and I personally doubt DLR will be sent down to the AHL when he’s already started to develop in the NHL. Overall, it’s a bottom 6 clog. However, there are some options.
Sadly, Michael Bournival is out indefinitely with post-concussion syndrome and the Habs will either put him on waivers or perhaps put him in a trade bundle. There’s also the case of Brian Flynn, along with Smith-Pelly and DLR, who seem to struggle to produce points on the 3rd and 4th line. This gives us a whole new point of view.
If we look at individual analytics and predicted primary points, Fleischmann comes out as the better option when wanting a player to put points on the board. Despite his age, his impact on linemates has improved in the last five years via Own The Puck.
This means that if the Bergevin were to give up Bournival and Flynn or Flynn with Smith-Pelly or even Bournival, Flynn, and Smith-Pelly together before the trade deadline in February, this would give the Habs comfort room. De La Rose would still be able to develop in the NHL while Fleischmann could sit on the 3rd line with Desharnais.
While DD doesn’t give some Habs fans a warm, fuzzy feeling inside, the fact of the matter is that he can produce well offensively. During the break up between him and Pacioretty, Desharnais scored 4 times in 11 games during the switch to the third line compared to 2 in his previous 29 games. Without being put beside a top scorer like Pacioretty, he was forced to work harder and with that, his offensive game picked up quite a bit.
Just imagine Fleischmann and Diamond Dave on the third line with the same chemistry and offense they produced during last night’s game. Now imagine that throughout the entire year with Zack Kassian, who showed strength in battling along the boards as well as having good puck control during Tuesday’s game against the Leafs. Now that, ladies and gentlemen, sounds like a solid line in the making.
Let’s be honest, when you take a hard look at Fleischmann, he’s not a new, young NHL star who’s going to take you the Eastern Conference finals. However, he can still contribute a lot to the Montreal Canadiens and could be a solid 3rd line player. Also, quality depth is always a nice feature as well. I personally think the Habs should sign him at the right time which is now and drop off a few guys that the team won’t really benefit from in the long run. That, to me at least, will give the Habs a solid start to the season.
What are your thoughts on Tomas Fleischmann? Do you think he’s a right fit for the Habs or do you think they should stay away from signing him? Let us know in the comments below!Jerusalem – Ma'an – Israeli construction vehicles and bulldozers began digging in Jerusalem on Monday morning, in what is believed to be ground work for the building of some 600 new settlement units.
The homes were announced in late February, and are set to be built near the illegal Pisgat Ze'ev settlement and the Palestinian neighborhood of Shu'fat.
The number was reduced from 1,100 to 600, when it was revealed that much of the land was owned privately by Palestinians, the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz reported at the time.
The latest reports suggest the digging is on a hill between the the Palestinian neighborhoods of Beit Hanina and Shu'fat, beside the Pisgat Ze'ev-Newe Ya'akov settlement. Much of the land designated for the build is Palestinian-owned.
Days after the announcement, US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said "We've relayed our strong concerns to the government of Israel, that this kind of activity, particularly as we try to relaunch meaningful negotiations is counter-productive and undermines trust between the parties."
The Palestinian Authority maintains that the continued construction of Israeli settlements on lands occupied by Israel since 1967 prevents the creation of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.Gerald Celente predicted in February that the Middle Eastern and North African protests would spread to Europe:
It is not solely the Middle East that is destined to experience episodes of violent upheaval. What is transpiring in the Arab world will spread throughout many European states. While the call to arms will be spoken in different tongues, the underlying causes will be the same.
In December 2010 (before Tunisia made the headlines) we issued a Trend Alert titled, “Off With Their Heads!” in which we predicted a “long war between the people and the ruling classes.” We noted that, “Anyone questioning the intensity of the people’s seething anger is either out of touch or in denial.”
It wasn’t Arab anger that led us to that forecast – it was the student and worker revolts spilling into the streets of Europe. The imposition of draconian austerity measures – higher taxes, tuition hikes, lost benefits, curtailed services, public sector job cuts – had young and old raging against a rigged system that paved the way for the privileged and punished the proles.
Though millions marched through the streets of Athens, Brussels, Dublin, Lisbon, London and Madrid, when the protests ended, the governments were barely shaken, let alone toppled. Unlike the autocratic Arab regimes, where the tight grip of repression could only be broken by violence, in the “democratic” West the illusion of representation and placating government promises mitigated the violence.
Both the press and politicians assumed the protests would run their course, people would accept their fate, and, like it or not, suffer the consequences. The protests, however, have not run their course. The economic toll of austerity and unemployment continues to ravage the lower and middle classes. As we wrote in the Winter 2011 Trends Journal, “It will only be a matter of time before a series of final-straw events breaks the public’s back, setting off uncontrollable uprisings, coups (bloodless and/or military), riots and revolts throughout the financially battered world.”PageContent
Washington, D.C. – The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) today announced that the maximum conforming loan limits for mortgages acquired by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2017 will increase. In most of the country, the 2017 maximum loan limit for one-unit properties will be $424,100, an increase from $417,000. This will be the first increase in the baseline loan limit since 2006. In higher-cost areas, higher loan limits will be in effect.
The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (HERA) established the baseline loan limit of $417,000 and requires this limit to be adjusted each year to reflect the changes in the national average home price. However, after a period of declining home prices, HERA also made clear that the baseline loan limit could not rise again until the average U.S. home price returned to its pre-decline level. Until this year, the average U.S. home price remained below the level achieved in the third quarter of 2007 and thus the baseline loan limit had not been increased.
Earlier today FHFA published its third quarter 2016 House Price Index (HPI), which makes clear that average home prices are now above their level in the third quarter of 2007. The expanded-data HPI value for the third quarter of 2016 was roughly 1.7 percent above the value for the third quarter of 2007, and thus the baseline loan limit will increase by that percentage.
High-cost areas
In areas where 115 percent of the local median home value exceeds the baseline loan limit, the maximum area loan limit will be higher. HERA sets the maximum loan limit as a function of the area median home value, while setting a "ceiling" on that limit of 150 percent of the baseline loan limit.
This year, median home values generally rose in high-cost areas. Because the baseline loan limit will be higher in 2017, the new ceiling limit will also be higher. The new ceiling loan limit, which applies in areas with the most expensive homes, will be $636,150 (150 percent of $424,100) for one-unit properties in the contiguous U.S.
Special statutory provisions establish different loan limit calculations for Alaska, Hawaii, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands. In these areas, the baseline loan limit will be $636,150 for one-unit properties, but actual loan limits may be higher in some specific locations.
County-level data
As a result of generally rising home values, the increase in baseline loan limit, and the rise in the ceiling loan limit, the maximum loan limit rose in all but 87 counties (or county equivalents) in the country.
A list of the 2017 maximum conforming loan limits for all counties and county-equivalent areas in the country can be found here. A map showing the maximum loan limits across the country can be found here. A description of the methodology used for determining the maximum loan limits can be found in an addendum to this news release and a short video shows the process used and why the loan limit is rising.
Questions concerning the maximum conforming loan limits can be addressed to LoanLimitQuestions@fhfa.gov.Mariners Acquire Ramon Flores & Jose Ramirez from Yankees
MarinersPR Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jul 30, 2015
Seattle Mariners Executive Vice President & General Manager of Baseball Operations Jack Zduriencik announced the club has acquired outfielder Ramon Flores and right-handed pitcher Jose Ramirez from the New York Yankees in exchange for outfielder Dustin Ackley.
Ramon Flores, OF, acquired from New York (AL)
, OF, acquired from New York (AL) Jose Ramirez, RHP, acquired from New York (AL)
, RHP, acquired from New York (AL) Dustin Ackley, OF, traded to New York (AL)
Flores, 23, has spent most of the season with AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre in the International League. He is batting.286 (79x276) with 43 runs scored, 11 doubles, 2 triples, 7 home runs and 34 RBI in 73 games. The left-handed hitter is also batting.333 (24x72) with runners in scoring position and currently ranks 5th in the International League with a.377 on-base percentage. He made his Major League debut May 30 vs. the Athletics, and appeared in 12 games with the Yankees (.219/7x32, 3 R, 2B).
In 7 minor league seasons the Venezuelan native is a.272 hitter (676x2483) with 129 doubles, 29 triples, 43 home runs and 260 RBI. He has played all three outfield positions during his career, but has played the bulk of his games in left field (396 G). Flories was listed as the Yankees №27 prospect heading into the season by Baseball America.
Ramirez, 25, is 3–0 with 10 saves and a 2.90 ERA (16 ER, 49.2 IP) in 32 relief appearances with AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. He has recorded 56 strikeouts for 10.15 strikeouts per 9.0 innings, 3rd-best amongst International League relief pitchers. Ramirez also saw action in 3 Major League games with the Yankees this season (0–0, 15.00 ERA) and made 8 appearances in his debut season in 2014 (0–2, 5.40).
In 8 minor league seasons the Dominican Republic native has combined to go 32–32 with 12 saves and a 3.60 ERA (222 ER, 555.2 IP) in 146 appearances (96 starts). A starter most of his professional career, Ramirez made the move to the bullpen in 2014. He is listed by Baseball America as the Yankees №26 prospect.
Ackley, 27, is hitting.215 (40x186) with 8 doubles, 1 triple, 6 home runs and 19 RBI in 85 games this season. In 5 seasons with the Mariners (2011–2015) he combined to bat.243 (488x2012). Ackley was originally selected by the Mariners second overall in the 2009 June Amateur Draft out of the University of North Carolina.Vote for a candidate, win a car.
How on earth can this be legal?
"Vote for Rashad Anthony Turner" "WIN A FREE CAR"@AndrewLeeTCNT @RachelSB pic.twitter.com/kzHuW1woQK — Mark J. Westpfahl (@MarkJWestpfahl) August 5, 2016
That was the offer making the rounds on social media Friday in advance of the Aug. 9 political primaries.
A flier found near the Ravoux Hi-Rise on St. Paul’s Ravoux Street encourages voters to throw their support behind Rashad Turner, a candidate for state representative in House District 65A, in exchange for the opportunity to enter into a free drawing for a car. Turner, the face of Black Lives Matter St. Paul, is running against state Rep. Rena Moran, the DFL-endorsed candidate, in the party primary on Tuesday.
Under state law, anyone who “pays, gives, promises, or lends any money, food, liquor, clothing, entertainment, or other thing of monetary value” to another person to vote in a particular way at an election can be charged with a felony. “Miki,” the name listed on the flier, could not be reached for comment.
On Friday, Turner denied his campaign’s involvement in the drawing but said he was familiar with the car dealer listed on the flier, who is a Turner supporter. Turner said he contacted Ramsey County Elections Manager Joe Mansky to determine if he was legally required to take action. He chose not to.
Mansky could not be immediately reached for comment late Friday afternoon.
“I know the guy, he’s a real person, and I know that he sells cars,” Turner said of his supporter Friday. “It’s not paid for by our campaign. We won’t be distracted by it.”Virginia Tech football, writing about sports (particularly Virginia Tech football) and eating are three of my passions. The first two are self evident, and if you don't know me personally, my gut can attest to the third. So imagine my excitement when recently I heard about a Virginia Tech themed restaurant in Johnson City, Tennessee, and being from around that area, decided to go check it out for myself.
The name of the restaurant is Hokie Smokie, and they specialize in game day/southern foods as well as, well, their Virginia Tech/University of Tennessee themed environment. So if you're ready for your mouth to water and drop, your eyes to well up and your Hokie football senses to tingle, come join us for a Gobbler Country first: a restaurant review of Hokie Smokie.
Before I start, I want to say that this restaurant review is as much for our fan base in Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee as anything else. We recognize what a large contingent of Virginia Tech fans live and are from this area, and going forward, we want to focus on including this area of the fan base. You are not forgotten.
When I first heard about this restaurant from a friend I got the impression that the University of Tennessee and Virginia Tech areas were separated, which I thought was a good idea because of the geographical rivalry between the Hokies and Volunteers fans. However when I arrived I saw that the dining area was all one room decorated with maroon wooden paneling and paint and Tennessee orange colored chairs. And given the restaurant's location (it is firmly entrenched in Tennessee fan territory as Johnson City lies just over an hour northeast of Knoxville), I was surprised at the amount of Virginia Tech themed memorabilia compared to the UT memorabilia. In fact, while leaving the restaurant, I thought to myself that it was more Virginia Tech themed than UT given the maroon paint and paneling that dominated the whole interior.
When I first talked to Chuck Bailey, the owner/manager of Hokie Smokie, I told him that I would be focusing on the atmosphere of the restaurant. He said "that's fine, but it isn't our atmosphere that brings our customers back we also have really good food. Just wait until you try our brisket." True to his words, the food was very good and about as good as you can expect for a sports bar.
Chuck (pictured above on the right) grew up going to Virginia Tech games with his father (above left) who is still a Hokie fan. Chuck attended East Tennessee State University and the University of Tennessee. He is a UT fan, although he says he still has love in his heart for the Hokies, and roots for them whenever they are not playing UT. Of the Virginia Tech memorabilia that Chuck likes to show off is a picture signed by, as Chuck put it, "the only two players Frank Beamer has ever kicked off the team, Marcus Vick and Brandon Ore." Of course as we all know, Beamer has kicked off more players than just those two (though they were probably the most high profile players to be kicked off), but not bad for a Tennessee fan, huh?
Hokie Smokie is fairly new, having just opened in January. As for their success so far, Chuck puts it, "we don't know yet, we haven't been through a football season. Come fall it's going to be crazy." By my count, they have six HDTV's, three of which are over 60 inches. That is pretty good for a sports bar that doesn't have floor-to-ceiling TV's and isn't a chain restaurant. There is also a patio in the works which is nearing completion.
As for their food brisket is the main staple of the menu, but the dish I most recommend is their Hokie Smokie BBQ with a side of sweet potato fries. Our party of eight all tried the BBQ and raved. For those who like BBQ, their sauce is top notch. It's the perfect combination of sweet, smoky and tangy. I am not a huge BBQ guy unless it is really good, yet I am recommending it to you right? So that should say something. As the pictures below demonstrate, the pork is pulled, succulent and juicy, with the perfect amount of firmness to prevent it from being gelatinous in texture.
The opening of Hokie Smokie has given Virginia Tech fans a place where they can be comfortable in what is ultimately akin to an oasis in the desert for Tech fans. It doesn't beat being at Lane Stadium, and obviously I won't know how it rates on gameday until I revisit for a game, but it is at least a great place to get a bite to eat and take in a Hokie themed restaurant. Tech fans won't tire of the environment...or the food. Speaking of the food, the BBQ left my mouth watering for more. Chuck was right, the food will be bringing me back again.
You can find their website and if you're too lazy to get the directions off the website, don't worry, here it is: 2104 W. Mountcastle Drive Johnson City, TN 37604
Stay tuned to Gobbler Country for more Hokie culture and of course, all the Virginia Tech sports news you can handle.
Photos provided by Valerie RamirezAnnual transsexual pride demonstration marches for rights, Gezi Park
ISTANBUL
The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transexual (LGBT) community has been very active since day one of the Gezi Park demonstrations in Istanbul. RADİKAL photo, Elif İNCE
Turkish activists staged the fourth annual transsexual pride march today along Istanbul's İstiklal Avenue, which connects with Taksim Square, in an event that turned into a demonstration of support for the ongoing Gezi Park protests.LGBT activists, very active in the protests in Taksim, called for the recognition of transsexuals' identity and slammed the dominant homophobia and transphobia in Turkish society, chanting: "We don't want a transphobic state," and "Don't keep silent, shout, there are homosexuals," they chanted. They also used slogans stressing that being a transsexual was not a "disease," in reference to former minister Aliye Kavak, who once stirred outrage by stating that homosexuality was a "disease."The demonstrators chanted in support of the Gezi Park protesters, with chants such as "Everywhere is Taksim, everywhere is resistance," and "This is just the beginning, the struggle continues," which became the hallmark of the countrywide demonstrations.Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) deputies Sezgin Tanrıkulu and Binnaz Toprak, as well as TV actress Füsün Demiral also attended the march. The public gathered on İstiklal Avenue at the time also showed support for the march with applause.Toprak was the architect of an inquiry proposal submitted to Parliament last month, seeking to investigate the discrimination faced by lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people (LGBT) in Turkey. The initiative was welcomed by the LGBT community but the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) slammed it, accusing the opposition of "defending immorality."Although homosexuality and sex change operations are not illegal in Turkey, homosexuals and transsexuals face widespread social and economic discrimination and are often the target of subject of hate speech."Pride Week" will conclude next Sunday with the gay pride march, also on İstiklal Avenue.Last week, the Riverfront Times released its Best Of St Louis list for 2014. For the first time since I started paying attention in 2011, there was absolutely no mention of comedy in any of the 250 categories. Given the amount of comedy taking place in St Louis, this is not acceptable. It seems like every year there has been one less comedy category in the list, leading up to last year only having one and this year having zero.
On the exact same day that the RFT released their list, they also published an article about Dave Chappelle coming to the Pageant at the end of this month. In this article, they embedded video of him onstage. This video was shot by an audience member during the recent Oddball Festival Tour. It shows Chappelle working on new material, presumably the same jokes he will be telling when he comes to St Louis. This is absolutely unacceptable. Would the RFT put a link to a bootleg copy of a movie into a film review? I would hope not. This is EXACTLY like when that first draft of that Tarantino script ended up on Gawker. Nobody should be encouraging people to film live comedy performances; this is especially true for media organizations. The RFT needs to remove the embedded video and issue an apology.
Needless to say, when I saw all of this, I was pretty angry. I tweeted at the RFT, and at least I received an explanation about the list.
@JeremyHellwig Howdy! We normally include comedy open mic in our #BestOfSTL issue and had planned to again this year. Unfortunatey (cont) — Riverfront Times (@RiverfrontTimes) September 25, 2014
@JeremyHellwig … the person who was assigned to write that dropped the ball, and we didn’t find out until past deadline with (cont) — Riverfront Times (@RiverfrontTimes) September 25, 2014
@JeremyHellwig …no time to reassign. We do love comedy - love including comedy pieces on the blog & doing #RFTStandupThrowdown (cont) — Riverfront Times (@RiverfrontTimes) September 25, 2014
@JeremyHellwig so we’re unhappy that comedy wasn’t in #BestOfSTL. Talking w/ writers & making plans to avoid this situation in future. Thx! — Riverfront Times (@RiverfrontTimes) September 25, 2014
Sure, maybe next year a guy will come watch some open mics and write about the one he enjoyed the most. Then they’ll go on mostly ignoring us until it’s time for their standup contest in the spring. Admittedly, Kelsey McClure writes a monthly article highlighting a few shows, but imagine a newspaper like the RFT only talking about local theatre or music or visual art once a month. That would be pathetic.
So, to help them get a better grasp on what is going on in the St Louis comedy scene, I have created my own “Best of St Louis Comedy Scene 2014.” I tried to touch on all of the shows that I know are worth mentioning. Of course, most of this is MY opinion. Also, I don’t know much about the improv scene*** and even less about the so-called “urban” standup scene. If someone knows more about those, please send me suggestions or maybe even write your own list and I’ll link to it.
While this is largely written from the perspective of a performer, I hope it will serve as a guide for potential audience members throughout the area. If I say a show has “a fun audience,” that also means the audience always has fun at the show. I love my stupid little local comedy scene, and so do most of the people involved in it. We’d all love to share it with you. As I will hopefully demonstrate, anyone that lives in St Louis should be paying attention to local comedy.
Best Open Mic for Hanging out with Other Comics
THURSDAY NIGHT MIC NIGHT at FITZ’S (10PM)
I feel bad having this category, as ideally we would all be watching the whole show. However, last year’s RFT list even praised this aspect of the Fitz’s mic. If the room is too full to find a seat, you go outside and hang out. Even if you aren’t a comic, this is an open mic worth checking out. At this point, it is an institution, if a ra |
have paper systems, centralized management ledgers. [But] everything you can pay for in cash, I can pay for in Bitcoin.”
BITT’s co-founder and CFO Gabriel Abed further recognizes their company’s potential role in redefining the Caribbean banking sector. “We serve the international market,” he says, “but are focused and centered on the Caribbean offering the core services of mobile digital wallets, international remittances and e-commerce merchant solutions utilizing new software called bitcoin and blockchain.”
Both Abed and Gale also attended a meeting sponsored by the Economic Commission of Latin America and Caribbean (ECLAC), a UN-led organization responsible for drafting financial policies in the region. In the meeting, they got the chance to understand the bold perceptions of regulators and representatives of digital currency companies to shape up a definite banking framework for the Caribbean population. ECLAC meanwhile also raised the issues related to the highly expensive remittance service market, that left the BITT’s owners with an idea to replace such services with Bitcoin.
As has predicted by many experts, Bitcoin is a one-stop solution for the impoverished and unbanked people around the globe. It could be used not only to store wealth, but also as a greater alternative to move money across the world without paying excessive bank commissions. An organization like ECLAC understands Bitcoin’s capabilities as a game-changer in finance market, and has plans to review the national policies to implement this technology.
Meanwhile, both BITT and ECLAC also have some challenges down the road in order to take Bitcoin to their desired conclusion. These challenges include: “lack of e-commerce-supporting legislation, inadequate technical capability and difficulties working with some local banks.”
As BITT is scheduled to start operating on March 30th, the company’s first few months will create a more elaborated hint for the government to drive future digital currency regulations. However, it is still a greater step to bring Bitcoin to a highly unbanked society, a thing digital currency was always meant to do in the first place.Abe’s 2016 Plan to Break the Deadlock in the Territorial Dispute with Russia James D.J. Brown February 15, 2016 Volume 14 | Issue 4 | Number 1 The territorial dispute between Japan and Russia has its origins in the closing stages of the Second World War. Specifically, after declaring war on Japan on the evening of 8 August 1945 (two days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima), the Soviet Union launched large-scale offensives against Japanese positions in Manchuria, Korea, and Sakhalin. Even after the broadcast of Japan's surrender on 15 August, the Soviet advance continued. The Soviet forces recovered southern Sakhalin, which had been ceded to Japan in 1905 after Russia's defeat in the Russo-Japanese War. They also reclaimed the islands of the Kuril chain from Urup northwards, which Russia had voluntarily transferred to Japan in the 1875 Treaty of St. Petersburg. Finally, and most controversially, between 28 August and 4 September, the Soviet military occupied the islands of Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan, and the Habomai islets, territory that had never previously been Soviet or Russian.1 Map of the disputed islands (Source:CartoGIS, College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University Although this action can be considered the initial cause, the territorial dispute did not take on its current status as enduring stalemate until the mid-1950s. Until this time the Soviet Union and Japan remained technically in a state of war since Moscow had refused to sign the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951. In order to normalise this situation, and hopefully conclude a peace treaty, negotiations were undertaken in 1955-56. It was at this time that the countries came closest to finalising the status of the four islands. In the course of the discussions, the Japanese side, led by chief negotiator Matsumoto Shun'ichi and Foreign Minister Shigemitsu Mamoru, came to accept the position of considering the return of Shikotan and Habomai to be sufficient for the conclusion of a peace treaty. In other words, Japan's diplomats were prepared to accept the loss of southern Sakhalin and all of the Kuril chain, including Etorofu and Kunashiri (Hasegawa 1998a: 109; Mizoguchi 2014). This was consistent with the San Francisco Peace Treaty in which Japan renounced "all right, title and claim to the Kurile Islands, and to that portion of Sakhalin and the islands adjacent to it over which Japan acquired sovereignty as a consequence of the Treaty of Portsmouth of September 5, 1905." (United Nations 1952: 3). An agreement on the transfer of Shikotan and Habomai could have provided the basis for a permanent resolution to the territorial dispute and enabled a peace treaty to be signed. During the course of the negotiations, however, the United States intervened. The State Department was particularly concerned that reconciliation between the Soviet Union and Japan would harm US interests by facilitating a broader rapprochement between Japan and the socialist bloc, including the People's Republic of China. In addition, they were worried that any territorial concessions from the Soviet Union would increase pressure for the United States to return the Japanese territory that it continued to occupy (Hasegawa 1998a: 114-5; Mizoguchi 2014). Guided by such thinking, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles boldly declared to his Japanese counterpart that Japan had no right to grant Etorofu and Kunashiri to the Soviet Union since these islands had been renounced in the San Francisco Peace Treaty. Moreover, if Japan were to cede this territory, the United States would demand comparable concessions and permanently annex Okinawa (Hasegawa 1998a: 124). Intimidated by this threat, the Japanese side strengthened its resolve and revived the demand for the return of Etorofu and Kunashiri as well. The Japanese authorities also altered their definition of the Kuril Islands. Having previously only considered Shikotan and Habomai to be distinct from the Kuril chain, Japan began to insist that Etorofu and Kunashiri were also part of a separate geographical entity, which later came to be called "the Northern Territories" (Hasegawa 1998a: 120). Since the return of the two larger islands was entirely unacceptable to the Soviet side, the hardening of Japan's position made it impossible for a peace treaty to be concluded. Instead, the governments agreed to sign a Joint Declaration in October 1956. This document formally ended the state of war, restored diplomatic ties, and cleared the way for Japan to join the United Nations. With regard to the territorial dispute, Moscow left the offer of the two smaller islands on the table. Specifically, article 9 states that "the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, desiring to meet the wishes of Japan and taking into consideration the interests of the Japanese State, agrees to transfer to Japan the Habomai Islands and the island of Shikotan, the actual transfer of these islands to Japan to take place after the conclusion of a Peace Treaty between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Japan." (Joint Declaration by the USSR and Japan 1956). Signing of the Soviet-Japanese Joint Declaration by Prime Minister Hatoyama and Soviet Premier Bulganin, 19 Oct. 1956 There have been numerous diplomatic ups and downs over the subsequent six decades. Nonetheless, the gap that the sides ultimately failed to bridge in 1956 remains as wide as ever in 2016. That is, while Moscow considers the transfer of the two smaller islands after the signing of a peace treaty to be the maximum possible concession, Tokyo continues to insist on the restoration of sovereignty over all four. Upon taking power, all Japanese prime ministers are expected to commit themselves to breaking this deadlock. Some have made particularly determined efforts, including Hashimoto Ryūtarō and Mori Yoshirō, while others have just paid lip service. However, irrespective of their level of commitment, none have been able to achieve a territorial resolution. One might expect that this history of failure would discourage Japanese leaders from seriously taking on this issue. And yet, Abe Shinzō has devoted himself to resolving the territorial dispute with Russia with unusual enthusiasm. For instance, on several occasions Prime Minister Abe has repeated his commitment that "my mission as a politician, as prime minister, is to achieve this no matter what" (quoted in Naka 2014). What is more, this is not simply empty rhetoric to satisfy certain domestic constituencies. Rather, as will be seen, Abe has gone to great lengths and taken some political risks in his pursuit of closer relations with Russia. This has been a regular feature of his foreign policy during his second and third terms as prime minister and, as will be explained below, the purpose has been to lay the groundwork for achieving a territorial breakthrough before the end of his time in office. With much of this preparatory work considered complete and now in his fourth year as prime minister, all of the signs are that 2016 will be the year in which Abe redoubles his efforts and makes a final push to deliver a conclusive settlement. In addressing this topic, this article has four main purposes. First, it provides an overview of Abe's policy towards Russia during his second and third terms in office. Second, the paper sets out a detailed description of Abe's apparent plan for 2016, including a review of what he will specifically offer Russia in return for a favourable outcome. Third, it presents a discussion of why Abe is especially determined to resolve this longstanding territorial problem and why he is optimistic about his chances of succeeding. And fourth, the article provides an assessment of Abe's realistic chances of success. In this final section, emphasis is placed on how relations with Japan, and the territorial dispute in particular, are currently viewed within Russia. Abe's Russia Policy Although it may have attracted less attention than some of his other diplomatic initiatives, Abe's assiduous effort to strengthen relations with Russia has been one of the most prominent features of his foreign policy during his second spell in office. Indeed, on the very day of the 2012 election that returned him to power, Abe declared that this would be a priority of his administration (Naka 2012). True to his word, after taking office he immediately set about attempting to fulfill this ambition. The initial step was his trip to Moscow in April 2013, the first such official visit by a Japanese prime minister in over a decade. What is more, Abe has invested heavily in his relationship with President Putin, correctly discerning that the Russian leader is central to everything of importance that takes place in his country's domestic and international politics. To this end, Abe has publicly reiterated his positive attitude towards Putin, saying "President Putin has a clear goal, to build a strong, flourishing Russia. My current goal is to build a strong Japan. In this way, the President and I share common values and ideals. I feel considerable affinity with him" (quoted in Gusman 2013). Abe has made it an explicit goal to hold "as many meetings as possible" with the Russian leader (quoted in Makarov 2014). Following through with this tactic, by early 2016 Abe had held 12 meetings with Putin. The most striking of these was Abe's last minute decision to attend the opening ceremony of the Sochi Olympics in February 2014, an event that was boycotted by most Western leaders. Putin and Abe meet in Sochi, February 2014 For more than a year, this attempted rapprochement progressed smoothly (Brown 2014). To begin with, the commitment to frequent one-on-one meetings appeared to have paid off as Abe was able to declare with satisfaction that "relations of personal trust and confidence have been established between President Putin and me" (Kremlin 2013). The Japanese leader was also rewarded for his decision to travel to Sochi where he received a friendly welcome from the Russian president and the two leaders moved to calling each other by their first names. More substantively, economic ties improved steadily and bilateral trade exceeded US$35bn for the first time in 2013; this represented an increase of 3.3% from 2012 (Minekonomrazvitiya 2013). In the security field too, relations reached an unprecedented level when the sides held their first "2+2" meeting in November 2013. This format, which brings together foreign and defence ministers, had previously been reserved for states with which Japan enjoys particularly close ties, specifically the United States and Australia. Further progress was also discernible in the entry into force of an agreement on the simplification of visa procedures, as well as in the formulation of plans on the exchange of cultural centres. Most importantly for the Japanese side, this improvement in bilateral relations also appeared to be generating the intended progress on the territorial and treaty issues. At the Moscow summit in April 2013, the two leaders issued a joint statement to announce that "We have instructed our foreign ministries to step up contacts on working out mutually acceptable options [for a peace treaty]" (quoted in Clover 2013). It was later clarified that these negotiations would be conducted at the vice-ministerial level. An informal session took place in August 2013 and the following January the first round of talks began formally in Tokyo between Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Igor' Morgulov and his Japanese counterpart Sugiyama Shinsuke. With the renewal of these long-stalled discussions, for the first time since 2001 there appeared to be a genuine opportunity for progress towards settling the territorial dispute. Despite the sense of promise generated by these rapid steps forward during 2013 and early 2014, the relationship suffered a serious setback in March 2014. Following Russia's annexation of Crimea, the United States and the European Union imposed a series of increasingly punitive economic sanctions. Japan was initially reluctant to follow suit but eventually felt it had no option but to conform to the policy of the other G7 members. Japan's sanctions on Russia were introduced later than those of the US and EU, and they were carefully crafted to avoid having any serious impact. For instance, although a visa ban was announced against 23 individuals, Japan refused to identify who had been targeted, leading to speculation that the list did not include any prominent Russian figures (Golovnin 2014). In this way, the Abe administration signaled its commitment to continuing the rapprochement with Russia as soon as international conditions permitted. And yet, despite the fact that Japan's sanctions were largely symbolic, their introduction has had a chilling effect on the atmosphere in bilateral relations. Trade volumes, having reached record levels in 2013, subsequently plummeted, falling around 30% in 2015 (Zakharchenko 2015). Moreover, there has been no further "2+2" meeting and the vice-ministerial discussions on the peace treaty were suspended. Perhaps most symbolic of the contemporary difficulties, however, has been the embarrassing situation pertaining to Putin's official visit to Japan. Abe invited the Russian president to come to Tokyo as a follow-up to the Japanese prime minister's successful trip to Moscow in April 2013. The visit was expected to take place in the second half of 2014, but this proved impossible due to the Ukraine crisis. Throughout 2015 there was regular talk about continuing preparations for the visit, though no date was set. Finally, when Abe and Putin met on the sidelines of the G20 in Antalya in November 2015, the plans for the visit were shelved. Much of Abe's hard work therefore seemed to be have been undone by the downturn in relations during the second half of 2014 and in 2015. And yet, despite these difficulties, the Japanese prime minister did not give up on rapprochement with Russia. Indeed, now that the conflict in eastern Ukraine has entered a lull, and with the possibility emerging of increased cooperation between G7 countries and Russia in confronting Islamic terrorism and North Korea's nuclear test, there are strong signs that Abe has decided that 2016 is the year to resume efforts to secure a conclusive territorial deal with Russia. Abe's Plan for 2016 The diplomatic process As previously, the centrepiece of Abe's strategy for dealing with Russia in 2016 will be his personal engagement with the Russian leader. He made this clear in his New Year press conference of 4 January when he emphasised his intention to "keep taking opportunities to continue having dialogue with President Putin" (Kantei 2016). Abe followed up by making the relationship with Russia the major focus of a subsequent interview with the Nikkei and Financial Times. He told the journalists, "I believe appropriate dialogue with Russia, appropriate dialogue with president Putin is very important". He also stressed his willingness to travel to Russia in 2016 and to welcome the Russian leader to Japan (Barber and Harding 2016). Although such engagement was presented as being in the interests of the G7 as a whole, there is no doubt that Prime Minister Abe is primarily concerned with achieving a territorial breakthrough. This he confirmed on 7 February 2016, Japan's "Day of the Northern Territories", when he promised to quickly resolve the territorial dispute with Russia (Kommersant 2016). In particular, Abe appears confident that, in a one-on-one meeting with Putin, he can persuade the Russian leader of the merits of making a deal. Interestingly, in taking the lead himself, Abe appears to have decided to minimise the involvement of Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA). This may be a reflection of the fact that, over the years, the ministry has gained the reputation for being unhelpfully dogmatic with regard to the territorial dispute with Russia (Mori 2013: 51). The specific summit towards which Abe is directing his hopes is likely to take place in Russia in the spring of 2016, not long before Japan hosts the G7 summit in Mie prefecture on 26-27 May. The possibility of this meeting was raised in November 2015 when the leaders met at the G20. This summit will require Abe's third trip to Russia in a row (after April 2013 and February 2014), with no reciprocal visits from the Russian leader in between. To minimise the awkward appearance of this situation, the suggestion is that the meeting will be described as an informal summit and will not be held in the Russian capital. Initially it was rumoured that the leaders would meet in Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, or St. Petersburg (Ishimatsu and Watanabe 2016). On 16 February, however, it was reported in the Japanese media that the summit would likely take place on 6 May in Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi (Nikkei 2016). Although the informal status of the spring summit is a product of circumstance, it suits the Japanese prime minister's purposes well. This is because, unlike an official summit, there will be less preceding pressure for a concrete result and less information will have to be made public about the nature of the negotiations. This will give Abe greater freedom to concentrate on his goal of privately convincing the Russian leader to accept a territorial deal. There is precedent for such informal meetings between Japanese and Russian leaders. In particular, two "no necktie" summits were held between President Yeltsin and Prime Minister Hashimoto at Krasnoyarsk in November 1997 and Kawana in April 1998. Although ultimately leading to no breakthrough, these informal meetings were seen at the time as useful in making progress on the territorial issue. In particular, the Krasnoyarsk summit led to a pledge to conclude a peace treaty by the year 2000. In advance of Abe's own "no necktie" summit, the Japanese side has been eager to prepare the groundwork and to ensure the best possible atmosphere in bilateral relations. To this end, Kōmura Masahiko, Vice President of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), was dispatched to Moscow on 10 January. During his four-day visit, Mr Kōmura held meetings with Foreign Minister Lavrov and Sergei Naryshkin, Speaker of the Russian Duma and close Putin associate. He was also tasked with delivering a personal letter from Abe to Putin, though his hopes of meeting the Russian leader himself were not realised. Following up on Kōmura's visit, on 22 January phone discussions were held between the Japanese prime minister and Russian president. Organised at the request of the Japanese side, these talks touched on recent developments in Korea and Syria. The leaders also took the opportunity to express their mutual interest in deepening cooperation in the political, economic, and humanitarian fields. Most interesting, however, is that official reports of the phone conversation state that, "Agreement was reached on the continuation of personal contacts" (Kremlin 2016). This suggests that plans for the informal summit were discussed. What is more, in a significant move, on the same day the Abe administration announced the appointment of a special representative to oversee relations with Russia. This new post will be assigned to Harada Chikahito, a veteran diplomat and former Japanese ambassador to Moscow (Rossiiskaya Gazeta 2016). The creation of this position represents yet further confirmation of the seriousness of Abe's ambition to achieve a breakthrough on the territorial dispute in 2016. Mr Harada had his first opportunity to make an impact in his new role on 15 February when he met with Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Morgulov in Tokyo. At this meeting, it was agreed that Foreign Minister Lavrov would visit Japan in mid-April to confirm the final details of the informal Putin-Abe summit to take place in early May (Lenin 2016). Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Morgulov and Japan's special representative Harada meet in Tokyo, 15 February 2016 In addition to this preparatory work, the Abe administration needs to consider what it would do in the event of the successful completion of the summit. This is because, even if Abe were to secure an agreement with Putin behind closed doors, many obstacles would remain to its implementation. Above all, the Japanese side would be likely to encounter opposition from G7 members, principally the United States, who, as has been seen, has a record of intervening in this territorial dispute. In this case, the US would be concerned about a major rapprochement between Japan and Russia taking place at a time when the latter remains in possession of Crimea and continues to be controversially involved in developments in eastern Ukraine. For this reason it is helpful that the informal meeting be held in advance of the G7 summit. In this way, Japan will have the opportunity to explain its position to its Western partners and to justify the softening of its stance towards Russia. Abe attempted to do something similar at the G7 summit in Germany in June 2015 when he outlined his intention to maintain intensive dialogue with Russia, despite the continuation of sanctions (Lenin 2015). Finally, if all of these steps go well, a formal deal on resolving the territorial dispute and signing a peace treaty could be officially presented at a subsequent visit by President Putin to Japan during the second half of 2016. The specifics of Abe's offer The above are likely stages of Abe's plan to achieve a conclusive solution to the territorial problem with Russia in 2016. All of this is, however, entirely dependent on Abe's ability to secure Putin's agreement to a deal. What then does the Japanese leader intend to offer? This is clearly something that cannot be known with certainty. In order for such sensitive negotiations to have any chance of success, they must be conducted in private. Were the anticipated Japanese concessions to be leaked in advance in the media, the government would come under fierce attack from conservatives and it would become impossible to reach any agreement. Leaks to the press, including from within MOFA, have had this effect on the negotiations with Russia in the past (Hasegawa 1998b: 367). Although we cannot therefore know the exact details of Japan's negotiating position, we can nonetheless piece together its probable features. To begin with, Abe's starting point will be an attempt to convince his Russian counterpart to recognise the legitimacy of Japan's claims to sovereignty over all four of the islands. This hoped-for acknowledgement is prized by the Japanese side because it would validate its long-held claim that the islands are "inherent" Japanese territory and that Japan's sovereignty was formally established by means of the 1855 Treaty of Shimoda. Not being seen to compromise on the principle of sovereignty is also valued as a way of sending a message to China and Korea that Japan will never give ground with regard to the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands and Takeshima/Dokdo. It is, of course, all but unthinkable that Russia would readily agree to hand over all four of the islands. After all, it is Moscow's steadfast refusal to consider any such thing that has prevented the settlement of this dispute for over 70 years. Prime Minister Abe, however, will not demand the immediate return of the four islands. Instead, he is likely to propose a compromise whereby, if Russia recognises Japan's residual sovereignty over the four islands, Japan will accept maximum flexibility on the timing of the islands' actual transfer. This proposal has already long been public (MOFA 2011), though its precise terms are less apparent. The probability is that Abe will push for the rapid transfer of Shikotan and Habomai within five to ten years. With regard to Etorofu and Kunashiri, however, Abe is likely to propose that, as long as Russia recognises Japan's residual sovereignty, these two islands can be left to be administered by the Russian authorities. This would allow the Russian residents – approximately 8,000 on Kunashiri and 6,400 on Etorofu – to continue to live on the islands (Argumenty Nedeli 2014). Following this agreement, Japan would also reverse its opposition to its own citizens visiting the islands and would instead actively encourage economic investment and joint projects. This arrangement could be guaranteed for a period of 50 years, after which a new agreement could be made either to transfer the islands to Japanese administration or to continue with the preceding arrangement. It should be noted that this is not actually a new suggestion. It has many similarities with the proposal made by Matsumoto Shun'ichi in 1956, after he had been forced to expand Japan's minimum requirement for a peace treaty from two islands to four (Hasegawa 1998a: 121). Prime Minister Abe will hope to persuade President Putin of the merits of a deal that would enable Russia to retain control over the two largest islands – constituting 93% of the total landmass – albeit on condition that the islands be demilitarised. Additionally, Abe is certain to offer some more immediate incentives. The most significant of these will be economic. To start with, Abe will offer to move quickly to end the economic sanctions that Japan introduced against Russia in 2014. This promise is likely to have to remain informal as the removal of sanctions is supposed to be conditional upon Russia's constructive contribution to resolving the Ukraine crisis. There would be opposition within other G7 countries if Japan were to be too obvious in its use of the sanctions as political leverage for pursuing its own national interests. More important than ending its essentially symbolic sanctions, Japan will commit to providing large-scale economic assistance to be directed towards the development of Siberia and the Russian Far East. The Japanese side will wish to avoid creating the impression that it is attempting to simply purchase the islands, something that would be expected to intensify opposition from the Russian public. Nonetheless, it will be made clear that, if the territorial dispute is resolved, Japan will be willing to provide generous funding for major infrastructure and industrial projects in Russia's eastern regions. Additionally, the prospect of lucrative long-term energy deals will be raised. In offering these incentives, Abe will be seeking to exploit the Russian leadership's urgent desire to develop Siberia and the Far East, something that Putin has described as the "national priority for the entire 21st century" (quoted in Zavrazhin 2013). The Japanese side will also be calculating that Russia may at present be especially willing to make sacrifices in exchange for financial assistance as a consequence of the country's parlous economic situation. Added to this, Abe will be looking to make the most of any concerns on the Russian side about overdependence on China. In particular, as the growth engine of the Chinese economy continues to sputter at the start of 2016, there will be the hope that Russian decision makers will prioritise closer ties with other Asian partners. With regard to energy, Japan will argue that, by diversifying its customer base away from China, Russia will be able to demand higher prices in Asian markets. The proposal for Russia to continue to administer Etorofu and Kunashiri (at least for the medium term) and the offer of economic incentives are therefore likely to constitute the central element of Abe's plan. At the same time, however, Abe may seek to add a few further sweeteners. This could include an additional easing of visa requirements for Russian citizens to visit Japan, a reform in which Russian diplomats have recently shown strong interest (Zakharchenko 2016). More intriguingly, Abe also seems to have in mind the idea of offering Japan to serve as a diplomatic bridge between the West and Russia, thereby helping to reduce Russia's recent isolation. It is far from clear that Washington would welcome Japan's mediation, yet this proposal was aired during Kōmura's January 2016 visit to Moscow. Specifically, the LDP Vice-President is reported to have told his hosts that Japan would be willing to speak up for Russia during the 2016 G7 summit and would demonstrate maximum consideration for Russia's interests (Ishimatsu and Watanabe 2016). It is unlikely that Kōmura would have made so bold a suggestion about Japan's conduct at the G7 summit unless directly instructed to do so by the Japanese prime minister. Subsequently, Former Prime Minister Mori, who has previously been used by Abe as an unofficial envoy to Russia, also publicly promoted the idea of the Japanese leader serving as a mediator between Russia and the West (Agafonov 2016). By means of these incentives, Abe will hope to secure the Russian side's recognition of the legitimacy of Japan's claims to sovereignty over all four of the islands. If he fails in this ambition, however, what will be his fallback position? It is almost certain that Abe will have one or two further positions to which he will reluctantly retreat if his first proposal is resolutely refused. This is standard practice in negotiations. What is more, Abe will be aware of the difficulty of his task, yet, having invested so much in his personal diplomacy with Russia, he will be unwilling to come away with nothing. Abe may therefore seek to seize his chance of becoming the Japanese leader who finally ends the territorial dispute, even if this means settling for sovereignty over less than four islands. One possible fallback option is for Japan to accept a 50-50 territorial split. This would entail Japan regaining sovereignty over Shikotan, Habomai, and Kunashiri, plus a portion of Etorofu. A new international border would be established approximately a third of the way up this last island. Such a deal would represent an equal division of landmass since Etorofu is so much larger than the other three islands. In implementing this deal, the offer of continued Russian administration over Kunashiri and the southern section of Etorofu for a fixed period of time could still apply. This would ease the process of eventual transfer to Japan. A yet further concession would be for Japan to give up its claims to Etorofu altogether and settle for sovereignty over only three islands. This would have the advantage of avoiding the creation of Japan's first land border. These fallback options would involve the abandonment of the Japanese government's longstanding commitment to the principled position that Russia must simultaneously recognise Japan's sovereignty over all four of the islands. The acceptance of either option would therefore constitute a major compromise from a Japanese leader. Despite this, it is not inconceivable that Abe would consider making such a deal. To begin with, Abe has previously demonstrated a pragmatic streak in his approach to foreign policy. This was most recently in evidence in the Japan-South Korea "Comfort Women" deal. It is well-known that Abe takes a skeptical view of the "Comfort Woman" issue. In 2007, he stated: "The fact is, there is no evidence to prove there was coercion," (quoted in Mizoguchi and Dudden 2007: 2). Moreover, in February 2014 the Abe administration let it be known that they were considering reviewing the apology offered in the 1993 Kōno statement (Ryall 2014). And yet, despite these personal beliefs, Abe agreed to put his name to the December 2015 "Comfort Women" deal, which included a formal expression of his own "most sincere apologies and remorse" (MOFA 2015). He did so because he evidently judged that a resolution to this dispute was in Japan's broader national interests. As a relatively popular nationalist leader, Abe is also in a stronger position than most Japanese prime ministers to make concessions that will be unpopular with Japan's right wing. Finally, with specific regard to the territorial dispute with Russia, it is worth noting that the idea of a 50-50 territorial split has previously been floated by Asō Tarō and Yachi Shōtarō, both prominent members of the Abe government (Mainichi Shinbun 2009; Sarkisov 2009: 45). On this basis, it is therefore not impossible to imagine Abe settling for a territorial resolution that resulted in the return to Japan of only three islands or three and one third. Explanations for Abe's Behaviour Those familiar with the tortuous history of territorial negotiations between Japan and Russia will be surprised by Abe's apparent optimism about being able to secure the return of more than the two smaller islands. In fact, some may be inclined to think that his efforts are not genuine and that he is just making a show of trying in order to garner public support. This would be a reasonable assumption, but it would not be correct. The territorial dispute with Russia remains a priority for some small domestic groups, including the League of Chishima-Habomai Residents and certain far-right organisations. For the majority of Japanese citizens, however, this issue is not a political priority. For instance, according to a survey conducted by the Japanese Cabinet Office in 2013, only 40.5% of respondents had heard about the dispute and knew its details. A further 41% had heard about the dispute and knew its details to a certain degree. Meanwhile, only 20.6% were aware of the activities of the government and private groups to recover the islands and knew what these efforts entailed. Another 30.7% knew about these efforts to a certain extent. Strikingly, only 3.2% of respondents stated that they would be interested in actively participating in efforts to secure the return of the islands (Naikaku-fu 2013). Separate analysis also shows that public interest in the dispute with Korea over Takeshima/Dokdo now actually exceeds that in the Northern Territories (Bukh 2015: 60). On the basis of these statistics, Abe has little to gain in terms of public support by merely attempting to pursue a territorial resolution with Russia. Additionally, if the Japanese prime minister's activities were purely for show, he could have achieved this effect with much less effort and expenditure of political capital. Instead, as has been noted, since the beginning of his second term Abe has put extensive effort into courting Putin, even at the risk of creating some distance between Japan and the United States, something that Japanese leaders are usually loath to do. As a result, Washington has cautioned Japan about its accommodating stance towards Russia, a warning that the Japanese leader has evidently chosen to ignore (Asahi Shimbun 2015). Abe would not have engaged in such bold action if he did not believe that there was the genuine possibility of a breakthrough in the territorial dispute. This determination to resolve the Northern Territories problem is consistent with other aspects of the prime minister's political agenda. This is because Abe is an unusually ambitious Japanese prime minister and seems committed to sealing his legacy as a transformational leader. In this regard, he has been assisted by institutional changes since the late 1990s that have shifted power towards the prime minister's office. He has also been encouraged by the lack of opposition since 2012, both from other parties and within the LDP (Burrett forthcoming). These developments have been empowering for the Japanese leader. The ambitious way in which he has sought to use this power, however, is specific to Abe. Since returning to office in December 2012, Abe has hurriedly pursued a series of bold initiatives. These include the 2013 Secrecy Act, reinterpretation of the Constitution to permit collective self-defence, the economic programme dubbed "Abenomics", and the "Comfort Women" deal with South Korea. This impatient attitude may owe something to Abe's unexpected political rejuvenation. Having failed to leave a lasting impression during his first term as prime minister in 2006-07, Abe will be especially eager to make the most of his second opportunity in power. The Japanese leader is also in much better physical health than during his first term when he was debilitated by the effects of ulcerative colitis. Due to new medication, this illness is now under control and, according to one of his advisors, Abe is consequently enjoying "a psychological transformation that has made the prime minister more forward looking than in his first administration" (Burrett forthcoming). These considerations may help to explain Abe's political ambitions. There are, however, some factors that make him particularly keen to secure a peace treaty with Russia. First in this regard is his family history. It is often suggested that Abe's determination to revise the Constitution is guided by his desire to fulfill the ambitions of his grandfather, Kishi Nobusuke, who was prime minister from 1957 to 1960. When it comes to Japan's relations with Russia, however, it is his father who is the greater inspiration. Abe Shintarō was Japan's foreign minister from 1982 to 1986 and was therefore in office during the positive period in Soviet-Japanese relations that followed Mikhail Gorbachev's accession to general secretary in March 1985. Encouraged by the optimistic atmosphere that accompanied the ending of the Cold War, Abe's father succeeded in opening negotiations with the Soviet Union. He also developed an affection for the country and set the target of signing a peace treaty during the lifetime of the current generation. Abe Shinzō has openly expressed his determination to complete this unfulfilled goal of his father (Abe 2006: 34-7). Most nostalgically, when in Moscow in April 2013, the Japanese prime minister visited the sakura garden that had been inaugurated by his father in 1986. On that occasion, Abe stated: "In accordance with the will of my father, I wish to achieve such development in relations with Russia that the cherry trees enter a period of full bloom" (quoted in Gusman 2013). A young Abe Shinzō with his father, Shintarō Further to this emotional element, Abe's foreign policy towards Russia |
ending.”
Dufresne said the plan was for the twins to return to Hopkins a year later, but that once they left for Germany it was impossible to keep track of the family. When there was no news, he figured there must have been bad news. He and others on the team would have to take the surgery for what it was: a big step forward for medical science, even without the ideal result.
“My job as a doctor is to make sick people well, and when I fail to do that, regardless of exactly why, I still failed,” Long, the former head of neurosurgery, said in a phone interview about the Binder surgery. “So in that way, the simple answer is no, I do not think it was a success.”
The surgery did prove that it was technically possible for twins conjoined at the head to be separated and for both to survive. It created a blueprint for other doctors to follow in the future. Carson himself would go on to participate in four other similar surgeries — one of which, a 1997 surgery of Zambian twins, left both patients not only alive but neurologically normal.
“You can’t go into something like this with a pessimistic attitude,” Carson told Johns Hopkins Magazine after a 2004 separation of twins joined at the head. “A lot of younger guys are learning a lot, pushing on the next border, which is how progress is made. We all act as stepping stones.”
Carson would go on to perform hundreds of other difficult and impressive surgeries, including operating on babies inside the womb and removing large chunks of the brains of children plagued by repetitive seizures.
But it was the Binder twins who launched Carson onto the national stage he now dominates, barely three years after retiring from surgery.
“If I hadn’t given him the knife, he probably wouldn’t be there today,” Long said. “He still would have received a great deal of credit, but it would have been divided. It became the thing that got him everybody’s notice.”
David Farenthold contributed to this report.Windows Server 2003/2008 R1/R2 DHCP Failover/Watchdog a guest Nov 15th, 2012 169 Never a guest169Never
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rawdownloadcloneembedreportprint Winbatch 15.08 KB :: Purpose: DHCP server Watchdog & Failover script. Read notes below :: Requirements: 1. Domain administrator credentials & "Logon as a batch job" rights :: 2. Proper firewall configuration to allow connection :: 3. Proper permissions on the DHCP backup directory :: Author: vocatus on Reddit :: Version: 1.1c + Added quotes around all variables that could contain paths :: + Added full path to SC.exe to prevent failure in the event %PATH% gets corrupted or mangled (this happened in testing) :: * Fixed a glitch that could occur when pinging an assumed-down primary server that would incorrectly think it was back up :: - Removed almost every entry of "2>&1" since it's really not needed :: 1.1b - Changed DATE to CUR_DATE format to be consistent with all other scripts :: 1.1 - Comments improvement :: / Tuned some parameters (ping count on checking) :: / Some logging tweaks :: / Renamed FAILOVER_DELAY to FAILOVER_RECHECK_DELAY for clarity :: 1.0d * Some logging tweaks :: 1.0c * Some logging tweaks :: 1.0 Initial write :: Notes: I wrote this script after failing to find a satisfactory method of performing :: watchdog/failover between two Windows Server 2008 R2 DHCP servers. :: :: Use: This script has two modes: "Watchdog" and "Failover." :: - Watchdog checks the status of the remote DHCP service, logs it, and then grabs the remote DHCP db backup file and imports it. :: - Failover mode is activated when the script cannot determine the status of the remote DHCP server. The script then activates :: the local DHCP server with the latest backup copy it successfully retrieved from the primary server. :: :: Instructions: :: 1. Tune the variables in this script to your desired backup location and frequency :: 2. On the primary server: set the DHCP backup interval to your desired backup frequency. The value is in minutes; I recommend 5 minutes. :: You do this by modifying this registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\DHCPServer\Parameters\BackupInterval :: 3. On the backup server: set this script to run as a scheduled task. I recommend every 10 minutes. :: Notice: ::!! Make sure to set it only to run if it isn't already running! If there is a failover you could have :: Task Scheduler spawn a new instance of the script every n minutes and end up with hundreds of copies :: of this script running. :: Prep SETLOCAL @ echo off cls set VERSION =1.1c title [ DHCP Server Watchdog v % VERSION % ] ::::::::::::::: :: Variables :: - Set these. Do not use trailing slashes (\) in directory names (this is important!). ::::::::::::::: :: Remote server is the PRIMARY DHCP server we're watching. Use a hostname or IP address. set REMOTE_SERVER=my - dhcp - server :: Location of the DHCP backup on the remote primary server :: Best practice is to leave as default, unless you have a custom backup location. :: The script builds the backup line like this: \\%REMOTE_SERVER%\c$\%REMOTE_BACKUP_PATH% set REMOTE_BACKUP_PATH=Windows\system32\dhcp\backup :: Location of the local backup. I normally copy directly to my backup server's DHCP directory. :: The script builds the local backup line like this: c:\windows\system32\dhcp\[backup folders] set LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH= % SystemRoot % \system32\dhcp :: When a failover is triggered, how many seconds should we wait in between each attempt to contact the primary server again? set FAILOVER_RECHECK_DELAY= 15 :: Log options. Don't put an extension on the log file name. (Important!) The script sets this later on. set LOGPATH= % SystemDrive % \Logs set LOGFILE= % COMPUTERNAME % _DHCP_watchdog :: Max log file size allowed (in bytes) before rotation and archive. I recommend setting this to 2 MB (2097152). :: Example: 524288 is half a megabyte (~500KB) set LOG_MAX_SIZE= 2097152 :: \/ Don't touch anything below this line. If you do, you will break something. set CUR_DATE= % DATE :~-4%-%DATE:~4,2%-%DATE:~7,2% ::::::::::::::::::::::: :: LOG FILE HANDLING :: - This section handles the log file ::::::::::::::::::::::: :: Make the logfile if it doesn't exist if not exist % LOGPATH % mkdir % LOGPATH % if not exist % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log goto new_log :: Check log size. If it hasn't exceeded our size limit, jump straight to Watchdog mode for %% R in ( % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log ) do if %%~ zR LSS % LOG_MAX_SIZE % goto newrun :: However, if the log was too big, go ahead and rotate it. pushd % LOGPATH % del % LOGFILE %.ancient 2 > NUL rename % LOGFILE %.oldest % LOGFILE %.ancient 2 > NUL rename % LOGFILE %.older % LOGFILE %.oldest 2 > NUL rename % LOGFILE %.old % LOGFILE %.older 2 > NUL rename % LOGFILE %.log % LOGFILE %.old 2 > NUL popd :: And then create the header for the new log file :new_log echo ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo Initializing new DHCP Server Watchdog log on % CUR_DATE % at % TIME %, max log size % LOG_MAX_SIZE % bytes >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo. >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log :: New run section - if we just launched the script, write a header for this run :newrun echo ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo DHCP Server Watchdog v % VERSION %, % CUR_DATE %>> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo Running as % USERDOMAIN % \ % USERNAME % on % COMPUTERNAME %>> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo. >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo Job Options >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo Log location : %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo Log max size : %LOG_MAX_SIZE% bytes>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo Watching primary server : %REMOTE_SERVER%>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo Mirroring this DHCP db : %REMOTE_BACKUP_PATH%>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo Local backup location : %LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo % TIME % Starting Watchdog mode. >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo. echo DHCP Server Watchdog v % VERSION % echo Running as : %USERDOMAIN%\%USERNAME% on %COMPUTERNAME% echo Log : %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log ::::::::::::::::::: :: WATCHDOG MODE :: ::::::::::::::::::: :watchdog :: Ping the server to see if it's up echo. echo Verifying proper operation of DHCP server on % REMOTE_SERVER %, please wait... echo. echo % TIME % Pinging % REMOTE_SERVER %... >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo % TIME % Pinging % REMOTE_SERVER %... ping % REMOTE_SERVER % - n 2 > NUL if % ERRORLEVEL % == 1 echo % TIME % WARNING % REMOTE_SERVER % failed to respond to ping. && echo % TIME % WARNING % REMOTE_SERVER % failed to respond to ping. >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log if not % ERRORLEVEL % == 1 echo % TIME % SUCCESS % REMOTE_SERVER % responded to ping. && echo % TIME % SUCCESS % REMOTE_SERVER % responded to ping. >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log :: Check & Log echo % TIME % Checking DHCP server status on % REMOTE_SERVER %... >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo % TIME % Checking DHCP server status on % REMOTE_SERVER %... :: Reset ERRORLEVEL back to 0 ver > NUL :: Use "SC" to check the status of "Dhcpserver" service, find the "RUNNING" state, and act accordingly based on the return code % WINDIR % \System32\sc.exe \\ % REMOTE_SERVER % query Dhcpserver | find "RUNNING" > NUL if % ERRORLEVEL % == 0 echo % TIME % SUCCESS The DHCP service is running on % REMOTE_SERVER %. >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log if % ERRORLEVEL % == 0 echo % TIME % SUCCESS The DHCP service is running on % REMOTE_SERVER %. :: This section only executes if the test failed. if not % ERRORLEVEL % == 0 ( echo % TIME % FAILURE The DHCP service is not running on % REMOTE_SERVER %. >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo % TIME % Activating failover procedure. Local DHCP server will be initialized using most recent successful backup. >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo % TIME % FAILURE The DHCP service is not running on % REMOTE_SERVER %. echo % TIME % Activating failover procedure. Local DHCP server will be initialized using most recent successful backup. goto failover ) :: Reset ERRORLEVEL back to 0 ver > NUL :: Fetch echo % TIME % Fetching DHCP database backup from % REMOTE_SERVER %... >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo % TIME % Fetching DHCP database backup from % REMOTE_SERVER %... xcopy "\\%REMOTE_SERVER%\c$\%REMOTE_BACKUP_PATH%\*" "%LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%\backup_new_pending\" / E / Y / Q > NUL :: If the copy SUCCEEDED, this executes if % ERRORLEVEL % == 0 ( echo % TIME % SUCCESS Backup fetched from % REMOTE_SERVER %. >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo % TIME % SUCCESS Backup fetched from % REMOTE_SERVER %. echo % TIME % Rotating database backups... >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo % TIME % Rotating database backups... :: Rotate backups and use newest copy rmdir / S / Q % LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH % \backup5 if exist "%LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%\backup4" move / Y "%LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%\backup4" "%LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%\backup5" if exist "%LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%\backup3" move / Y "%LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%\backup3" "%LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%\backup4" if exist "%LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%\backup2" move / Y "%LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%\backup2" "%LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%\backup3" if exist "%LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%\backup" move / Y "%LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%\backup" "%LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%\backup2" move / Y "%LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%\backup_new_pending" "%LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%\backup" > NUL echo % TIME % Database backups rotated. >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo % TIME % Database backups rotated. ) :: If the copy FAILED, this executes: if not % ERRORLEVEL % == 0 ( echo % TIME % WARNING There was an error copying the backup from % REMOTE_SERVER %. >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo % TIME % You may want to look into this since we were able to check the DHCPserver service status but the file copy failed. >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo % TIME % Skipping new database import due to copy failure. >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo % TIME % Job complete with errors. >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo % TIME % WARNING There was an error copying the backup from % REMOTE_SERVER %. echo % TIME % You may want to look into this since we were able to check the DHCPserver service status but the file copy failed. echo % TIME % Skipping new database import due to copy failure. echo % TIME % Job complete with errors. ) :: Import database echo % TIME % Starting local DHCP server to import new database... >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo % TIME % Starting local DHCP server to import new database... net start Dhcpserver echo % TIME % Local DHCP server running. Performing import... >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo % TIME % Local DHCP server running. Performing import... netsh dhcp server restore "%LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%\backup" echo % TIME % Import complete. >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo % TIME % Import complete. echo % TIME % Stopping local DHCP server... >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo % TIME % Stopping local DHCP server... net stop Dhcpserver echo % TIME % Local DHCP server stopped. >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo % TIME % Local DHCP server stopped. echo % TIME % SUCCESS Job complete, DHCP database backed up and ready for use. Exiting. >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo % TIME % SUCCESS Job complete, DHCP database backed up and ready for use. Exiting. goto EOF ::::::::::::::::::: :: FAILOVER MODE :: ::::::::::::::::::: :failover :: Log this AND display to console echo % TIME % WARNING Failover activated. >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo % TIME % Starting local DHCP server using most recent successful backup... >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo. echo % TIME % WARNING Could not contact primary DHCP server "%REMOTE_SERVER%." Failover activated. echo % TIME % Starting local DHCP server using most recent successful backup... echo. net start Dhcpserver echo % TIME % Local DHCP server started. >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo % TIME % Entering monitoring loop. Checking if % REMOTE_SERVER % is back up every % FAILOVER_RECHECK_DELAY % seconds... >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo % TIME % Local DHCP server started. echo % TIME % Entering monitoring loop. Checking if % REMOTE_SERVER % is back up every % FAILOVER_RECHECK_DELAY % seconds... :failover_loop :: First we ping the server ping % REMOTE_SERVER % - n 3 > NUL :: If no ping response, this section executes IF NOT % ERRORLEVEL % == 0 ( echo % TIME % FAILURE No ping response from % REMOTE_SERVER %. Waiting % FAILOVER_RECHECK_DELAY % seconds to check again. >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo % TIME % FAILURE No ping response from % REMOTE_SERVER %. Waiting % FAILOVER_RECHECK_DELAY % seconds to check again. ping localhost - n % FAILOVER_RECHECK_DELAY % > NUL goto failover_loop ) :: If yes ping response, this section executes :: This declaration is required to get the nested IF ERRORLEVEL test to function correctly SETLOCAL ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION if not % ERRORLEVEL % == 1 ( echo % TIME % NOTICE % REMOTE_SERVER % is responding to pings. >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo % TIME % NOTICE % REMOTE_SERVER % is responding to pings. echo % TIME % Checking DHCP server status on % REMOTE_SERVER %... >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo % TIME % Checking DHCP server status on % REMOTE_SERVER %... :: This section checks to see if the Dhcpserver service is back up and acts accordingly % WINDIR % \System32\sc.exe \\ % REMOTE_SERVER % query Dhcpserver | find "RUNNING" > NUL :: The exclamation points around ERRORLEVEL here prevent it from incorrectly being expanded using the external ERRORLEVEL results from the first IF statement if! ERRORLEVEL! == 0 ( echo % TIME % SUCCESS The DHCP service is running on % REMOTE_SERVER %. >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo % TIME % SUCCESS The DHCP service is running on % REMOTE_SERVER %. echo % TIME % The primary DHCP server % REMOTE_SERVER % is back up. Stopping local DHCP service... >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo % TIME % The primary DHCP server % REMOTE_SERVER % is back up. Stopping local DHCP service... net stop Dhcpserver echo % TIME % Recovery complete. Exiting. >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log echo % TIME % Recovery complete. Exiting. goto EOF ) ) ENDLOCAL :: If the host responds to pings but the DHCP service isn't running, this executes echo % TIME % FAILURE % REMOTE_SERVER % is responding to pings, but DHCP isn 't responding (yet?). Will try again in %FAILOVER_RECHECK_DELAY% seconds.>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo %TIME% FAILURE %REMOTE_SERVER% is responding to pings, but DHCP isn' t responding ( yet? ). Will try again in % FAILOVER_RECHECK_DELAY % seconds. ver > NUL goto failover_loop ENDLOCAL echo. >> % LOGPATH % \ % LOGFILE %.log :EOF
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:: Purpose: DHCP server Watchdog & Failover script. Read notes below :: Requirements: 1. Domain administrator credentials & "Logon as a batch job" rights :: 2. Proper firewall configuration to allow connection :: 3. Proper permissions on the DHCP backup directory :: Author: vocatus on Reddit :: Version: 1.1c + Added quotes around all variables that could contain paths :: + Added full path to SC.exe to prevent failure in the event %PATH% gets corrupted or mangled (this happened in testing) :: * Fixed a glitch that could occur when pinging an assumed-down primary server that would incorrectly think it was back up :: - Removed almost every entry of "2>&1" since it's really not needed :: 1.1b - Changed DATE to CUR_DATE format to be consistent with all other scripts :: 1.1 - Comments improvement :: / Tuned some parameters (ping count on checking) :: / Some logging tweaks :: / Renamed FAILOVER_DELAY to FAILOVER_RECHECK_DELAY for clarity :: 1.0d * Some logging tweaks :: 1.0c * Some logging tweaks :: 1.0 Initial write :: Notes: I wrote this script after failing to find a satisfactory method of performing :: watchdog/failover between two Windows Server 2008 R2 DHCP servers. :: :: Use: This script has two modes: "Watchdog" and "Failover." :: - Watchdog checks the status of the remote DHCP service, logs it, and then grabs the remote DHCP db backup file and imports it. :: - Failover mode is activated when the script cannot determine the status of the remote DHCP server. The script then activates :: the local DHCP server with the latest backup copy it successfully retrieved from the primary server. :: :: Instructions: :: 1. Tune the variables in this script to your desired backup location and frequency :: 2. On the primary server: set the DHCP backup interval to your desired backup frequency. The value is in minutes; I recommend 5 minutes. :: You do this by modifying this registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\DHCPServer\Parameters\BackupInterval :: 3. On the backup server: set this script to run as a scheduled task. I recommend every 10 minutes. :: Notice: ::!! Make sure to set it only to run if it isn't already running! If there is a failover you could have :: Task Scheduler spawn a new instance of the script every n minutes and end up with hundreds of copies :: of this script running. :: Prep SETLOCAL @echo off cls set VERSION=1.1c title [DHCP Server Watchdog v%VERSION%] ::::::::::::::: :: Variables :: - Set these. Do not use trailing slashes (\) in directory names (this is important!). ::::::::::::::: :: Remote server is the PRIMARY DHCP server we're watching. Use a hostname or IP address. set REMOTE_SERVER=my-dhcp-server :: Location of the DHCP backup on the remote primary server :: Best practice is to leave as default, unless you have a custom backup location. :: The script builds the backup line like this: \\%REMOTE_SERVER%\c$\%REMOTE_BACKUP_PATH% set REMOTE_BACKUP_PATH=Windows\system32\dhcp\backup :: Location of the local backup. I normally copy directly to my backup server's DHCP directory. :: The script builds the local backup line like this: c:\windows\system32\dhcp\[backup folders] set LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH=%SystemRoot%\system32\dhcp :: When a failover is triggered, how many seconds should we wait in between each attempt to contact the primary server again? set FAILOVER_RECHECK_DELAY=15 :: Log options. Don't put an extension on the log file name. (Important!) The script sets this later on. set LOGPATH=%SystemDrive%\Logs set LOGFILE=%COMPUTERNAME%_DHCP_watchdog :: Max log file size allowed (in bytes) before rotation and archive. I recommend setting this to 2 MB (2097152). :: Example: 524288 is half a megabyte (~500KB) set LOG_MAX_SIZE=2097152 :: \/ Don't touch anything below this line. If you do, you will break something. set CUR_DATE=%DATE:~-4%-%DATE:~4,2%-%DATE:~7,2% ::::::::::::::::::::::: :: LOG FILE HANDLING :: - This section handles the log file ::::::::::::::::::::::: :: Make the logfile if it doesn't exist if not exist %LOGPATH% mkdir %LOGPATH% if not exist %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log goto new_log :: Check log size. If it hasn't exceeded our size limit, jump straight to Watchdog mode for %%R in (%LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log) do if %%~zR LSS %LOG_MAX_SIZE% goto newrun :: However, if the log was too big, go ahead and rotate it. pushd %LOGPATH% del %LOGFILE%.ancient 2>NUL rename %LOGFILE%.oldest %LOGFILE%.ancient 2>NUL rename %LOGFILE%.older %LOGFILE%.oldest 2>NUL rename %LOGFILE%.old %LOGFILE%.older 2>NUL rename %LOGFILE%.log %LOGFILE%.old 2>NUL popd :: And then create the header for the new log file :new_log echo ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo Initializing new DHCP Server Watchdog log on %CUR_DATE% at %TIME%, max log size %LOG_MAX_SIZE% bytes>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo.>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log :: New run section - if we just launched the script, write a header for this run :newrun echo ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo DHCP Server Watchdog v%VERSION%, %CUR_DATE%>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo Running as %USERDOMAIN%\%USERNAME% on %COMPUTERNAME%>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo.>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo Job Options>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo Log location: %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo Log max size: %LOG_MAX_SIZE% bytes>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo Watching primary server: %REMOTE_SERVER%>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo Mirroring this DHCP db: %REMOTE_BACKUP_PATH%>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo Local backup location: %LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo %TIME% Starting Watchdog mode.>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo. echo DHCP Server Watchdog v%VERSION% echo Running as: %USERDOMAIN%\%USERNAME% on %COMPUTERNAME% echo Log: %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log ::::::::::::::::::: :: WATCHDOG MODE :: ::::::::::::::::::: :watchdog :: Ping the server to see if it's up echo. echo Verifying proper operation of DHCP server on %REMOTE_SERVER%, please wait... echo. echo %TIME% Pinging %REMOTE_SERVER%...>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo %TIME% Pinging %REMOTE_SERVER%... ping %REMOTE_SERVER% -n 2 >NUL if %ERRORLEVEL%==1 echo %TIME% WARNING %REMOTE_SERVER% failed to respond to ping. && echo %TIME% WARNING %REMOTE_SERVER% failed to respond to ping.>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log if not %ERRORLEVEL%==1 echo %TIME% SUCCESS %REMOTE_SERVER% responded to ping. && echo %TIME% SUCCESS %REMOTE_SERVER% responded to ping.>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log :: Check & Log echo %TIME% Checking DHCP server status on %REMOTE_SERVER%...>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo %TIME% Checking DHCP server status on %REMOTE_SERVER%... :: Reset ERRORLEVEL back to 0 ver > NUL :: Use "SC" to check the status of "Dhcpserver" service, find the "RUNNING" state, and act accordingly based on the return code %WINDIR%\System32\sc.exe \\%REMOTE_SERVER% query Dhcpserver | find "RUNNING" >NUL if %ERRORLEVEL%==0 echo %TIME% SUCCESS The DHCP service is running on %REMOTE_SERVER%.>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log if %ERRORLEVEL%==0 echo %TIME% SUCCESS The DHCP service is running on %REMOTE_SERVER%. :: This section only executes if the test failed. if not %ERRORLEVEL%==0 ( echo %TIME% FAILURE The DHCP service is not running on %REMOTE_SERVER%.>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo %TIME% Activating failover procedure. Local DHCP server will be initialized using most recent successful backup.>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo %TIME% FAILURE The DHCP service is not running on %REMOTE_SERVER%. echo %TIME% Activating failover procedure. Local DHCP server will be initialized using most recent successful backup. goto failover ) :: Reset ERRORLEVEL back to 0 ver > NUL :: Fetch echo %TIME% Fetching DHCP database backup from %REMOTE_SERVER%...>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo %TIME% Fetching DHCP database backup from %REMOTE_SERVER%... xcopy "\\%REMOTE_SERVER%\c$\%REMOTE_BACKUP_PATH%\*" "%LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%\backup_new_pending\" /E /Y /Q >NUL :: If the copy SUCCEEDED, this executes if %ERRORLEVEL%==0 ( echo %TIME% SUCCESS Backup fetched from %REMOTE_SERVER%.>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo %TIME% SUCCESS Backup fetched from %REMOTE_SERVER%. echo %TIME% Rotating database backups...>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo %TIME% Rotating database backups... :: Rotate backups and use newest copy rmdir /S /Q %LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%\backup5 if exist "%LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%\backup4" move /Y "%LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%\backup4" "%LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%\backup5" if exist "%LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%\backup3" move /Y "%LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%\backup3" "%LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%\backup4" if exist "%LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%\backup2" move /Y "%LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%\backup2" "%LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%\backup3" if exist "%LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%\backup" move /Y "%LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%\backup" "%LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%\backup2" move /Y "%LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%\backup_new_pending" "%LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%\backup" >NUL echo %TIME% Database backups rotated.>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo %TIME% Database backups rotated. ) :: If the copy FAILED, this executes: if not %ERRORLEVEL%==0 ( echo %TIME% WARNING There was an error copying the backup from %REMOTE_SERVER%.>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo %TIME% You may want to look into this since we were able to check the DHCPserver service status but the file copy failed.>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo %TIME% Skipping new database import due to copy failure.>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo %TIME% Job complete with errors.>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo %TIME% WARNING There was an error copying the backup from %REMOTE_SERVER%. echo %TIME% You may want to look into this since we were able to check the DHCPserver service status but the file copy failed. echo %TIME% Skipping new database import due to copy failure. echo %TIME% Job complete with errors. ) :: Import database echo %TIME% Starting local DHCP server to import new database...>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo %TIME% Starting local DHCP server to import new database... net start Dhcpserver echo %TIME% Local DHCP server running. Performing import...>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo %TIME% Local DHCP server running. Performing import... netsh dhcp server restore "%LOCAL_BACKUP_PATH%\backup" echo %TIME% Import complete.>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo %TIME% Import complete. echo %TIME% Stopping local DHCP server...>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo %TIME% Stopping local DHCP server... net stop Dhcpserver echo %TIME% Local DHCP server stopped.>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo %TIME% Local DHCP server stopped. echo %TIME% SUCCESS Job complete, DHCP database backed up and ready for use. Exiting.>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo %TIME% SUCCESS Job complete, DHCP database backed up and ready for use. Exiting. goto EOF ::::::::::::::::::: :: FAILOVER MODE :: ::::::::::::::::::: :failover :: Log this AND display to console echo %TIME% WARNING Failover activated.>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo %TIME% Starting local DHCP server using most recent successful backup...>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo. echo %TIME% WARNING Could not contact primary DHCP server "%REMOTE_SERVER%." Failover activated. echo %TIME% Starting local DHCP server using most recent successful backup... echo. net start Dhcpserver echo %TIME% Local DHCP server started.>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo %TIME% Entering monitoring loop. Checking if %REMOTE_SERVER% is back up every %FAILOVER_RECHECK_DELAY% seconds...>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo %TIME% Local DHCP server started. echo %TIME% Entering monitoring loop. Checking if %REMOTE_SERVER% is back up every %FAILOVER_RECHECK_DELAY% seconds... :failover_loop :: First we ping the server ping %REMOTE_SERVER% -n 3 >NUL :: If no ping response, this section executes IF NOT %ERRORLEVEL%==0 ( echo %TIME% FAILURE No ping response from %REMOTE_SERVER%. Waiting %FAILOVER_RECHECK_DELAY% seconds to check again.>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo %TIME% FAILURE No ping response from %REMOTE_SERVER%. Waiting %FAILOVER_RECHECK_DELAY% seconds to check again. ping localhost -n %FAILOVER_RECHECK_DELAY% >NUL goto failover_loop ) :: If yes ping response, this section executes :: This declaration is required to get the nested IF ERRORLEVEL test to function correctly SETLOCAL ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION if not %ERRORLEVEL%==1 ( echo %TIME% NOTICE %REMOTE_SERVER% is responding to pings.>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo %TIME% NOTICE %REMOTE_SERVER% is responding to pings. echo %TIME% Checking DHCP server status on %REMOTE_SERVER%...>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo %TIME% Checking DHCP server status on %REMOTE_SERVER%... :: This section checks to see if the Dhcpserver service is back up and acts accordingly %WINDIR%\System32\sc.exe \\%REMOTE_SERVER% query Dhcpserver | find "RUNNING" >NUL :: The exclamation points around ERRORLEVEL here prevent it from incorrectly being expanded using the external ERRORLEVEL results from the first IF statement if!ERRORLEVEL!==0 ( echo %TIME% SUCCESS The DHCP service is running on %REMOTE_SERVER%.>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo %TIME% SUCCESS The DHCP service is running on %REMOTE_SERVER%. echo %TIME% The primary DHCP server %REMOTE_SERVER% is back up. Stopping local DHCP service...>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo %TIME% The primary DHCP server %REMOTE_SERVER% is back up. Stopping local DHCP service... net stop Dhcpserver echo %TIME% Recovery complete. Exiting.>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo %TIME% Recovery complete. Exiting. goto EOF ) ) ENDLOCAL :: If the host responds to pings but the DHCP service isn't running, this executes echo %TIME% FAILURE %REMOTE_SERVER% is responding to pings, but DHCP isn't responding (yet?). Will try again in %FAILOVER_RECHECK_DELAY% seconds.>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log echo %TIME% FAILURE %REMOTE_SERVER% is responding to pings, but DHCP isn't responding (yet?). Will try again in %FAILOVER_RECHECK_DELAY% seconds. ver >NUL goto failover_loop ENDLOCAL echo.>> %LOGPATH%\%LOGFILE%.log :EOFBrandon Jennings is either a shot-happy, injury-plagued point guard who hasn’t lost his ego but has lost his explosiveness and won’t work well in Phil Jackson’s triangle. Or he’s a student of the game’s history, ready for a bust-out season and return to dynamic form — far enough removed from his 2015 Achilles tendon injury to be a steal on a one-year, $5 million Knicks contract at age 26.
The opinions vary dramatically on Jennings, who in perhaps a bad omen will wear No. 3 — Stephon Marbury’s former number.
The Post has learned Jennings requested a one-year contract to give himself a chance to prove himself and boost his stock for 2017’s free-agent bonanza. The Knicks were obliging as they seek to keep open 2017 cap space.
His rehab over, Jennings didn’t make his debut last season for Detroit until Dec. 29 versus the Knicks, was traded to Orlando Feb. 17 and didn’t excel in either place.
“It’s hard to have a judgment on his three-and-a-half months back,” said one NBA source who has spoken to Jennings. “There’s usually a one-year lag time on Achilles injuries. We’ll see this year and people will see he’s healthy again. He wasn’t going to get value on a long-term deal. He didn’t have his lateral quickness back.”
Sources have indicated it was Jennings who asked for a trade from Detroit — not thrilled to be in a backup situation with Reggie Jackson the Pistons’ No. 1 guy for the future. Jennings wanted a chance to prove himself to another organization before free agency, but the move to join his former Bucks coach Scott Skiles in Orlando turned into a nightmare. He shot 36.6 percent and Skiles didn’t enjoy the reunion.
“He likes him as a person, but on the court this season he couldn’t stand him because of his shot selection,’’ one person connected to the Magic told The Post. “When he got there, he just wanted to play street ball, one-on-one stuff.”
Skiles eventually quit after the season because of philosophical differences with management regarding talent, according to sources. |
in power.This story is part of Governing's annual International issue.
In recent years, a number of cities in the U.S. have passed special taxes aimed at discouraging the use of disposable plastic bags. A handful of places, notably San Francisco, have outlawed them entirely. But there’s one unlikely country that’s leading the way in banning the bag: Rwanda.
In 2008, the small East African nation of 12 million people instituted a national ban on non-biodegradable plastic bags. The polyethylene bags, which shoppers typically only use once before throwing out, are known to amass in landfills, litter streets, obstruct sewer systems and hurt marine life.
Rwanda was still recovering from the economic and emotional destruction of genocide in the mid-1990s. As part of a revival plan, leaders decided to emphasize environmental protection, resulting in a series of reforms that included the bag measure. It wasn’t the first national bag ban -- Bangladesh passed one in 2002 -- but Rwanda’s law has serious teeth. It prohibits the manufacture, use, importation and sale of the bags. Owners of businesses that violate the ban face up to a year in prison, and anyone caught carrying a bag faces stiff fines. Businesses that flout the rules are raided; travelers who enter Rwanda’s borders are subject to searches. Strict enforcement has led to some revolt among small business owners and the growth of a black market trade in plastic bags. But there’s been less ire from bag manufacturers, who were encouraged through tax incentives and recycling contracts to convert their businesses.
Rwanda’s audacious ban, however harsh it may be, seems to have been effective. Numerous international environmental agencies have praised the prohibition for helping clean up the streets of the country, especially the capital city of Kigali.
California, along with Massachusetts and Washington, has debated a statewide ban for years. California’s prohibition wouldn’t be nearly as severe as Rwanda’s -- no threat of prison, and no one will be raiding Golden State businesses looking for a secret bag stash. And the ban would likely only affect carry-out bags at grocery stores, liquor stores and pharmacies. But the latest proposed legislation does include ways to soften the ban’s impact on California manufacturing, including $2 million in loans and grants to retrain workers and repurpose bag manufacturers.
Advocates say that compromise could garner enough support for the bill to pass. “The new language does address some of the concerns that some folks had, and we’re now in the strongest position we’ve ever been before,” says Nathan Weaver, an advocate with Environment California, an activist organization.A few years ago I started a bi-weekly video chat for US mappers, called Mappy Hours. They were fun and varied, with topics ranging from tagging discussions to a presentation about OpenHistoricalMap and many things in between.
Then we all got busy and the Mappy Hours stopped. I was recently reminded about them on the OSM Slack channel, and I thought it would be nice to restart them. So here are the details of the first Mappy Hour:
Wednesday September 27 at 5:30pm Pacific Time
We used to use Google Hangouts, but there were problems with that: a limited number of video participants, you couldn’t call in, plugins.. There is no perfect solution but I have had success with Zoom so we will try that. You can either download the Zoom client or call in using your phone.
There are local dial in phone numbers for many countries.
The topic for the first Mappy Hour will be State of the Map US. What are you looking forward to? Do you have a presentation you want to promote? Do you have ideas to make the conference even better than previous years? Let’s talk! Even if you are not planning to attend SOTM US, I invite you to attend: there will be plenty of time to talk about other things as well.Whitewashing, the practice of casting white Caucasian actors and actresses in roles originally meant to be characters of color, is all too common in Hollywood. The Last Airbender, Pan, the upcoming Ghost in the Shell adaptation, and many, many others have demonstrated this problem. Some whitewashed only the main cast members, leaving them inexplicably the only Caucasians among populations (including supposed blood relatives), while others hired white extras as well except possibly a token POC.
Disney just announced it will develop a live-action Mulan film. Take a stand against whitewashing in our media. Sign this petition to tell Disney that we demand to see them cast an Asian Mulan!
Mulan was based on a Chinese legend, the story of Fa/Hua Mu Lan, in which a young girl disguises herself as a man to serve as a soldier in the battle against an invasion launched by the Huns. The character, story, and fans deserve the best retelling of the story Disney can produce, and although the film was only announced March 30th, this disturbing trend of whitewashing in big-budget movies can't get a chance to take root in Mulan as well, and if any company can afford to 'risk' adapting a beloved story with a cast of POCs, it's Disney.
Another example of whitewashing in Hollywood is when heroes are portrayed by white actors while villains are characters of color. Casting a Caucasian actor as a character of color, regardless of reason ("Oh, we just want a big name attached to this movie", "Western audiences won't watch a movie about Asian people", etc) has a direct, harmful impact on not only the movie itself, but the audience, as well as POC members of the acting community.
Often, the casting of non-POCs in POC roles can be confusing in both appearance (in TLA, two of the main characters were white siblings in a tribe played otherwise entirely by Inuit actors), plot, and general feel of a movie's authenticity. For the audience, whitewashing implies that POCs cannot be heroes (although they may at times be villains or supporting characters), leaving it far more difficult for countless children around the world to see themselves in the stories they love and think that they, too, can make a difference.
Children benefit from finding themselves represented in fiction, which is part of why campaigns such as #weneeddiversebooks are so vital. It also perpetuates a standard of beauty and goodness wherein whites are considered the ideal and norm despite that not only are Americans diverse, but the entire world is. As for the acting community, keeping diverse actors out of what should be diverse roles severely limits the number of roles they can get, especially a potentially name-making role such as Mulan's eponymous character would surely be.
Take a stand against whitewashing in our media. Sign this petition to tell Disney that we demand to see them cast an Asian Mulan!Figuring out how to walk quickly from A to B is easy. Just plug two addresses into your favorite map app, and off you go. But sometimes getting to a place as quickly as possible isn’t the priority. At least, so thought Barcelona-based Yahoo! Labs researcher Daniele Quercia (TED Talk: Happy maps). Along with two colleagues, Rossano Schifanella and Luca Maria Aiello, he decided to try and code a mapping algorithm that could recommend a “happy” route.
What? How? By using metadata from social media photos and by getting thousands of volunteers to vote on images of a city’s streets, the team built a model that can suggest beautiful, quiet and happy routes. So far, they’ve applied the happy model to high-trafficked areas of Berlin, Boston, London and Torino. Take a look:
Fast route: 4 kilometers (47 minutes)
Happy route: 4.5 kilometers (55 minutes)
Why this’ll make you happy: The happy path takes you from the city’s Humboldt University, where you can browse in one of the country’s largest college libraries. The short route plows along the traffic-filled Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse and Karl-Marx-Allee, while the happy route takes you through a beautiful tree-lined plaza by St. Mary’s, one of the oldest churches in Berlin, and through Alexanderplatz, Berlin’s iconic commercial city center. You’ll end up at the community center and arts space called Alte Feuerwache (the Old Firehouse).
Fast route: 1.5 kilometers (17 minutes)
Happy route: 1.5 kilometers (19 minutes)
Why this’ll make you happy: As you walk from the historic home of colonial American patriot Paul Revere to the gold-domed state capital, skip the shortest route, which goes along car-lined Sudbury and Somerset Streets, and instead take a walk past two city landmarks. Faneuil Hall has been a meeting place and marketplace since 1742 — check out the grasshopper weathervane that still sits on top of the building. This route, just two minutes longer, also takes you past the Old State House and the square where a confrontation between British soldiers and an angry mob turned deadly … and sparked a revolution.
Fast route: 4.0 kilometers (46 minutes)
Happy route: 4.5 kilometers (53 minutes)
Why this’ll make you happy: The shortest path from the Euston Square Underground station to the Tate Modern gallery starts by taking you along busy Gower Street. But add six minutes to your route, and you can wend your way to the modern art on a quieter path: Saunter along the parallel, less busy Gordon Street and walk past Gordon and Russell Squares. Instead of taking the Strand, full of people and cars, walk along historic and beautiful Fleet Street, the storied former home of London’s newspaper industry.
Fast route: 1.5 kilometers (18 minutes)
Happy route: 2.0 kilometers (25 minutes)
Why this’ll make you happy: The Mole Antonelliana in Torino, or Turin, is a 19th-century tower with a museum of cinema inside. Spend a couple hours looking at old Italian movie posters, then walk over to the Piazza della Repubblica, also called Porta Palazzo, to check out what’s possibly the largest street market in Europe. The shortest path takes Corso San Maurizio and Corso Regina Margherita, two of the most trafficked roads in the city. By contrast, the happy path takes seven extra minutes and passes through Giardini Reali, the gardens behind the Royal Palace, and around Piazza Castello, the historic main square, where you can spend some time in the 13th-century Madama Palace before completing your route through the small stone streets of the Roman quarter.
Featured image via iStock.The small increase in Europe’s allotment is sure to disappoint fans and federations there, but it is in line with what Aleksander Ceferin, the president of UEFA, Europe’s governing body of soccer, had demanded for the continent. In an interview with The New York Times in February, Ceferin said that he was more concerned with keeping European teams apart in the early rounds of the expanded tournament.
“Two or three of our member nations suggested to me that we ask for 20 or 24 teams, and if we have to settle for 16, then O.K., but I do not want to push it,” Ceferin said. “I said that we should be realistic. To say that we want half the teams at the World Cup would look arrogant to me.”
“Sixteen teams and each European team in a different group is the red line,” he added. “That is what we will insist on. The others are still discussing. That will happen, or we will make things quite complicated.”
On Thursday, Ceferin, a member of the FIFA committee that came up with the recommendations, pronounced UEFA “satisfied” with the plan.
“We feel that UEFA will be fairly represented with a total of 16 national associations competing in the new format of the World Cup,” he said. “We look forward to this proposal being ratified by the FIFA Council.”Even after every recruit signed, after players were drafted, and after (nearly) every coaching change was made, college basketball news impacting the 2012-13 season continued to break through the late summer and early fall.
From Jim Calhounâs retirement, to eligibility issues at UCLA and Kentucky, to NCAA concerns at Duke and North Carolina, weâre here to keep you up to date.
Hereâs a rundown of 20 offseason news events impacting the upcoming basketball season:
A RETIRING LEGEND
1. Jim Calhoun retires. In the biggest college basketball news of the offseason, Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun retired after 873 carer wins and three national titles. The Huskies program is turned over to assistant and first-time head coach Kevin Ollie, who will try to piece together a season with a handful of challenges including a postseason ban, a one-year contract for Ollie, and a roster depleted by transfers and NBA Draft early entries. The lack of a long-term commitment to Ollie hasnât harmed recruiting yet as Jabari Parker, one of the top prospects in the class of 2013, added UConn to his list of prospective schools after a visit with the new Huskies coach.
Related: Whatâs next for UConn without Calhoun?
NCAA-ISH ISSUES
2. Duke dodges an NCAA issue again. The possibility of an NCAA violation at Duke was raised when former player Lance Thomas, a starter on the 2010 title-winning team, was sued for not repaying a $68,000 loan to purchase jewelry in 2009-10. Thomas settled the lawsuit, meaning the NCAA will not have access to court records to determine if the loan would have impacted Thomasâ eligibility. The NCAA has begun an inquiry, but Thomas told The Washington Post he will âeventuallyâ speak with the NCAA. As a former athlete, he is not required to do so.
Related: Duke team preview
3. North Carolinaâs academic scandal. New details of the academic scandal at North Carolina seem to trickle out every day, though the spotlight has not focused on the basketball program specifically. What started as an investigation into fraud and no-show classes in the African and African-American Studies department also seeped into other academic programs. The Naval Weapons Systems course in the Department of Naval Science was found to have a disproportionate amount of athletes enrolled, including six basketball players in 2007. Although the NCAA initially stated it would not take action on academic issues at North Carolina, NCAA president Mark Emmert told CBSSports.com the organization is continuing to monitor the situation in Chapel Hill. Chancellor Holden Thorp already announced he will resign at the end of the 2012-13 school year. Meanwhile, Tami Hansbrough, the mother of former Tar Heels star Tyler Hansbrough, resigned from her role as a fundraiser when an audit revealed she and Matt Kupec, a North Carolina vice chancellor, billed the university for personal trips. Kupec also resigned. Tami Hansbrough was hired as the associate director of development in the dentistry school during her sonâs senior year. Her move to a fundraising role and the personal trips occurred after Tyler Hansbrough left school.
4. Texas Southern feels NCAAâs wrath. From one end of the college basketball spectrum (Duke and North Carolina) to the other. The NCAA levied series sanctions on Texas Southern of the SWAC, stepping just short of the death penalty. Texas Southern allowed players across 13 sports over the course of seven years compete and receive financial aid while ineligible. The basketball program, which has played in the NCAA Tournament just once since 1995, was banned from the postseason and vacated all wins across all sports from 2006-10. The basketball coach to clean up the mess left by Tony Harvey, who resigned after he was accused of providing misleading information to investigators? Former UAB and Indiana coach Mike Davis.
CONFERENCE REALIGNMENT
5. Notre Dame. Before Jim Calhounâs retirement, Notre Dameâs move to the ACC in all sports but football was the biggest news of the offseason. This is more of a football development, including four games per year between the Irish and ACC teams and a drift away from the Big Ten, but it has clear basketball implications as well. Mike Brey has rebuilt Notre Dame basketball into a consistent NCAA Tournament team which should contribute to the depth of a 15-team ACC. Without Notre Dame basketball, the Big East will remain a 17-team league when it expands in 2013-14.
Related: Notre Dame team preview
COACH HEALTH SCARES
6. Roy Williamsâ cancer scare. The North Carolina coach had surgery in late September to remove a tumor from his right kidney but was relieved to find it was not cancerous. Williams was also scheduled to have a biopsy on a tumor on his left kidney, but doctors said in a news release it was unlikely for the other tumor to be cancerous.
Related: North Carolina team preview
7. Rick Majerus' departure. The Saint Louis coach has battled health concerns for much of his career, but the latest caused him to unexpectedly walk away from one of the Atlantic 10âs top teams. The school announced in late August that Majerus would miss the season while undergoing treatment and evaluations for a heart condition. Assistant Jim Crews, a former head coach at Army and Evansville, was promoted to interim coach. With one year left on his contract, this could be the final season for Majerus at Saint Louis and perhaps his career.
8. Billy Gillispieâs resignation. Texas Techâs season was bad enough on the court in Gillispieâs first season. Turns out things were worse behind the scenes for the former Kentucky and Texas A&M coach. A report from CBS Sports detailed mistreatment of players and support staff in addition to difficulties with current and potential assistants and staffers. The report indicated practices of eight hours in a day and in excess of the NCAA-mandated 20-hour limit in addition to Gillsipie forcing players to practice while injured. On Aug. 31, Gillispie was hospitalized for six days and was later treated for kidney problems and abnormal headaches. He resigned citing health concerns, turning the program over to interim coach Chris Walker.
ELIGIBILITY WATCH
9. Shabazz Muhammad and Kyle Anderson, UCLA. Neither of the Bruinsâ two freshman centerpieces have been cleared by the NCAA. Muhammadâs delay is due to alleged impermissible benefits from the brother of an assistant coach at his high school and a financial planner related to his AAU team. The investigation forced UCLA to leave Muhammad home during an exhibition trip to China. The NCAA is investigating Andersonâs relationship with an agent though Anderson did participate in the China trip.
Related: Arrival of top freshmen leads UCLA makeover
10. Nerlens Noel, Kentucky. After delaying his enrollment when he reclassified from the class of 2012 to 2013, Noel became the subject of an NCAA inquiry related to how he paid for unofficial visits during the recruiting process, according to SI.com. Kentucky coach John Calipari recently said heâs confident Noel will be cleared after the inquiry.
11. Rodney Purvis, NC State. The Wolfpackâs star freshman guard was cleared to play after the NCAA examined his high school transcript. Purvis did not join NC State on an exhibition trip to Spain.
Related: NC State team preview
12. Ricky Ledo, Providence. The full Ed Cooley-rebuilding project will be on hold for a year as a his freshman guard sits outs as a partial qualifier. Ledo can practice but cannot play in any games this season. Highly touted point guard Kris Dunn also joined Ledo in Cooley's recruiting class, but Dunn is nursing a shoulder injury to give the Friars a shorthanded roster early in the season.
13. Notre Dame Prep. Marylandâs Sam Cassell Jr. and Xavierâs Myles Davis, both freshmen, were ruled ineligible related to coursework at Notre Dame Prep, a program whose classes the NCAA had been monitoring. Adding to the confusion, eight other teammates who took similar classes were cleared, drawing harsh criticism from Cassell's father, former NBA player Sam Cassell.
TRANSFERS
14. Dez Wells, Xavier to Maryland. Wells did not transfer per se, but he did change schools. The former Xavier starter was expelled after he was accused of sexual assault, but prosecutors declined to pursue the case and publicly disputed the actions of Xavierâs conduct board. After considering Kentucky, Memphis and Oregon, Wells chose Maryland. An NCAA waiver to make him eligible this season has been requested.
15. Arsalan Kazemi, Rice to Oregon. One of the best players in Conference USA but languishing at Rice transferred to Oregon, where a hardship waiver may allow him to play this season.
DISMISSALS
16. Reggie Moore, Washington State. The Cougars dismissed their senior guard and third-leading scorer for a violation of team rules, putting more pressure on unheralded center Brock Motum.
17. Kyle Casey and Brandyn Curry, Harvard. The Crimsonâs hopes to return to the NCAA Tournament received a major blow when its co-captains were accused of being part of a cheating scandal including both athletes and non-athletes. Both were expected to withdraw from school, leaving Harvard with only one returning starter.
18. Chrishawn Hopkins, Butler. Brad Stevens dismissed his third-leading scorer for the dreaded undisclosed violation of team rules.
POLICE BLOTTER
19. LIU Brooklyn. LIU Brooklynâs top three scorers, including NEC Player of the Year Julian Boyd, were among four arrested on third-degree assault charges stemming from a fight at an on-campus party. All four, including Athlon All-NEC forward Jamal Olaswere, were suspended for the first two games and placed on school probation.
AND FOR 2013-14...
20. Kentuckyâs recruiting (t)wins. Guards Andrew and Aaron Harrison, twins from Richmond (Texas), continued to make John Calipari look unbeatable on the recruiting trail when the two top-five prospects in the 2013 class committed to Kentucky. The decision was considered to be a close one between Kentucky and Maryland. A major factor in Maryland being in the mix was reported to be Under Armourâs sponsorship of the Harrisonsâ AAU team, coached by the twinsâ father. Under Armour also has a partnership with Maryland. But again, Kentucky walks away a winner.
Follow @AthlonSports
Athlon College Basketball 2012-13 Preseason Countdown So Far:
20. Florida
19. Notre Dame
18. Memphis
17. Baylor
16. Missouri
15. San Diego State
14. North Carolina
13. UNLV
12. UCLA
11. NC State
10. Michigan State
9. Duke
8. Ohio State
7. Arizona
6. Michigan
5. SyracuseA White House Cabinet secretary under former President Barack Obama Barack Hussein ObamaChicago's next mayor will be a black woman Obama portraits brought more than 1 million visitors to National Portrait Gallery in first year With low birth rate, America needs future migrants MORE took an implicit swipe at Trump administration officials on Friday, saying he didn't know of anyone in the Obama White House that needed to hire a lawyer.
"I served 4 years in the Obama White House. I never hired a lawyer, and I don't know anyone who did," Chris Lu, who also served as a deputy secretary of Labor under Obama, wrote on Twitter. "Just thought I'd point that out."
I served 4 years in the Obama White House. I never hired a lawyer, and I don't know anyone who did.
Just thought I'd point that out. — Chris Lu (@ChrisLu44) July 14, 2017
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President Trump Donald John TrumpREAD: Cohen testimony alleges Trump knew Stone talked with WikiLeaks about DNC emails Trump urges North Korea to denuclearize ahead of summit Venezuela's Maduro says he fears 'bad' people around Trump MORE and some senior officials in his administration have hired outside attorneys to help them navigate the shaky legal ground surrounding the special counsel and congressional probes into Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
In May, Trump hired attorney Marc Kasowitz to head the team of outside lawyers helping him with the Russia probes. Also on that team is Jay Sekulow, an attorney well-known for his work defending Christian conservative causes who has defended Trump on television.
More recently, Trump's eldest son Donald Trump Jr. hired a lawyer to represent him after it was revealed that he met last year with a Russian attorney who was presented as having damaging information about his father's Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonREAD: Cohen testimony alleges Trump knew Stone talked with WikiLeaks about DNC emails County GOP in Minnesota shares image comparing Sanders to Hitler Holder: 'Time to make the Electoral College a vestige of the past' MORE.WASHINGTON, Oct. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- What: The public and members of the media are invited to learn how to use and access U.S. Census Bureau statistics to make informed decisions about their communities. Discussions will include preparations for the 2020 Census as well as ongoing survey operations and innovations in Puerto Rico.
U.S. Census Bureau Logo.
The Census Bureau will participate in a two-day hackathon and a series of data workshops in partnership with Universidad del Sagrado Corazón and Code 4 Puerto Rico. The goal is to challenge civic hackers, programmers and developers to apply multiple open datasets — using, for example, economic, environmental, social, transportation, housing, education and health care statistics — to address economic, social and sustainability challenges.
The hackathon will take place Oct. 8-9 and aims to encourage the use of locally open datasets provided by the Institute of Statistics of Puerto Rico and the Census Bureau's application program interfaces and City Software Development Kit, an open-source tool making datasets more accessible than ever for developers.
To register for the hackathon, click here.
Additionally, ¡Puerto Rico Cuenta! (Puerto Rico Counts!) is a one-day conference about data usage that will take place Oct. 14, 2016, in partnership with the Instituto de Estadísticas de Puerto Rico and Universidad del Sagrado Corazón. This event will include a series of data workshops focusing on data for public and private sectors, organizations, academia and the public.
For more information and to register for ¡Puerto Rico Cuenta!, click here.
Hackathon
When: Saturday, Oct. 8, 2016, from 8 a.m.-11 p.m. Atlantic Standard Time
Sunday, Oct. 9, 2016, from 9:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Atlantic Standard Time
Who: Developers (civic and social hackers/programmers), university students and faculty, academia, public and private sector, media
Where: Universidad del Sagrado Corazón (Sacred Heart University)
Centro de Innovación Colaborativa and Studio Labs
C11 Sagrado Corazon De Jesus
San Juan, 00912, Puerto Rico
RSVP: Media who plan to attend should contact the Census Bureau's Public Information Office at pio@census.gov or 301-763-3030 by 1 p.m. (EDT) Friday, Oct. 7.
¡Puerto Rico Cuenta! (Puerto Rico Counts!) Press Conference
When: Friday, Oct. 14, 2016, from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Atlantic Standard Time
Where: Universidad del Sagrado Corazón (Sacred Heart University)
Innovation Center
C11 Sagrado Corazon De Jesus
San Juan, 00912, Puerto Rico
RSVP: Media who plan to attend should contact the Census Bureau's Public Information Office at pio@census.gov or 301-763-3030 by 1 p.m. (EDT) Thursday, Oct. 13.
For media who are interested in an interview, please contact the Census Bureau's Public Information Office at pio@census.gov or 301-763-3030.
Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110428/DC91889LOGO
SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau
Related Links
http://www.census.govJosh Elliott, CTVNews.ca
The incoming head of the Public Health Agency of Canada says he wants to step up efforts to fight the Ebola outbreak.
Dr. Gregory Taylor, Canada’s newly-appointed chief medical officer, says he wants to send more mobile clinics, more doctors and more medical supplies to West Africa, where thousands have died from Ebola.
On his first day on the job Wednesday, Taylor told CTV’s Ottawa Bureau chief Robert Fife that he aims to dispatch special medical teams to respond to the Ebola crisis in Sierra Leone. Taylor also said he wants to create more Ebola treatment clinics, and he hopes to use Canadian military aircraft to send more medical supplies and protective gear to West Africa.
“Every option is on the table right now,” Taylor said. “I expect something shortly, but we are looking at all the various options.”
More than 2,800 people have died of Ebola in Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia, Senegal and Nigeria since the outbreak began earlier this summer. About 5,800 cases have been reported, but it’s believed many more cases exist in parts of those countries where medical workers cannot go.
The virus has severely taxed healthcare services in the hardest-hit countries of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. Individuals with treatable diseases like malaria have had difficulty seeing a doctor, and some have died as a result.
“We have to scale up the treatment beds,” said Steve Cornish, a spokesperson for Medecin San Frontieres. “There are not enough doctors or nurses locally to do this, so we have to get teams from outside.”
MSF says Canada has been one of the most supportive countries for the healthcare effort in West Africa.
But that hasn’t always been the case, according to Carolyn McAskie, former assistant secretary general at the United Nations. McAskie says the Harper government missed its chance to strengthen Sierra Leone’s infrastructure in 2011, when it failed to follow up on a UN commitment to bring aid to the country.
McAskie says Canada committed to helping Sierra Leone, but “did nothing.”
With files from CTV Ottawa's Bureau Chief Robert Fife “Anna & Elsa’s Royal Welcome” parades through Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
The phenomenal success of Walt Disney World’s “Frozen Summer Fun” program at Disney’s Hollywood Studios prompted a four-week extension beyond its original closing date of September 1 and the promise of more Frozen-inspired delights ahead.
A Disney announcement last month stated that Queen Elsa and Princess Anna, along with Kristoff the iceman, Olaf the snowman and other Frozen characters, would return to more than one Disney park in the near future. After all, a sold-out Broadway show rarely closes its run, and the same has proven true of the sold-out summer attractions inspired by the highest-grossing animated film of all time.
Thomas Staggs, chairman of Disney Parks & Resorts announced in his “Disney Parks Blog” that construction would begin on a new and permanent Frozen ride at the Norway Pavilion in Epcot later this year. Additionally, several Frozen attractions will appear this holiday season in the Magic Kingdom and the Hollywood Studios.
“We’ve made ‘Frozen’ a part of the guest experience in a number of ways already and our guests have both loved them and asked for more,” writes Staggs. “So I’m pleased to say that we’re starting construction at Walt Disney World Resort on a brand new ‘Frozen’ attraction at the Norway Pavilion in Epcot. The new attraction, which replaces Maelstrom, will take our guests to Arendelle and immerse them in many of their favorite moments and music from the film. The pavilion will also include a royal greeting location where Anna and Elsa can meet our guests. We think these ‘Frozen’ elements are great complements to the Norway Pavilion, which showcases the country and region that inspired the film.”
Kristoff at the parade
‘Frozen’-Inspired Events This Christmas Season
Frozen fans in Disney’s Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios, however, need not wait until the Norway ride opens in 2017 in Epcot. Starting this November, according to Staggs’ announcement, Queen Elsa will use her powers each night to transform Cinderella Castle into an ice palace, and Magic Kingdom guests at Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party will see Anna, Elsa, Kristoff and Olaf appear in Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmastime Parade.
The royal sisters who attracted throngs of cheering fans during their Royal Welcome coronation parade this summer reportedly will also participate in Disney’s Festival of Fantasy Parade in Fantasyland this winter. (Whether or not they will be making appearances at Princess Fairytale Hall, where they took up residence alongside the likes of Cinderella and Rapunzel during the “Frozen Summer Fun” program, has not yet been determined.)
Additionally, Hollywood Studios guests will see an extended version of the wildly popular “Frozen Live – For the First Time in Forever: a Frozen Sing-Along Celebration,” according to Staggs. There will continue to be a Frozen-related attraction called “Wandering Oaken’s Frozen Funland,” a holdover from the summer program with a few enhancements. The ice-covered play area will be enlarged and moved closer to the Sing-Along Celebration in Hollywood Studios’ Premier Theater. During our visit, children made small snowmen and ice castles in a snow play area, and young and old alike skated on a large ice rink.
Travel agents who are unfamiliar with the Frozen phenomenon (as was this writer before experiencing it firsthand during a recent “Grand Adventure” weekend) may want to do quick research, starting with a viewing of the film and a study of its upcoming Walt Disney World attractions. This may be the best opportunity to earn long-term Disney clients by making them among the first to experience the energy surrounding its superstar characters.
We spoke with a father in a family of four from Indiana waiting in line for public transportation in Hollywood Studios who may have accurately summed up fan sentiment. “Anna and Elsa are this new generation’s Cinderella,” said the father. “When these kids are older they will look back at these characters in the same way we look back at our earlier favorite Disney characters.”
Frozen Sing-Along
Among the “Frozen Summer Fun” experiences sure to be available this holiday season, the aforementioned Sing-Along Celebration ranks as a memory maker. Anna, Elsa, Kristoff, Olaf and two “historians” from the Frozen kingdom of Arendelle appear live on stage and present the film’s highlights on the movie screen behind them, along with each song’s lyrics displayed in subtitles.
Young audience members’ reactions to Anna and Elsa were comparable to a rock star concert greeting, and their lusty group-singing of the film’s songs created an electric vibe throughout the theater. Young singers, many of whom recited film dialogue as well as song lyrics by heart, raised the volume when time came to wail the now-famous “Let It Go” with Queen Elsa.
How long Anna and Elsa’s reign at Walt Disney World will last is unknown. However, with the scheduled spring 2015 release of a new animated short, Frozen Fever, a return engagement next summer or winter doesn’t appear to be out of the question.WASHINGTON ― Democrats left President Donald Trump’s first address to Congress feeling less like they’d watched a presidential speech and more like they’d wandered into an alternate universe.
Yes, they are still disappointed 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was not standing before the assembled lawmakers. But they’ve moved beyond the November loss and now find themselves wrestling with a reality that, to put it bluntly, they find bizarre, and even threatening.
“It was a surreal experience,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told The Huffington Post moments after Trump’s address. “We have a reality show host in the White House masquerading as the president of the United States of America and half the country is still in complete shock.”
For freshman Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a constitutional law professor who won election in November, it was unlike anything he’s ever heard.
“To me, it actually felt a little bit like The Hunger Games at points. There was something kind of dystopian, science fiction about the experience,” he said. “I looked up and I saw [former House Speaker] Newt Gingrich and suddenly I felt that I was transported to a different world.”
Raskin added that Trump’s remarks were “toned down” compared to the “blood and gore and American carnage” in the president’s inaugural address.
“But the basic Steve Bannon program was still there,” he said, referring to Trump’s controversial chief strategist.
Pressed on if there was anything they liked in Trump’s speech, several Democrats said his call for paid family leave but nothing else. And the lack of specifics didn’t surprise or sadden them.
“Depressing? “It wasn’t. It was almost surreal,” Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) said. “This is someone who came from the reality show environment. That’s his platform.”
Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.), the House Democratic Caucus Chair, also felt the entire day was “surreal.”
“This president gives me a raison d’être to wake up every morning and say, ‘What has he said today and how can I go after him?’” Crowley said. “I’ve got news for him this is not reality TV, this is the real deal.”
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) went into the chamber Tuesday night with little hope that Trump would strike a unifying tone.
“One of the things we’ve learned in the last 15 months ― don’t be surprised by what Donald Trump does,” Hoyer told HuffPost. “He almost always does what you don’t expect, and does what you don’t think he ought to be doing.”
If anything, Democrats appeared energized. The address Trump gave Tuesday won’t quell the unrest that has sprouted up in their states across the country.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) emailed a one-word statement after the speech: “Resist.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) admitted there were rough days after election, but he appeared eager for the fights that are ahead of Democrats under Trump’s presidency.
“When Hillary first lost, I was shocked. And I taught my daughters — they were shocked too, one of them was working for Hillary — and I taught them the old Shirelles song, ‘Mama said there’d be days like this, there’d be days like this my mama said,’” Schumer said.
But then he said he had an epiphany-like moment during the first week of Trump’s presidency that had Clinton won the election, they’d have fun and “get more good things done.” “But with Trump as president and with me as minority leader, my job was much more important because we were the backstop, just about the only one to Donald Trump,” he added. “And that steeled me.”
Pointing to the debate raging over Trump’s plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act as one example, Schumer said, Democrats are succeeding. “We’re on offense and my prediction is that odds are greater than |
Live" in 1997-98.
Here is a look at the longest top 10 streaks in the Hot 100's history:
Most Consecutive Weeks in the Billboard Hot 100's top 10
69 weeks, Katy Perry, 2010-11
61 weeks, The Chainsmokers, 2016-17
51 weeks, Drake, 2015-16
48 weeks, Ace of Base, 1993-94
46 weeks, Rihanna, 2010-11
While The Chainsmokers own the mark for the longest top 10 streak on the Hot 100 among duos or groups, having bested Ace of Base's 48-week span in 1993-94, Perry retains the overall mark, thanks to five hits from her 2010 album Teenage Dream: "California Gurls," featuring Snoop Dogg; the title cut; "Firework"; "E.T.," featuring Kanye West; and "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)" All five songs topped the Hot 100, making the set only the second with a quintet of No. 1s, after Michael Jackson's Bad in 1987-88.
The Chainsmokers can now look to start a new streak: Their latest single, "Honest," is now being promoted (by their label, Columbia Records) to pop radio.The weekend was a good one for the Florida Gators softball and baseball teams, which each advanced a round in their respective 2015 NCAA Tournament.
No. 1 softball moved on to the 2015 Women’s College World Series Championship Series where it will face No. 5 Michigan – beginning Monday evening – in an effort to defend its 2014 national title. The Gators got there by routing Tennessee 7-2 on Thursday, shutting out LSU 4-0 on Friday and edging Auburn 3-2 in nine innings on Sunday.
No. 4 baseball’s weekend was less dramatic. On the way to winning the Gainesville Regional, Florida routed Florida A&M 19-0 on Friday, pushed passed South Florida 8-2 on Saturday and squeaked out a 2-1 win against Florida Atlantic on Sunday. UF will host Super Regional action this week against the winner of the Tallahassee Regional.
Normally, a highlight or two would come from such an high-pressure weekend. As it turns out, there were more than enough over the last few days to fill a top 10 list. With that in mind, let’s check out the top Gators plays of the weekend.
With multiple Vines and videos on the page, please allow a minute to load.
10. Senior right-handed pitcher Lauren Haeger was a monster on the mound all weekend. But while she was dominating as a hurler, she also powered a ball out of the park at the plate. The homer was Florida’s go-ahead run in Haeger’s 4-0 shutout of LSU and the 70th of the slugger’s career.
Florida's Lauren Haeger proves double threat http://t.co/XzfC03squk — espnwnews (@espnWnews) May 30, 2015
9. Senior shortstopwas aggravated by runners being on base, so she decided to get the Gators out of the inning on her own.
And a HOME RUN ties it up! Taylore Fuller leads off the 4th with a long ball! Gators & Tigers are knotted 2-2. #WCWS pic.twitter.com/dfu53sv8wO — NCAA Softball (@NCAAsoftball) May 31, 2015
8. Just minutes after Florida softball was handed its first deficit of the entire NCAA Tournament, junior third basemanrocketed a line drive out of the park to tie the game 2-2. (No video of the play, so we look at the celebration.)7. We will come back to this pairing later, but junior center fielderand junior catcherdid this twice on Sunday, this somehow being the least impressive of the two defensive plays.
6. Just before lightning forced a delay in Sunday’s Gainesville Regional final, junior SSended the eighth inning with this 360-degree 6-4 effort.
5. Trying to match his teammate (see No. 3 below), junior left fielderlaid out for this terrific catch.
4. Medina turned an RBI into an inning-ending out on Sunday, one of many impressive plays she made over the weekend (see No. 9).
3. Sophomore center fieldermade this insane diving catch in the opening game of the Gainesville Regional to rob FAMU of an extra-base hit.
2. Haeger and the Gators were in trouble early on Sunday … until Merritt and Munro hooked up on an 8-2 put-out to clear a bases loaded jam and end the inning with a play at the plate.
1. With Florida 0-for-11 with runners in scoring position Sunday, freshman LFcame through with a huge walk-off RBI to send the Gators to the WCWS Championship Series.The Palm TouchPad is shown on a screen during a media presentation at Herbst Pavilion at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco, in this file picture taken February 9, 2011. REUTERS/Beck Deifenbach/Files
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Hewlett Packard Co will begin selling its TouchPad on July 1 in the United States for $499.99, debuting the first tablet computer powered by Palm’s operating software.
Jumping into the tablet computer craze triggered by Apple Inc’s iPad, HP said on Thursday it start taking orders on June 19 in North America and Europe.
The Wi-Fi version of the gadget hits store shelves July 1 in the United States, followed by Britain, Ireland, France and Germany a few days after.
Canada gets the tablet, run on Palm’s WebOS operating system, in mid-July, followed by Italy, Spain, Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Singapore later in 2011.
HP bought Palm last summer for $1.2 billion, hoping to combine its WebOS software with a plethora of devices from smartphones to printers, gambling that there is room for yet another mobile software platform.
HP faces an uphill battle in a mobile market already dominated by Apple and devices based on Google Inc’s Android.Whenever someone is in the celebrity spotlight, trolls just seem to come out of the woodwork to tell them their "insert film, song, show, play, comic, or video game title here" is terrible, not worth anyone's time, and that they should feel bad for doing whatever it is they do.
That nausea inducing trait was evidenced again yesterday, when Harley Quinn Smith posted a photo of herself on Instagram, and amidst the normal likes and shares, someone just had to be different and decided to say some rather heinous things to her for sharing a photo of herself on a...wait for it...social media outlet that centers around sharing photos.
Harley's dad, Kevin Smith, decided to address it in a lengthy but worthwhile Facebook post, and we've included his words in their entirety. "What it's like to be my daughter: 17 year old @harleyquinnsmith_ received this message simply for the heinous crime of posting a pic of herself on @instagram. I have zero clue what the reference to #TheMatrix is all about but, wow - way to unload on a teen girl because YOU have nothing to do in life. But even though I should be apoplectic about it, my kid thought it was funny. "I'd be mad if I had a tiny d*** and anonymous voice too," she said, bemused by the bitterness. But here's a nickel's worth of free advice for folks like this Troll: if you hate me (or my kid) this much, the better use of your time is to make YOUR dreams come true, instead of slamming others for doing the same. The best revenge is living insanely well - so if you wanna get back at a 17 year old girl for the grievous crime of enjoying her life, the best way to do it is to succeed in your OWN existence. Show the world WHY we should be paying attention to you instead of anyone else. Because randomly attacking others merely communicates how creatively and emotionally bankrupt you are. You think you have something to offer the world but others are getting all the attention? Don't b**** or punish the world: just create. Create something nobody's ever seen before and there is a good chance the world will notice you. Attacking teen girls on the Internet is the saddest form of masturbation that exists and requires no discernible skill or talent. You want attention? Don't make yourself mad, make something original and fun. Because if you're not being useful in this world you're being useless. Don't be useless: go make stuff that makes people happy! #KevinSmith #HarleyQuinnSmith"Texas A&M's big 24-point win over South Carolina on Thursday night paid off to the tune of more than $1 million for some Aggies fans.
The Ashley Furniture branch located in College Station, where Texas A&M is based, offered all furniture purchased from Aug. 16 through Aug. 27 for free if the Aggies beat the Gamecocks by at least 10 points.
Mark Wilks, who owns the store, told ESPN.com on Thursday night that more than 600 people bought items during that time period totaling more than $1 million in sales. One customer, Wilks said, bought $20,000 worth of furniture.
"We've wanted to do this for three or four years now," said Wilks, whose store is an official sponsor of Aggies athletics. "This was really good for us."
Wilks said that thanks to the promotion, his store had its best month of sales in the eight years it has been open.
The furniture store is not going out of business thanks to fact that Wilks took out insurance. With the Aggies a 10½-point underdog, Wilks was able to get the insurance relatively cheap. He says he'll pay the insurance company roughly 15 percent of the total that they will reimburse to customers.
Said Wilks: "We're going to have a big check-writing party at the store."
Furniture stores have been popular businesses when it comes to sports giveaways.
Massachusetts-based Jordan's Furniture famously gave away more than $30 million in furniture when the Boston Red Sox won the World Series in 2007. Houston-based Gallery Furniture said the Seattle Seahawks' Super Bowl win in February resulted in giving back $7 million in sales.
Jordan's had insurance on the promotion; Gallery Furniture said it did not.AP Photo Florida gubernatorial candidate on Charlottesville blame: 'I wasn't there'
Florida’s newest Republican candidate for governor, state Sen. Jack Latvala, would not comment Wednesday on whether he believes white supremacists were completely to blame for the violent, racially charged protests in Charlottesville that claimed three lives.
Latvala, the Florida Senate’s budget chief, demurred when asked whether President Donald Trump’s comments on Tuesday were sufficient, after the president apportioned blame for the violence on the “alt-left” as well as neo-Nazis.
Story Continued Below
“I was traveling yesterday,” Latvala told reporters, after launching his campaign in the Miami-area city of Hialeah. “If I didn’t listen to it, how do I know if he sufficiently did it? All of us who look at this responsibly denounced it. Specifically, what he said yesterday I can’t comment on unless I saw it.”
Latvala began his announcement by holding a moment of silence for Heather Heyer, the liberal activist who was killed when a driver plowed into the protesters, and the two state troopers, H. Jay Cullen and Berke Bates, who died in a related helicopter crash.
The issue of whether Trump adequately denounced neo-Nazis became a major Republican issue in Florida after U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio took to Twitter and rebutted Trump by saying “the organizers of events which inspired & led to #charlottesvilleterroristattack are 100% to blame for a number of reasons.”
Rubio posted six Twitter messages in all and closed with an appeal to Trump.
“Mr. President,you can't allow #WhiteSupremacists to share only part of blame.They support idea which cost nation & world so much pain,” Rubio wrote. “The #WhiteSupremacy groups will see being assigned only 50% of blame as a win. We can not allow this old evil to be resurrected.”
Asked whether the neo-Nazis were 100 percent to blame, Latvala said: “I wasn’t there. I condemn all violence of people that are protesting. If people are peacefully exercising their rights — whether they be white supremacists or whether they be Black Lives Matter folks — they have a right to demonstrate without having a mob attack them.”
“I wasn’t there,” Latvala reiterated. “I’ve heard a lot of different stories about what may or may not have gone down. I’m sure the president and people that are closer to it have a lot more information than I do. I’m involved in what goes on in Florida. I’m sad about what happened. I think the three people who lost their lives were innocent people. Both the cops were just doing their jobs. … Obviously, the young lady, she wasn’t doing anything wrong. That’s who we should be thinking about, not thugs.”
Heather Heyer, 32, was killed, and 19 people were injured Saturday when a car slammed into a crowd of counterprotesters. Later, two state troopers died when their helicopter crashed nearby.
Latvala said he supports the University of Florida’s decision to not allow one of the protest's organizers, Richard Spencer, to speak on campus because the costs of providing security would be astronomical.
“With what’s happened here, those security costs have probably gone up pretty high,” Latvala said.
When asked to clarify whether he was equating Black Lives Matter and neo-Nazis, Latvala said: “I said whoever it might be that’s out there protesting.”
Is that a yes or a no? “I said whoever is out there protesting, and I used a couple — I’m not supporting Nazis,” he replied, walking away from reporters.The 9/11 victims America wants to forget: The 200 jumpers who flung themselves from the Twin Towers who have been 'airbrushed from history'
Almost all of them jumped alone, although eyewitnesses talked of a couple who held hands as they fell.
One woman, in a final act of modesty, appeared to be holding down her skirt. Others tried to make parachutes out of curtains or tablecloths, only to have them wrenched from their grip by the force of their descent.
The fall was said to take about ten seconds. It would vary according to the body position and how long it took to reach terminal velocity — around 125mph in most cases, but if someone fell head down with their body straight, as if in a dive, it could be 200mph.
Horror: A person falls to their death after jumping from the north tower following the audacious terror strike which shocked the world a decade ago
When they hit the pavement, their bodies were not so much broken as obliterated.
Nothing more graphically spells out the horror of the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers than the grainy pictures of those poor souls frozen in mid-air as they fell to their deaths, tumbling in all manner of positions, after choosing to escape the suffocating smoke and dust, the flames and the steel-bending heat in the highest floors of the World Trade Centre.
And yet, tragically, they are in many ways the forgotten victims of September 11. Even now, nobody knows for certain who they were or exactly how many they numbered. Perhaps worst of all, surprisingly few even want to know.
From the earliest days after the 9/11 attacks, the American establishment and the media showed an overwhelming reluctance to dwell on those who jumped or fell from the Twin Towers.
If this was simply down to qualms at being considered intrusive or voyeuristic when individuals in the most appalling circumstances chose in desperation to die very publicly, it would be understandable.
But there are other, more complicated, reasons. In the aftermath of this attack on America’s sovereign territory — a period of intense patriotism — some considered that to choose to die rather than be killed showed a lack of courage.
And in this country of intense religious fervour, many believe that to be a ‘jumper’ was to choose suicide rather than accept the fate of God — and suicide in whatever circumstances is considered shameful or, indeed, a sin that will send you to Hell.
At the office of the New York chief medical examiner, a spokesman said this week that they did not consider these people ‘jumpers’. She insisted they fell from the 1,350ft tall, 110-floor skyscrapers, for jumping would imply suicide.
‘Jumping indicates a choice, and these people did not have that choice,’ she said. ‘That is why the deaths were ruled homicide, because the actions of other people caused them to die. The force of explosion and the fire behind them forced them out of the windows.’
Terror: An estimated 200 people jumped to their deaths to avoid being killed by the fires on 9/11
For those who have discovered that their loved ones may have been among the estimated 200 or more who plunged to their deaths, this uncomfortable official reticence can only compound the suffering they have already endured.
University administrator Jack Gentul cannot possibly imagine his late wife’s torment before she died. Alayne Gentul, mother of two and the 44-year-old vice president of an investment company, was in the South Tower and had gone up to the 97th floor to help evacuate staff after the other tower was hit. In her final moments, she rang Jack to say in labouring breaths that smoke was coming into her room through vents.
‘She said “I’m scared”,’ he tells me quietly. ‘She wasn’t a person who got scared, and I said, “Honey, it’ll be all right, it’ll be all right, you’ll get down”.’
Alayne Gentul’s remains were found in the street outside the building across from the tower — sufficiently far from the rubble to suggest she had jumped. Mr Gentul, who has since remarried, is not convinced she took that option but is clearly irked that some believe jumping was some sort of cop-out.
‘She was a very practical person who would have done whatever she could to survive,’ he explains in a quiet voice. ‘But how can anyone know what one would do in a situation like that, having to choose how you go from this Earth?’
The notion that she jumped is, indeed, consoling to Mr Gentul in some ways, in that she exercised an element of control over her death.
‘Jumping is something you can choose to do,’ he says. ‘To be out of the smoke and the heat, to be out in the air, it must have felt like flying.’
On the clear, blue morning of 9/11, investment banker Richard Pecarello watched from his office on the other side of the river as the second plane hit. His fiancée Karen Juday was working as an administrator at bond traders Cantor Fitzgerald in the North Tower.
He tried to phone her but there was no answer, and for days and weeks after he looked at photographs on the internet and wondered if she had jumped. She was vain about her face and used anti-wrinkle cream, and he was certain she would have jumped rather than face the flames.
Mr Pecarello, 59, made contact with Associated Press photographer Richard Drew, who had captured images of many of the jumpers, and asked to look through his archives. He saw a couple of photographs of a woman in cream trousers and blue top which he is convinced were of Karen.
‘There was one of her standing in a window with flames behind her and one of her falling from the building,’ Mr Pecarello says. ‘It made me feel she didn’t suffer and that she chose death on her terms rather than letting them burn her up.’
He has no time for suggestions that she took the easy way out. ‘The people who died that day weren’t soldiers. They were everyday people — parents and housewives and brothers and sisters and children,’ he says in his gruff Brooklyn accent.
Horror: The U.S. authorities have shown no interest in discovering who decided to jump rather than wait to be killed by the fire that ripped through the World Trade Center
When he tried to show the photos to Karen’s staunchly Protestant family back in Indiana, they didn’t want to know. They go by the official version, that nobody jumped.
In fact, nobody liked talking about the jumpers.
Unofficial estimates put the number of jumpers at around 200, but it is impossible to say for certain because their bodies were indistinguishable from others after the collapse of the Towers. The official account is that nearly all 2,753 victims in the Twin Towers attack officially died from ‘blunt impact’ injuries.
Ten years on, more than 1,000 have yet to be identified from remains. They were vaporised in the inferno.
After the planes hit, raging fires pushed the temperatures to 1,000c, sufficient to weaken the skyscrapers’ steel frames.
The metal conducted the heat through the building at a terrifying speed and it reached the upper floors long before the flames did.
There were reports of people having to stand on desks because the floor became so hot.
Fire experts say people rarely throw themselves out of burning high-rises until they have exhausted every other option. Indeed, as survivors desperate for fresh, cool air crowded at the windows smashed open by the force of the planes’ impact, it is possible some of the ‘jumpers’ were actually pushed out in the crush.
The only research that comes close to being an official account is buried deep in an appendix of the huge report into why the towers collapsed, conducted by the National Institute for Standards and Technology.
Grim: 2,753 died from 'blunt impact injuries' on 9/11 and it is thought that around 200 people jumped to their deaths. They would have fallen for around 10 seconds
As part of its research into where the fire was at its most intense, NIST analysed camera footage and still photographs, and counted 104 jumpers, often recording the floor and exact window from which they left.
All but three leapt from the first building to be hit — the North Tower. The second plane struck the South Tower 16 minutes later but it collapsed first, giving occupants less time to react.
The first jumper is recorded plunging from the North Tower’s 149th window of the 93rd floor on the north face of the building at 8.51am, just over four minutes after it was hit by the first hijacked Boeing 757 between the 93rd and 99th floors.
Sometimes the fallers were separated by an interval of just a second. At one point nine people fell in six seconds from five adjacent windows; at another, 13 people fell in two minutes. Twenty minutes after the building was struck, two people fell simultaneously from the same window on the 95th floor.
At least four jumpers tried to climb to other windows for safety then lost their grip. One person climbed from the 93rd floor to the 92nd, clinging to the window’s edge before falling just one second after someone else plumetted from the same window — number 215 on the east face of the tower.
The early jumpers came from the crash zone where the plane entered the building — the offices of the insurance brokers Marsh & McLennan.
The last jumper fell just as the North Tower collapsed 102 minutes after the building had been hit. Photographer Richard Drew says he has a picture of this person clinging to some debris while falling.
What drove some to jump and others to remain? Those who were in the South Tower, just 120ft away, at the time — and managed to escape — had the clearest view and may provide the best insight.
Kelly Reyher watched from the South Tower’s 78th floor as people started to fall out of ‘the hole’ the aircraft had ripped in the North Tower. To him, they looked ‘completely confused’ rather than consciously deciding to end it all.
‘It looked like they were blinded by smoke and couldn’t breathe because their hands were over their faces,’ he says. ‘They would just walk to the edge where the jagged floor was and just fall out.’
Charred remains: A huge investigation was launched following the terror tragedy - but no one has ever investigated at Ground Zero who may have jumped
Six floors below Mr Reyher, James Logozzo watched with stunned colleagues from the Morgan Stanley boardroom. He recalled that it took three or four jumpers to flash past him before he realised they were people. Then a woman fell, lying flat on her back and staring upwards. ‘The look on her face was shock. She wasn’t screaming,’ he recalled. ‘It was slow motion. After she hit the ground, there was nothing left.’
For those down below, the bodies landed with sickening, almost explosive thuds. Many said it was raining bodies.
One fireman, Danny Suhr, was killed as he made his way to the South Tower after a jumper landed on him, ‘coming out of the sky like a torpedo’ and breaking his neck. Compounding the tragedy, the priest who gave him the last rites was later killed by falling debris.
When she learnt how Danny died, his childhood sweetheart Nancy thought: how horrendous for that poor person who had to choose to jump; at least Danny did not have to make that choice. At least she had a body, for Danny’s colleagues took him to hospital after he was hit.
It was a decision that saved their lives — they would otherwise have been in the tower when it collapsed.
Firefighter Maureen McArdle-Schulman says she felt like she was intruding on a sacrament as the bodies fell. She adds: ‘They were choosing to die and I was watching them and shouldn’t have been. So me and another guy turned away and looked at a wall and we could still hear them hit.’
Bill Feehan, the deputy chief of the fire department, screamed at a man filming jumpers with a video camera: ‘Don’t you have any human decency?’
Fire battalion chief Joseph Pfeifer put out a desperate plea on the North Tower’s public address system. ‘Please don’t jump. We’re coming up for you,’ he said, not realising that nobody was listening — the system had long since been destroyed.
Images of the falling bodies disturbed and appalled all who saw them. On the first anniversary of the tragedy, an exhibition showing a work called Tumbling Woman, a bronze sculpture by artist Eric Fischl, lasted just a week in New York’s Rockefeller Centre before it was closed following protests and even bomb threats.
Human tragedy: Someone leaps from the burning World Trade Center on 9/11. It is thought that jumpers would have fallen for around 10 seconds
But one picture has become an iconic image. When a man fell at 9.41am from near the top of the North Tower, Richard Drew caught a dozen frames of his descent, including one in which he is diving vertically, arms by his sides and left leg bent at the knee. The image, all the more horrific for its desolate stillness, appeared the next day in newspapers around the world.
Dubbed the Falling Man, it prompted the media to hunt for the man’s identity. None of those who jumped from the towers has ever been officially identified and, tellingly, nobody rushed to claim Falling Man as their own.
Dark-skinned, goatee-bearded, wearing an orange T-shirt under a white shirt, he was first thought to be Norberto Hernandez, a pastry chef at the restaurant Windows on the World, on the top floors of the North Tower. His deeply religious family angrily rejected the notion, insisting that for him to have jumped would have amounted to a betrayal.
‘He was trying to come home to us and he knew he wasn’t going to make it by jumping out a window,’ his daughter Catherine says.
Grim: United Airlines Flight 175 collides into the south tower of the World Trade Center
Since then, the hunt for the Falling Man has moved on to another of the restaurant’s staff, Jonathan Briley, a 43-year-old sound engineer. The reaction of his deeply religious family has highlighted the deep moral complexities that suicide — whatever the circumstances — poses in a country where so many believe it is a sin, unforgivable by God.
Some of Mr Briley’s family have never believed he jumped, and say they were vindicated after the authorities found his largely intact body.
‘I had no idea it would give me the peace years later to know that,’ says his sister Gwendolyn. ‘If he had fallen from the 110th floor to the ground we wouldn’t have had that.’
Investment banker Richard Pecarello, 59, who tracked down that picture of his fiancee as she fell, also found peace. But for him it was in knowing that his fiancée did choose to jump. Most families have recovered no more than a fragment of bone, identified through DNA, of their loved ones, Mr Pecarello points out.
‘To me, the photo of her falling was like finding the body,’ he says. ‘I thought it was something that would help me move on. I needed to know how she died.’
When a 9/11 Memorial Museum opens at Ground Zero next year, it will have a small display dedicated to the jumpers, but reflecting the intense feelings of unease the subject has provoked, it will be tucked away in an alcove, on the grounds that the images are considered too private and too distressing.
It seems a harsh fate for those agonised mortals who faced the naked terror of that ten-second plunge to certain death. For the jumpers saved lives even as they were losing theirs.Characteristics of Abusers
If the person you love or live with does these things, its time to get help:
Keeps track of what you are doing all the time and criticizes you for little things.
Constantly accuses you of being unfaithful.
Prevents or discourages you from seeing friends or family, or going to work or school.
Gets angry when drinking alcohol or using drugs.
Controls all the money you spend.
Humiliates you in front of others.
Destroys your property or things that you care about.
Threatens to hurt you or the children or pets, or does cause hurt (by hitting, punching, slapping, kicking, or biting).
Uses or threatens to use a weapon against you.
Forces you to have sex against your will.
Blames you for his/her violent outbursts.
Characteristics of Abusers...Warning signs of potential violence:
Abuser pacing the floor
Clenching/unclenching fists
Facial expression (glaring)
Shouting/yelling
Always be conscious of your own safety needs in all interactions involving an abusive person. Do not meet privately with a violence-prone individual. If you must do so, be sure someone is available close by in case you need help.
Abusers frequently have the following characteristics:
Often blow up in anger at small incidents. He or she is often easily insulted, claiming hurt feelings when he or she is really very angry.
Are excessively jealous: At the beginning of a relationship, an abuser may claim that jealousy is a sign of his or her love. Jealousy has nothing to do with love.
Like to isolate victim: He or she may try to cut you off from social supports, accusing the people who act as your support network of "causing trouble."
Have a poor self-image; are insecure.
Blame others for their own problems.
Blame others for their own feelings and are very manipulative. An abusive person will often say "you make me mad", "youre hurting me by not doing what I ask", or "I cant help being angry".
Often are alcohol or drug abusers.
May have a family history of violence.
May be cruel to animals and/or children.
May have a fascination with weapons.
May think it is okay to solve conflicts with violence.
Often make threats of violence, breaking or striking objects.
Often use physical force during arguments.
Often use verbal threats such as, "Ill slap your mouth off", "Ill kill you", or "Ill break your neck". Abusers may try to excuse this behaviour by saying, "everybody talks like that".
May hold rigid stereotypical views of the roles of men and women. The abuser may see women as inferior to men, stupid, and unable to be a whole person without a relationship.
Are very controlling of others. Controlling behaviours often grow to the point where victims are not allowed to make personal decisions.
May act out instead of expressing themselves verbally.
May be quick to become involved in relationships. Many battered women dated or knew their abuser for less than six months before they were engaged or living together.
May have unrealistic expectations. The abuser may expect his or her partner to fulfill all his or her needs. The abusive person may say, If you love me, Im all you need- youre all I need".
May use "playful" force during sex, and/or may want to act out sexual fantasies in which the victim is helpless.
May say things that are intentionally cruel and hurtful in order to degrade, humiliate, or run down the victims accomplishments.
Tend to be moody and unpredictable. They may be nice one minute and the next minute explosive. Explosiveness and mood swings are typical of men who beat their partners.
May have a history of battering: the abuser may admit to hitting others in the past, but will claim the victim asked for it. An abuser will beat any woman he is with; situational circumstances do not make a person abusive.
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How dangerous is the abuser? Assessing lethality in an abuse situation:
Some domestic violence is life threatening. All domestic violence is dangerous, but some abusers are more likely to kill than others and some are more likely to kill at specific times. The likelihood of homicide is greater when the following factors are present:
Threats of homicide or suicide: The abuser may threaten to kill himself, the victim, the children, relatives, friends, or someone else; Plans for homicide or suicide: The more detailed the abusers plan and the more available the method, the greater the risk he will use deadly force; Weapons: The abuser possesses weapons, and has threatened to use them in the past against the victim, the children, or himself. If the abuser has a history of arson, fire should be considered a weapon; "Ownership" of the victim: The abuser says things like "If I cant have you no one can" or "I would rather see you dead than have you divorce me". The abuser believes he is absolutely entitled to the obedience and loyalty of the victim; Centrality of victim to the abuser: The abuser idolizes the victim, depending heavily on him or her to organize and sustain the abusers life, or the abuser isolates the victim from outside supports; Separation violence: The abuser believes he is about to lose the victim; Repeated calls to law enforcement: A history of violence is indicated by repeated police involvement; Escalation of risk-taking: The abuser has begun to act without regard to legal or social consequences that previously constrained his violence; and Hostage taking: He is desperate enough to risk the life of innocent persons by taking hostages. There is a very serious likelihood of the situation turning deadly.
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Battered and Abused Men:
Most of us recognize that men experience verbal and emotional abuse at the hands of women, less well accepted or admitted is the fact of physical abuse. In our society, we think of women as the victims and men as the aggressors in physical abuse. The fact that women are more likely to be severely injured in domestic violence adds to the problem of recognizing male abuse. Nevertheless, it happens - frequently. In fact, men are just as likely to be seriously injured when a woman becomes violent because women are more likely to use weapons in the course of an assault. If a male client indicates that his girlfriend or partner assaulted him, believe him. A man will find it harder to discuss his pain with you than will a woman, and even harder to admit to being a victim. It is easier to attribute an injury to a sports mishap or workplace accident than to admit to a doctor or police officer it resulted from domestic violence.
Facts:
Fewer men report abuse. They are ashamed to report being abused by women. Health care and law enforcement professionals are more likely to accept alternative explanations of abuse from a man. They will believe other reasons for the presence of bruises and other signs of injury. Our justice system often takes the word of the woman above the word of the man in abuse cases. It is just more believable that the aggressor was the man, not the woman. Men are more likely to tolerate the pain of abuse than women. They "grin and bear it more. And again, many are ashamed to seek medical help for abuse. Unless a woman uses a weapon, she usually does not have the strength to inflict injury.
Abused men are as likely as their female counterparts are to have low self-esteem. People can come to believe that they are somehow responsible for what happened. People cling to the hope that things will get better: that the woman he "loves" will quit when their relationship is better adjusted, or the children get older and show more responsibility. These are all pretty much the same excuses women make for remaining with men who batter them.
Are you abused? Does the person you love
"Track" all of your time?
Constantly accuse you of being unfaithful?
Discourage your relationships with family and friends?
Prevent you from working or attending school?
Criticize you for little things?
Become angry easily when drinking or abusing drugs?
Control all finances and force you to account for what you spend?
Humiliate you in front of others?
Destroy your personal property or items with sentimental value?
Hit, punch, slap, kick, or bite you or the children?
Use or threaten to use a weapon against you?
Threaten to hurt you or hurt the children?
Force you to have sex against your will?
Below is a list of things Jerry can do to help himself:
Tell friends he trusts.
Make safety arrangements such as: Leaving the relationship; Finding a safe place to go; and Changing his phone number and/or locks.
Telephone a domestic violence hotline or shelter and: Talk to a worker; Find out about his legal rights; or See a counsellor - separately or with Lisa.
Gain the support of witnesses, when possible.
Take notes detailing dates, times and what occurred.
Phone 911 when Lisa becomes physically abusive.
Abuse Checklists:
Below is a self-assessment quiz to help you determine if you are being abused. You may be suffering abuse even if you answer, Yes to only a few questions |
iniwek six years ago.
"We've been working to come up with something that made sense, something that we felt was a win-win for the university, for alumni and for students," Raquel said.
He called the proposal a "three-legged-stool" and said it's contingent on the group receiving the tribe's approval, not to mention the university's.
But Froman pointed out Tuesday, "two legs are out."
Wise said she told Council of Chiefs members, with whom she met in April, she would not endorse a return of the Chief to any university-sponsored event. She has said Chief Illiniwek is part of the school's history, not its future.
"I'm seeking to find ways that we can memorialize and respect the (UI's) past history and culture that included the Chief while we focus on the future. And bringing back the Chief is not in the future," she told The News-Gazette.
The UI Board of Trustees officially voted in March 2007 to end Chief Illiniwek's dance and the use of the Chief or any Native American imagery for the university or its athletic programs. The NCAA had previously prohibited the UI from hosting postseason tournaments as long as it used Native American imagery.
Schools can use Native American imagery if they have the tribe's OK, as with the case of Florida State University's relationship with the Seminole tribe.
Raquel said the group was not seeking to restore Chief Illiniwek's status as the official symbol of the university but it wanted to "bring him back to the field."
Froman said there has been no vote by its membership on the proposal.
"My discussion with Chancellor Wise has focused on education of students on what is a true representation of Native cultures," he said, adding that he supports her work on ensuring that all cultures are respected on college campuses.
"We will continue working with Chancellor Wise. We have great respect for her primary focus on where the university is going in the future, and not in the past," Froman said.
Wise traveled to Oklahoma earlier this spring to meet with tribal members, including Froman, to talk about establishing a better relationship with the tribe and how that could lead to greater success of students from the tribe coming to the UI, she said. Wise said the tribe's goals of education and bettering the environment overlap with those of the university.
"What I would like to do is... work together on a regular basis instead of a sporadic basis," said Wise, who said she envisions an annual summit with UI and Peoria officials. She wants to see more effort in scholarships, mentoring and advising programs for students who come to Illinois from the Peoria tribe or other Native American tribes.
Wise also said she welcomes advice and support from the Council of Chiefs in that area. As part of its proposal, the council said it could raise money, perhaps up to $200,000 a year, for both the university and tribe.
Later this month, Wise said, she and other members of her staff will visit with officials from Miami University to learn about its Myaamia Center, a joint project by the university and the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma.Chemist as cook
Hi ho there folks. This is the first of a two-part series about cooking and chemistry, a lovely guest post by the illustrious Chemjobber. So without further ado…
Leigh’s profiles of people are typically folks who use the problem-solving or thinking skills they learned from being chemists and applying them to other equally cerebral tasks. But what about the equally important hand skills that chemists develop? The hands that can pull TLC spotters, poke them through a tiny 18-gauge needle into a reaction and spot them on a TLC plate can surely do something equally complex, no?
One of my favorite books of all time is Bill Buford’s Heat, where Buford tells about his adventures in being a prep and line cook at Babbo, the flagship restaurant of celebrity chef Mario Batali. In it, Buford goes from complete newbie (slicing himself while deboning duck leg quarters) to being able to hold his own in the middle of a rushed meal service; to me, that sounds like the process of becoming a chemist in a busy laboratory. Buford mentions a few things common to cooking and chemistry:
Repetition: “I was reminded of something Andy (a more senior chef) had told me. ‘You don’t learn knife schools in cooking school, because they only give you six onions, and no matter how hard you focus on those six onions there are only six, and you’re not going to learn as much as when you cut up a hundred.’ One day I was given a hundred and fifty lamb tongues. I had never held a lamb’s tongue, which I found greasy and unnervingly humanlike. But after cooking, trimming, peeling and slicing a hundred and fifty lamb’s tongues I was an expert.”
Complexity in combinations: Buford describes the grill station prep: “There were 33 different ingredients, and most had to be prepared before the service started, including red onions (cooked in beet juice and red wine vinegar), salsify (braised in sambuca), and farotta (cooked in a beet puree). There were six different squirter bottles, two balsamic vinegars, two olive oils, plus vin santo, vin cotto, and saba, not to mention the Brussels sprouts and braised fennel and rabbit pate – and damn! Today, I look at the map and am astonished I had any of it in my head.”
The joy of creating: “I found, cooking on the line, that I got a quiet buzz every time I made a plate of food that looked exactly and aesthetically correct and then handed it over the pass to Andy. If, on a busy night, I made, say, fifty good-looking plates, I had fifty little buzz moments, and by the end of service I felt pretty good.”
Cooks, of course, need to please their customer’s tastes; chemists, I suspect, are subject to less pressure there. Batali mentions that in his explanation to Buford about what he’ll learn: “As a home cook, you can prepare anything any way anytime… Here people want exactly what they had last time. Consistency under pressure. And that’s the reality: a lot of pressure.”
Now I’m obviously not saying that a chemist could jump into a busy 3-star Manhattan kitchen and start pitching in. There are differences in the hours (can be brutal), the pay (may be really low) and the lifestyle — and you might have to go to culinary school. But I suspect that line cooking is something that would be familiar and even a bit homey to an experienced bench chemist.
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Super-duper thanks to CJ for both writing this post, and bringing up the topic. In part 2, I’ll be breaking down the sames and differents between a synthetic chemist and a line cook, via an in-depth exclusive interview with a self-taught chef with over 20 years in the biz. Stay tuned.Former Obama White House adviser David Axelrod is not impressed with Hillary Clinton.
When the failed presidential candidate sat down this week for an interview at the Women for Women International conference in New York, she said she accepted "absolute personal responsibility" for blowing the election to a former reality television show host. Clinton declined to name anything her campaign did wrong, and instead listed all the outside factors she blames for her election loss, including the FBI's investigation of her unauthorized State Department homebrew server. She also blamed WikiLeaks for publishing her campaign chairman's personal emails.
Axelrod responded Wednesday by saying he didn't hear Clinton take responsibility for managing somehow to lose to a historically unpopular presidential candidate. Rather, he told CNN, he heard a lot of excuses.
"Jim Comey didn't tell her not to campaign in Wisconsin after the convention. [FBI director] Jim Comey didn't say, 'Don't put any resources into Michigan until the final week of the campaign,'" Axelrod told CNN. "One of the things that hindered her in the campaign was a sense that she never fully was willing to take responsibility for her mistakes, particularly that server."
"She said the words 'I'm responsible,' but everything else suggested that she really doesn't feel that way and I don't think that helps her in the long run," he added, suggesting that the former secretary of state just accept full responsibility and stop looking for excuses.
Clinton's campaign committed multiple, inexcusable errors, Axelrod continued, which is evident from the fact that she lost to someone as divisive and unpopular as the GOP nominee.
"It takes a lot of work to lose to Donald Trump, let me tell you," Axelrod said. "He was the least popular presidential candidate to win in the history of polling, and so it wasn't just the Comey letter. The fact that she was in a position to lose because of the Comey letter is something that deserves some introspection."
Clinton said Tuesday she recognizes there were "problems" and "shortfalls" in her campaign. She then said in the very next breath that she would be president today were it not for things like the Comey letter, which, by the way, exists only because of her unauthorized email server.
"I was on the way to winning until a combination of Jim Comey's letter on Oct. 28th and Russian WikiLeaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me but got scared off. And the evidence for that intervening event is I think compelling, persuasive," Clinton told Amanpour.
Were it not for these outside forces, she maintained in her interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour, and "if the election had been on Oct. 27th, I'd be your president."
Missing from Clinton's supposed acceptence of responsibility was any mention of the many campaign errors referenced by Axelrod and others.
She didn't mention, for example, the fact that she didn't set foot in Wisconsin once during the entire general election. She didn't mention her team's initial decision to frame the campaign in terms of how voters could help her ("I'm with her!") and not vice versa. She didn't mention her team's mind-boggling decision to outsource part of its millennial outreach efforts to Al Gore, 69, and Dave Matthews, 50. She didn't mention the campaign's bizarre decision to send Lena Dunham to North Carolina. She didn't mention the moment she claimed at a fundraiser in New York City that "half" of Trump's supporters were "irredeemable" bigots.
Clinton also ignored all mentions of the fact her team actively ignored and took for granted disaffected white and working class voters whom Obama had won, even after Bill Clinton, who won the rust belt twice, implored them to reconsider their strategy.
But the Comey letter and Podesta emails were totally why she lost the election.The referee might miss an occasional handball, but a soccer game isn’t rigged in favor of one group of players over another. Unlike a soccer game, the most powerful economic actors have rigged the labor market against everyday hardworking Americans. The weak economy following the Great Recession and its aftermath came on the heels of three decades of the systematic reduction of workers bargaining power in the workplace. It’s no surprise then that this morning’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) report shows that the quits rate remains depressed as workers continue to be stuck in jobs that they would leave if they could.
The figure below shows the hires, quits, and layoff rates through May 2015. The layoff rate shot up during the recession but recovered quickly and has been at pre-recession levels for more than three years. The fact that this trend continued in May is a good sign. That said, not only do layoffs need to come down before we see a full recovery in the labor market, but hiring also needs to pick up–the hires rate dipped slightly in May, and is still below where it was at the end of 2014. It had been generally improving, but has shown concerning signs as of late and still remains significantly below its pre-recession level.
JOLTS Hires, quits, and layoff rates, December 2000-May 2015 Month Hires rate Layoffs rate Quits rate Dec-2000 4.1% 1.4% 2.3% Jan-2001 4.4% 1.6% 2.6% Feb-2001 4.1% 1.4% 2.5% Mar-2001 4.2% 1.6% 2.4% Apr-2001 4.0% 1.5% 2.4% May-2001 4.0% 1.5% 2.4% Jun-2001 3.8% 1.5% 2.3% Jul-2001 3.9% 1.5% 2.2% Aug-2001 3.8% 1.4% 2.1% Sep-2001 3.8% 1.6% 2.1% Oct-2001 3.8% 1.7% 2.2% Nov-2001 3.7% 1.6% 2.0% Dec-2001 3.7% 1.4% 2.0% Jan-2002 3.7% 1.4% 2.2% Feb-2002 3.7% 1.5% 2.0% Mar-2002 3.5% 1.4% 1.9% Apr-2002 3.8% 1.5% 2.1% May-2002 3.8% 1.5% 2.1% Jun-2002 3.7% 1.4% 2.0% Jul-2002 3.8% 1.5% 2.1% Aug-2002 3.7% 1.4% 2.0% Sep-2002 3.7% 1.4% 2.0% Oct-2002 3.7% 1.4% 2.0% Nov-2002 3.8% 1.5% 1.9% Dec-2002 3.8% 1.5% 2.0% Jan-2003 3.8% 1.5% 1.9% Feb-2003 3.6% 1.5% 1.9% Mar-2003 3.4% 1.4% 1.9% Apr-2003 3.6% 1.6% 1.8% May-2003 3.5% 1.5% 1.8% Jun-2003 3.7% 1.6% 1.8% Jul-2003 3.6% 1.6% 1.8% Aug-2003 3.6% 1.5% 1.8% Sep-2003 3.7% 1.5% 1.9% Oct-2003 3.8% 1.4% 1.9% Nov-2003 3.6% 1.4% 1.9% Dec-2003 3.8% 1.5% 1.9% Jan-2004 3.7% 1.5% 1.9% Feb-2004 3.6% 1.4% 1.9% Mar-2004 3.9% 1.4% 2.0% Apr-2004 3.9% 1.5% 2.0% May-2004 3.8% 1.4% 1.9% Jun-2004 3.8% 1.4% 2.0% Jul-2004 3.7% 1.4% 2.0% Aug-2004 3.9% 1.5% 2.0% Sep-2004 3.8% 1.4% 2.0% Oct-2004 3.9% 1.4% 2.0% Nov-2004 3.9% 1.5% 2.1% Dec-2004 4.0% 1.5% 2.1% Jan-2005 3.9% 1.4% 2.1% Feb-2005 3.9% 1.4% 2.0% Mar-2005 3.9% 1.5% 2.1% Apr-2005 4.0% 1.4% 2.1% May-2005 3.9% 1.4% 2.1% Jun-2005 3.9% 1.5% 2.1% Jul-2005 3.9% 1.4% 2.0% Aug-2005 4.0% 1.4% 2.2% Sep-2005 4.0% 1.4% 2.3% Oct-2005 3.8% 1.3% 2.2% Nov-2005 3.9% 1.2% 2.2% Dec-2005 3.7% 1.3% 2.1% Jan-2006 3.9% 1.3% 2.1% Feb-2006 3.9% 1.3% 2.2% Mar-2006 3.9% 1.2% 2.2% Apr-2006 3.8% 1.3% 2.1% May-2006 4.0% 1.4% 2.2% Jun-2006 3.9% 1.2% 2.2% Jul-2006 3.9% 1.3% 2.2% Aug-2006 3.8% 1.2% 2.2% Sep-2006 3.8% 1.3% 2.1% Oct-2006 3.8% 1.3% 2.1% Nov-2006 4.0% 1.3% 2.3% Dec-2006 3.8% 1.3% 2.2% Jan-2007 3.8% 1.2% 2.2% Feb-2007 3.8% 1.3% 2.2% Mar-2007 3.8% 1.3% 2.2% Apr-2007 3.7% 1.3% 2.1% May-2007 3.8% 1.3% 2.2% Jun-2007 3.8% 1.3% 2.0% Jul-2007 3.7% 1.3% 2.1% Aug-2007 3.7% 1.3% 2.1% Sep-2007 3.7% 1.5% 1.9% Oct-2007 3.8% 1.4% 2.1% Nov-2007 3.7% 1.4% 2.0% Dec-2007 3.6% 1.3% 2.0% Jan-2008 3.5% 1.3% 2.0% Feb-2008 3.5% 1.4% 2.0% Mar-2008 3.4% 1.3% 1.9% Apr-2008 3.5% 1.3% 2.1% May-2008 3.3% 1.3% 1.9% Jun-2008 3.5% 1.5% 1.9% Jul-2008 3.3% 1.4% 1.8% Aug-2008 3.3% 1.6% 1.7% Sep-2008 3.1% 1.4% 1.8% Oct-2008 3.3% 1.6% 1.8% Nov-2008 2.9% 1.6% 1.5% Dec-2008 3.2% 1.8% 1.6% Jan-2009 3.1% 1.9% 1.5% Feb-2009 3.0% 1.9% 1.5% Mar-2009 2.8% 1.8% 1.4% Apr-2009 2.9% 2.0% 1.3% May-2009 2.8% 1.6% 1.3% Jun-2009 2.8% 1.6% 1.3% Jul-2009 2.9% 1.7% 1.3% Aug-2009 2.9% 1.6% 1.3% Sep-2009 3.0% 1.6% 1.3% Oct-2009 2.9% 1.5% 1.3% Nov-2009 3.1% 1.4% 1.4% Dec-2009 2.9% 1.5% 1.3% Jan-2010 3.0% 1.4% 1.3% Feb-2010 2.9% 1.4% 1.3% Mar-2010 3.2% 1.4% 1.4% Apr-2010 3.1% 1.3% 1.5% May-2010 3.3% 1.3% 1.4% Jun-2010 3.1% 1.5% 1.5% Jul-2010 3.2% 1.6% 1.4% Aug-2010 3.0% 1.4% 1.4% Sep-2010 3.1% 1.4% 1.5% Oct-2010 3.1% 1.3% 1.4% Nov-2010 3.1% 1.4% 1.4% Dec-2010 3.2% 1.4% 1.5% Jan-2011 3.0% 1.3% 1.4% Feb-2011 3.1% 1.3% 1.4% Mar-2011 3.3% 1.3% 1.5% Apr-2011 3.2% 1.3% 1.5% May-2011 3.1% 1.3% 1.5% Jun-2011 3.3% 1.4% 1.5% Jul-2011 3.2% 1.3% 1.5% Aug-2011 3.2% 1.3% 1.5% Sep-2011 3.3% 1.3% 1.5% Oct-2011 3.2% 1.3% 1.5% Nov-2011 3.2% 1.3% 1.5% Dec-2011 3.2% 1.3% 1.5% Jan-2012 3.2% 1.3% 1.5% Feb-2012 3.3% 1.3% 1.6% Mar-2012 3.3% 1.3% 1.6% Apr-2012 3.2% 1.4% 1.6% May-2012 3.3% 1.4% 1.6% Jun-2012 3.2% 1.3% 1.6% Jul-2012 3.2% 1.2% 1.6% Aug-2012 3.3% 1.4% 1.6% Sep-2012 3.1% 1.3% 1.4% Oct-2012 3.2% 1.3% 1.5% Nov-2012 3.3% 1.3% 1.6% Dec-2012 3.2% 1.1% 1.6% Jan-2013 3.3% 1.2% 1.7% Feb-2013 3.4% 1.2% 1.7% Mar-2013 3.2% 1.3% 1.5% Apr-2013 3.3% 1.3% 1.7% May-2013 3.3% 1.3% 1.6% Jun-2013 3.2% 1.2% 1.6% Jul-2013 3.3% 1.2% 1.7% Aug-2013 3.4% 1.2% 1.7% Sep-2013 3.4% 1.3% 1.7% Oct-2013 3.3% 1.1% 1.8% Nov-2013 3.4% 1.1% 1.8% Dec-2013 3.3% 1.2% 1.7% Jan-2014 3.3% 1.3% 1.7% Feb-2014 3.4% 1.2% 1.8% Mar-2014 3.4% 1.2% 1.8% Apr-2014 3.5% 1.2% 1.7% May-2014 3.5% 1.2% 1.8% Jun-2014 3.5% 1.2% 1.8% Jul-2014 3.6% 1.3% 1.8% Aug-2014 3.4% 1.2% 1.8% Sep-2014 3.6% 1.2% 2.0% Oct-2014 3.7% 1.2% 2.0% Nov-2014 3.6% 1.1% 1.9% Dec-2014 3.7% 1.2% 1.9% Jan-2015 3.5% 1.2% 2.0% Feb-2015 3.6% 1.2% 1.9% Mar-2015 3.6% 1.3% 2.0% Apr-2015 3.6% 1.3% 1.9% May-2015 3.5% 1.2% 1.9% ChartData Download data The data below can be saved or copied directly into Excel. The data underlying the figure. Note: Shaded areas denote recessions. The hires rate is the number of hires during the entire month as a percent of total employment. The layoff rate is the number of layoffs and discharges during the entire month as a percent of total employment. The quits rate is the number of quits during the entire month as a percent of total employment. Source: EPI analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey Share on Facebook Tweet this chart Embed Copy the code below to embed this chart on your website. Download image
The voluntary quits rate held steady at 1.9 percent in May, where it has sat for most of the last six months. In May, the quits rate was still 9.2 percent lower than it was in 2007, before the recession began. A larger number of people voluntarily quitting their jobs indicates a strong labor market–one in which workers are able to leave jobs that are not right for them and find new ones. Before long, we should look for a return to pre-recession levels of voluntary quits, which would mean that fewer workers are locked into jobs they would leave if they could. But, as with previous months, we are not there yet.
Evidence in today’s release corroborate last week’s jobs report, which continued to provide evidence that the economy is only at a slow jog, with meager wage growth and a falling labor force. There continues to be a significant gap between the number of job seekers and the number of job openings. The figure below illustrates the overall improvement in the economy over the last five years as the unemployment level continues to fall and job openings rise. A tighter economy (like the one shown in the initial year of data) would have these levels much closer together. It’s clear that there remains significant slack in the economy. Furthermore, on top of the 8+ million unemployed workers warming the bench, there are still about three million workers sitting in the stands with little hope to even get in the game.
JOLTS Job openings levels and unemployment levels, December 2000-May 2015 Month Job Openings level Unemployment level Dec-2000 4.934 5.634 Jan-2001 5.273 6.023 Feb-2001 4.706 6.089 Mar-2001 4.618 6.141 Apr-2001 4.668 6.271 May-2001 4.444 6.226 Jun-2001 4.232 6.484 Jul-2001 4.354 6.583 Aug-2001 4.095 7.042 Sep-2001 3.973 7.142 Oct-2001 3.594 7.694 Nov-2001 3.545 8.003 Dec-2001 3.586 8.258 Jan-2002 3.587 8.182 Feb-2002 3.412 8.215 Mar-2002 3.605 8.304 Apr-2002 3.357 8.599 May-2002 3.525 8.399 Jun-2002 3.325 8.393 Jul-2002 3.343 8.39 Aug-2002 3.462 8.304 Sep-2002 3.319 8.251 Oct-2002 3.502 8.307 Nov-2002 3.585 8.52 Dec-2002 3.074 8.64 Jan-2003 3.686 8.52 Feb-2003 3.402 8.618 Mar-2003 3.101 8.588 Apr-2003 3.182 8.842 May-2003 3.201 8.957 Jun-2003 3.356 9.266 Jul-2003 3.195 9.011 Aug-2003 3.239 8.896 Sep-2003 3.054 8.921 Oct-2003 3.196 8.732 Nov-2003 3.316 8.576 Dec-2003 3.334 8.317 Jan-2004 3.391 8.37 Feb-2004 3.437 8.167 Mar-2004 3.42 8.491 Apr-2004 3.466 8.17 May-2004 3.658 8.212 Jun-2004 3.384 8.286 Jul-2004 3.835 8.136 Aug-2004 3.578 7.99 Sep-2004 3.704 7.927 Oct-2004 3.779 8.061 Nov-2004 3.456 7.932 Dec-2004 3.846 7.934 Jan-2005 3.595 7.784 Feb-2005 3.842 7.98 Mar-2005 3.891 7.737 Apr-2005 4.115 7.672 May-2005 3.824 7.651 Jun-2005 4.018 7.524 Jul-2005 4.162 7.406 Aug-2005 4.085 7.345 Sep-2005 4.227 7.553 Oct-2005 4.23 7.453 Nov-2005 4.341 7.566 Dec-2005 4.249 7.279 Jan-2006 4.278 7.064 Feb-2006 4.308 7.184 Mar-2006 4.537 7.072 Apr-2006 4.495 7.12 May-2006 4.432 6.98 Jun-2006 4.331 7.001 Jul-2006 4.081 7.175 Aug-2006 4.411 7.091 Sep-2006 4.498 6.847 Oct-2006 4.454 6.727 Nov-2006 4.622 6.872 Dec-2006 4.552 6.762 Jan-2007 4.59 7.116 Feb-2007 4.481 6.927 Mar-2007 4.657 6.731 Apr-2007 4.534 6.85 May-2007 4.531 6.766 Jun-2007 4.639 6.979 Jul-2007 4.43 7.149 Aug-2007 4.508 7.067 Sep-2007 4.481 7.17 Oct-2007 4.278 7.237 Nov-2007 4.278 7.24 Dec-2007 4.323 7.645 Jan-2008 4.223 7.685 Feb-2008 4.039 7.497 Mar-2008 4.012 7.822 Apr-2008 3.85 7.637 May-2008 4 8.395 Jun-2008 3.67 8.575 Jul-2008 3.762 8.937 Aug-2008 3.584 9.438 Sep-2008 3.21 9.494 Oct-2008 3.273 10.074 Nov-2008 3.059 10.538 Dec-2008 3.049 11.286 Jan-2009 2.763 12.058 Feb-2009 2.794 12.898 Mar-2009 2.493 13.426 Apr-2009 2.271 13.853 May-2009 2.413 14.499 Jun-2009 2.388 14.707 Jul-2009 2.146 14.601 Aug-2009 2.294 14.814 Sep-2009 2.434 15.009 Oct-2009 2.376 15.352 Nov-2009 2.419 15.219 Dec-2009 2.49 15.098 Jan-2010 2.706 15.046 Feb-2010 2.561 15.113 Mar-2010 2.652 15.202 Apr-2010 3.097 15.325 May-2010 2.9 14.849 Jun-2010 2.728 14.474 Jul-2010 2.929 14.512 Aug-2010 2.869 14.648 Sep-2010 2.782 14.579 Oct-2010 3.026 14.516 Nov-2010 3.072 15.081 Dec-2010 2.909 14.348 Jan-2011 2.917 14.046 Feb-2011 3.065 13.828 Mar-2011 3.132 13.728 Apr-2011 3.099 13.956 May-2011 3.032 13.853 Jun-2011 3.194 13.958 Jul-2011 3.417 13.756 Aug-2011 3.138 13.806 Sep-2011 3.557 13.929 Oct-2011 3.422 13.599 Nov-2011 3.215 13.309 Dec-2011 3.527 13.071 Jan-2012 3.653 12.812 Feb-2012 3.517 12.828 Mar-2012 3.837 12.696 Apr-2012 3.627 12.636 May-2012 3.696 12.668 Jun-2012 3.785 12.688 Jul-2012 3.587 12.657 Aug-2012 3.637 12.449 Sep-2012 3.614 12.106 Oct-2012 3.729 12.141 Nov-2012 3.741 12.026 Dec-2012 3.64 12.272 Jan-2013 3.77 12.497 Feb-2013 4.023 11.967 Mar-2013 3.891 11.653 Apr-2013 3.84 11.735 May-2013 3.829 11.671 Jun-2013 3.864 11.736 Jul-2013 3.829 11.357 Aug-2013 3.893 11.241 Sep-2013 3.955 11.251 Oct-2013 4.076 11.161 Nov-2013 4.073 10.814 Dec-2013 3.977 10.376 Jan-2014 3. |
expose about Israeli museums which did not offer Arabic-language inscriptions for exhibits, as required under a law guaranteeing multi-lingual accessibility for publicly-funded cultural institutions. I wrote to the reporter, asking why Haaretz itself never published in Arabic. I argued that doing so would offer a pioneering statement from the nation’s leading liberal daily about the critical importance of embracing the Arabic-speaking Palestinian minority. I suggested, to that end, Haaretz consider publishing an Arabic-language supplement.
Instead of a response from the reporter, Schocken himself replied disdainfully that if I thought such a project was so important that I should find him funding to support it. It was a response, doubtless to say, I found disingenuous, as it wasn’t my job to secure investments in his newspaper.
The following year, Haaretz published its first article in Arabic, an editorial urging Palestinians to “get out and vote.” Ironically, many members of the Palestinian minority do not vote precisely because the institutions of the Jewish majority (like Haaretz) are largely closed to them. Generally they enjoy second or third-class rights within society, thanks in part to the patronizing approach of elite Ashkenazi Jewish institutions like it.
Haaretz refuses to publish Ziffer’s column in English edition
It should come as no surprise that Ziffer’s op-ed was not translated into English or published in the paper’s English edition. The editors there perhaps had a better understanding of their own readers and determined there was no need to inflame them. But in truth, this is a form of self-censorship. If you want to publish misogynist trash, why only publish it in Hebrew? Why not proclaim proudly to the rest of the English-speaking world what your journalistic values are?
If, as David Remnick argues, Haaretz is the best of Israeli journalism, what does that tell us about Israeli society in general and its Fourth Estate in particular? It tells us that the weight of being a garrison nation in a state of perpetual war has corroded whatever liberal values Haaretz may have once championed. It tells that no matter how much higher are the standards Haaretz upholds than those of their competitors, they are indelibly stained by historical sins of the their society.
Breaking: Managing editor cancels Ziffer’s weekly column
When reached for comment on this story, Aluf Benn, the newspaper’s managing editor, declined, but he did allude to a major forthcoming development.
Shortly thereafter, on Wednesday, Israeli business news site Globes reported than Benn had decided to cancel Ziffer’s weekly column in response to the March 5 piece.
In his final column, published on Wednesday, Ziffer apologized for what he wrote. He added, oddly, that it was all part of a twisted game he played on behalf of his audience:
“I entered into the role of provocateur [Author’s Note: literally, “playful devil”], and the game was good and yielded rewards. The audience was enthusiastic and begged for more and more columns in which I played the the game of provocateur. I reaped success. Together with the intoxication of success, this blurred within me the boundaries between the game and reality.”
Haaretz later published Ziffer’s apology in its English edition. But without the context of the original article (published only in Hebrew), readers of the English edition have no idea what “monstrosity” Ziffer is apologizing for. And that’s probably the way Haaretz’s editors prefer it. Rather than being fully transparent, it has the effect of further concealing the original offense.
Still, Ziffer remains as literary editor of the paper. He will also continue writing other articles for the paper. Presumably, Benn believes that by giving Ziffer a lower profile and “disappearing” his byline, readers — especially female readers — will be able to forget this disaster. In the past heyday of Israeli macho behavior, perhaps Haaretz could’ve gotten away with this. But can you imagine the Washington Post or New York Times in this day and age permitting its literary editor to write such swill and not firing him? The very thought seems preposterous.It takes a coward to harm an unarmed civilian…This is not a war zone, these are unarmed people. It does not make you tough to hurt these people… If you want to go fight, go to Iraq and Afghanistan… Leave these people alone, they are U.S. citizens…Why are you doing this to our people? I've been to Iraq 14 months for my people and you come here to hurt them, they don't have guns… It doesn't make any sense… How do you sleep at night? There is no honor in this…your here to protect them, protect us.You're all walking around in riot gear like this is a war, these people don't have guns.
And they don't. The "Occupy Wall Street"" movement may have been disruptive, disorganized, or even smelly at times, but it has never been violent. The "Occupy" protesters are exercising the very right that Sargent Thomas and all of our military past and present fight/have fought and even given their lives to protect.
[See photos of the Occupy Wall Street protests.]
One of the things I believe that makes this country so great and so different than any other is our First Amendment--the idea that we can protest our government or in this case, our banking industry. We can speak out against politicians, against corporate greed without being whisked away to some prison, being beaten with lashes, disappearing, or being executed publicly in the town square. This is America, things like that don't happen here. Or do they?
[Check out editorial cartoons about the "Occupy" movement.]
I saw a video of a police officer, in uniform, punching a female protester in the face. As a woman, I have been taught that a man never, never, never, did I say never (?!) hits a woman; if he can do so with such ease in uniform, I shudder to think what's happening when he is out of uniform.
[See a timeline of the "Occupy Wall Street" protests.]
Now we have incredible police in this country. New York is no exception. But I must ask, as many Americans are whether they support the "Occupy" movement or not: Why the riot gear when these people aren't violent? Why the bomb squad in Boston when these people aren't terrorists, they're American citizens protesting? And why the mace, physical assaults on individuals? And the big question, why wasn't this done at Tea Party demonstrations?
[See political cartoons about the Tea Party.]
I am further confused, because the "Occupy" protesters are fighting for the very pensions, healthcare benefits, and pay increases that the Tea Party and others on the right want to strip the police and first responders of. So why are the police viewing the "Occupy" protesters as their enemies?
Whether they agree or disagree with this or any movement, the police are paid, via the citizens' tax dollars (and that includes the Occupy Wall Street protesters' tax dollars), to serve and protect. Not to mace and to maim. And to treat all protesters equal. So why the hypocrisy? Why the double standard?House Judiciary Committee Refuses To Hear Wider Tech Industry Concerns About SOPA
from the this-is-not-democracy dept
Ever since SOPA was introduced, we'd heard that the eventual House Judiciary Committee hearings on the bill would be an unfairly stacked deck. Despite such wide opposition to the bill, and the fact that this represents a massive change to the regulatory and technological framework of the internet, we'd been told, repeatedly, that the hearings would be set up with three representatives in favor of the bill, and just one against. Apparently, the supporters of the bill are simply too afraid to actually listen to that many concerns and have to surround themselves with "yes men" to think they're doing the right thing.Turns out that the decks are being even further stacked.Today, we're hearing that the head of NetCoalition, who many people expected to represent the wider tech and internet industry's significant concerns about SOPA has beena seat at the hearings. This is the same group that has been requesting a seat at the negotiating table all along, and has been denied by the MPAA and its supporters. Basically, the decks are being stacked so far in favor of SOPA, that next week's hearing will be a total joke. We're even hearing rumors that it will now be 4 representatives in favor of SOPA, and no one who will represent the wider concerns of the internet industry that's about to be regulated. Instead, the committee is looking for someone who will only raise some specific narrow concerns about the bill.I guess I have a simple question: just what are Reps. Lamar Smith, John Conyers and Bob Goodlatte afraid of? Are they really so fragile that they can't handle the idea that the wider internet industry is seriously worried about this bill? Must they only hear from those who helped write the bill in the first place? What kind of democracy is that?
Filed Under: copyright, hearings, netcoalition, sopaHere is an answer you are unlikely to hear in Wednesday night’s Republican presidential debate. One observer wishes it were otherwise.
“In conclusion, let me say to my fellow candidates, to the representatives of the media present here tonight, and to the American people that this will be the last debate in which I will participate, as long as the current format is maintained. I consider it deeply demeaning, to me personally, to the voters of this fine land, and to the electoral process of this great democracy to limit answers to complex questions to one minute. We are told constantly that the American people will not sit still for detailed arguments or answers that offer analysis and data rather than focus-group tested pap. I don’t believe this, and nobody who does believe it deserves the office of president, or the opportunity to advise any serious candidate for that office. The challenges we face are difficult, and what is needed is not another slogan or applause line to be analyzed again and again on cable talk shows, but an actual conversation among thoughtful people, uninterrupted by a flashing red light to say the time is up.
“High-school debaters are given more time to present their arguments than we were given here on this stage. In those competitions, each side is typically allowed eight minutes to present an argument, then another eight each for further argument, followed by four a side for rebuttal, and four again for a final rebuttal. That is 24 minutes of argument apiece, ladies and gentlemen—all on a single proposition. Picture the contrast. Teenagers, competing only for trophies, are permitted more time than candidates for the highest office in the land.
“The other day I looked up the Lincoln-Douglas debates in my edition of Basler. (I take it for granted that no one should be elected president who has never read them.) The first debate was held on Aug. 21, 1858, in Ottawa, Ill. Douglas’s opening statement occupies 12 tightly printed pages, Lincoln’s reply another 18, Douglas’s rejoinder another seven. The comments take up so much space because the time allotted was so generous. The first candidate spoke for 60 minutes, the second for 90, then the first for another 30. That is three hours. And the Ottawa debate was just the first of seven, all of the same length.
“The conception of the debates was to give the candidates time not merely to utter a handful of platitudes, but to present thoughtful and organized argument—not simply to persuade people to vote one way or the other, but to change peoples’ minds about the issues at stake. No journalists peppered the candidates with questions. No moderators cut off their answers. And they freely interrupted each other with polite queries or challenges.
“Compare this to tonight’s unfortunate affair. No opening statements. Responses to questions limited to one minute. Rebuttals limited to 30 seconds. No closing statements. We demean the word 'debate' by applying it to tonight’s proceedings at all. What unfolded on stage was no debate. It was more like a joint press conference, except that in a press conference we could take time to offer full answers to the questions. Tonight that didn’t happen.
“I recognize that in this busy world, what Lincoln and Douglas did is no longer possible. That is our loss. But I believe firmly that we can and must do better than what we have presented to the country here. Surely we can allow candidates for president to speak for at least as long as high school debaters. Indeed, twice as long—say, fifteen minutes per answer—would seem to me an ideal length, allowing time for argument and nuance and thoughtful reply, rather than mere applause lines.
“The alternative is for those of us who want to lead this country to continue to set a terrible example for the children of America. We complain about the attention span of the young, but what are we teaching them when we insist that it is possible to decide who should be president by limiting candidates to a handful of sentences, with a moderator interrupting if they go over by a few seconds? We are teaching them that argument is silly. That taking time to think is silly. That platitudes and slogans are all we need to decide elections. We might as well reduce the campaign to dueling bumper stickers and be done with it.
“To those of you in the media, let me remind you of why we have a First Amendment at all. You are entitled to your opinions, and to press them forcefully, and so you do. But somewhere there should linger a sense of responsibility to actually report a candidate’s arguments before taking him—or her—to pieces. When you fill the airwaves with partisans arguing over how to spin sound bites, you reduce the process of selecting a leader for the greatest nation on the planet to mere entertainment. Until you recover your own sense of why the press exists at all, I pledge to engage in no further media-sponsored debates, and I strongly urge my fellow candidates to do the same.”I recently started replaying Fallout 3 but this time with the addition of a few truly excellent modifications. I won’t got much into this other than to say that Fallout 3 seems to be 100% better when modded but the main thing that struck me as I was going through the quests is how unfulfilling the moral choices and the relevant moral system is. It’s nothing more than a Good/Evil scale which seems to telepathically travel around the world making everyone have similar reaction to your character.
I can’t help but be disappointed by it, especially for a game which for some reason has been praised for its wealth of moral options. I guess this is to a large extent due to its open nature and the number of side-quests to take which generally devolves to helping some person for free, helping some person for a reward, or killing them and taking their stuff. Much of this is caused of course by the limitations imposed by full voice acting but that doesn’t change the fact that one feels severely restricted.
Fallout does better than most still, you often have a choice on how to help them and so on, but then the arbitrary karma rewards/punishments come around and travel telepathically around the world which really takes away from the immersion. Fortunately I have a mod which can hide the Karma messages but I can’t escape their effects which makes it very weird when a village I’ve saved from certain doom starts being hostile to me because I murdered a tribe of cannibals and took their stuff, on the other side of the world.
The only way I’ve figured I can immerse myself in such a game is to decide before hand what my alignment will be in terms of a few ambiguous moral rules and stick to them, come what may. For example in the current iteration for example, I’m trying to play a “the needs of the many overweight the rights of the few” kind of character, who is also extremely xenophobic in terms of “weirdos” (i.e. all that are not “proper” humans) and see where that gets me. This leads me to be very nice and fuzzy to humans but extremely callous and downright evil to everyone else. Karma can’t represent this in any meaningful way and thus I end up stuck in the middle as “neutral citizen”, while my relations to most people, human or not, are generally cold. This only is interesting because I keep the experiences of my character in my own imagination as the game does not provide me with any real effect from my actions and even then, the game insists on making things difficult.
For example, in the scenario with the Cannibals Raiders above, I managed to let me talk to their leader at some point but there was no possible combination of dialogue to make them hostile to me once they became friendly. Sure, I could choose between 3 different options to resolve the quest I was in peacefully (all pretty much similar), but none of them fit the personality I’d chosen for my character: The fact that I do not deal with freaks and especially cannibals. There wasn’t even a dialogue choice I could choose to tell them that I was about to wipe them from the face of the earth. I could only proceed to an unprovoked attack which more so ended up triggering a game bug making me fail my quest if I didn’t do it right.
So I started thinking how this could possibly be improved in some significant way so as to capture the more complex effects of my morality. I had a few ideas but then I found this video online and I noticed that it had expressed a part of my thoughts very concisely.
So obviously the concept of factions would go a long way to make the moral system more realistic. Just imagine if one faction asked you to perform a quest which went against the interests of another faction who, when you ended up causing them enough trouble, would mark you as KOS or something. Or if one faction improved their impression of you after word that you wiped out their enemies spread around. Fallout 2 in fact had this, where the reputation system kept track of how each settlement viewed you but in this third iteration, they decided to dumb down the game to the simple good/evil dichotomy.
But further than factions, I’m thinking that games are truly the artistic means where it’s the best way to explore moral issues. Books and movies can only give you a perspective but it’s limited by the ideas of the author and how much one can identify with the characters. However RPGs are made for identifying with the main characters and the freedom to explore paths we wouldn’t normally experience or choose allows for some really interesting thoughts.
Imagine for example, if instead of one Good vs Evil scale, we had more than one, not necessarily as a graph like the video above suggest, but rather as separate counters which moved to either side depending on your actions in the world. Lets imagine for example a gender equality scale where a new character starts in the middle. Depending on the character’s interaction with males or females of the world (i.e. you should get on occasion phrases which allowed you to marginalize particular genders, such as dismissing the opinion of a female or something) this counter would move in either direction.
Now lets say that you have started acting like a misogynist. Initially you would have a few dialogue options which would allow you to move your scale to ther misogynist side of the scale. As you started to move towards it, more and more of your dialogue options would involve being outright sexist, until for example, you wouldn’t be able to refer to females without calling them “chicks” or “bitches”, even to their face. Now obviously this should create friction in the interaction with the women of the world and even a lot of the males through their dialogue, making for example feminist storekeepers have higher prices, women companions desert you and so on. On the other hand, you could make it so that the player who reaches the far ends of misogyny be eligible for special perks (like the one which is already in the game giving extra damage vs females), special quests and so on. The fact that the initial steps one made into misogyny (i.e. the dialogue options one selected) might not be obvious and yet eventually the player discovers him/herself having progressed towards it might be an interesting result for people who have not even considered how their words and behaviour can be perceived. Not only does this make an interestnig role playing experience, but it might provide people with a new perspective.
Likewise, someone staying in the middle of the scale, at equality, could also be eligible for a perk and might get positive reactions from similarly minded people or factions or negative reactions from sexists.
Other similar scales could easily explore stuff such as racism (even if that is limited to the fantasy races of the game like Super Mutants and Ghouls) freedom of personal choice, mutual aid, respect for property, charity and so on. Therefore, you would not have good or evil characters but you could have a more detailed map of a personality which would be really tough to claim as simply good or evil.
For example. how would you label a person who is really strong in standing by and protecting his people but does not respect those who do not follow traditional values or are not human? How about the one who respects the individuality of everyone but sees all interactions with others through monetary exchanges? How about the one who believes that might makes right and that the more powerful deserve to rule but that one should always protect those who cannot protect themselves?
Most people would probably find a mix of good and bad aspects in each of these examples and the good about an RPG is that it allows you to Role Play such a character and see the world through their eyes. Sure, this is nonetheless limited by the developer’s creativity and possibly impossible to properly represent in the dialogue of a full-voice acted game but even so, you can still go at least halfway through a faction system plus specialised abilities and quests in case someone reaches an extreme moral value.
I hope we’ll see something like this in the future or even better, perhaps this is something that could be modded into the already existing games. Certainly when one can implement a scale for good and evil, one can also implement 3 scales for the moral values they’d like to explore in their game. One could even go for more, but as the video above mentioned, sometimes exploring only a particular moral value can be far deeper than a shallow good vs evil concept which cheapens the morality of the game rather than enrich it.
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MIDDLETON, Wis. - During a time when so many people have so much on their minds, police are warning anyone who got a gift this holiday season to be cautious about how they throw empty boxes and shopping bags away.
Discarding those items in your recycling bin or near your house can advertise to thieves what’s inside your home. It is one of the main reasons why local officers said they see an uptick in burglaries this time of year.
“It’s important to remain hyper vigilant,” Middleton police Officer Matt Jacobs said.
Officers say people should break down all boxes, put them inside a closed recycling bin and only bring the bin out on pick-up day. They also recommend people avoid leaving labels and serial numbers on boxes, which can further identify the goods to thieves.
“Put your garbage or recycling out the morning of, or when you know the garbage man is going to pick those items up. Try to time it as best you can,” Jacobs said.
Don’t forget about your mail when protecting your home. Letters can contain private information, gift cards and checks. Try to bring it all inside as soon as it is delivered.
Make sure to keep gifts and shopping bags out of plain sight in your car/ Either bring them straight into your home or lock them in your vehicle.
“It’s important to be very careful, especially as we go into holiday return season,” Jacobs said. “Put away electronics and change and those types of things that can be enticing for somebody. If your door is open... it (only) takes seconds to enter your car and take your belongings.”
And if you see your neighbor with labeled boxes out on their curb, or if they leave their car doors unlocked, let them know of the dangers, because if your neighbor is a potential victim, you could be too.05/31/2018 : Happy 1st Birthday Ajabu
Happy 1st birthday to gorilla toddler, Ajabu!
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11/06/2017 : Sibling Milestones
Philadelphia Zoo's western lowland gorilla youngsters continue to grow! Amani and Ajabu are happily growing up together as any siblings would!
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08/04/2017 : The Sibling Scoop
Approaching her frist birthday, Amani is more adventurous than ever as we welcome the newest addition to our gorilla troop, her younger half brother, baby Ajabu.
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06/28/2017 : Philadelphia Zoo Names New Baby Gorilla
Today, Philadelphia Zoo’s gorilla family chose a name for its newest addition: a western lowland gorilla baby boy born to Kira, the Zoo’s 17-year-old female and 32-year old Motuba on June 2nd.
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06/24/2017 : Congolese Students Select Names for Kira's Baby
Upon learning about Philadelphia Zoo, Kira and her baby, these young Congolese students selected a list of names each signifying the importance of this amazing birth.
READ MORE...Image by the brilliant Stuart F Taylor
I will never not be fascinated by jizz. It’s probably the topic I’ve covered most often here – from the best places to jizz to the weird questions I’ve asked about it.
Perhaps it’s because I can’t produce it myself, or because I sense a similar fascination in guys – that agony of choice when you decide where to do it, and how, and when.
But let’s talk about the only frustration I have with spunk: that there is never – can never be – enough.
Where shall I jizz?
A common question in my bedroom: “where do you want me to come?”
A world of possibilities, but limited time to choose. On my face? That’s the best place if I want to feel the power and force of it. The squirts hammering against my lips and cheeks like driving rain. That one’s pretty good.
On my tits, or my stomach, or over my crotch, where I can look down to see it land then rub it in until the sticky film covers as much of me as possible.
Inside me – there are far too many possibilities here, and it’s hard to choose just one. Sometimes he pulls out just before he comes and presses the tip of his cock against my arse, spraying jizz into me and letting it dribble down the crack. If you asked me in an unguarded moment I’d tell you that was my favourite. But if you ask me at the end of a fuck, when his voice is cracked with the effort of holding back and he needs me to tell him where then… well, I’ll be tempted to say in my cunt. Because it’s there where I can clench against him, squeezing every drop of pleasure from the sensation of his cock twitching.
In my mouth. Two ways, here. Well, more than two but they’re variations. One where I tip my head back, open my mouth wide and stick out my tongue just a little, and he uses his hand to beat the last stages of orgasm out of his shuddering cock. Squirting – in the most delicious sense of the word. Aiming and hitting the roof of my mouth. Once. Twice. Three times. Squeezing the last few drops out onto my waiting tongue.
Or the other way – at the back of my throat. Holding my head still with his hands and thrusting so his dick is deep in my throat and I splutter as the come pours down my throat.
See what I mean about decisions? Each of these has its merits, and in the moment they all seem perfect. What I want, really, is for him to come for longer – more. Not just drops or squirts but cupfuls – doled out in swallow-sized, or cunt-filling measures. Each one assigned by whim, after a measure in each place we like best.
“I’m done here. Flip over.”
Four or five squirts in each place, so as I’m rubbing it into my stomach and my crotch he’s positioning again for my mouth. So when he’s jizzed inside my cunt I can roll over and feel the same powerful squirts up against the crack of my arse.
So I can taste his spunk in my mouth even as it dries elsewhere.
Until he’s spent. More spent than he could ever, truly, physically be. Like it’s all been drained and sucked from him and he lies twitching and sated on the bed.
Almost every inch of me covered, or filled. Except one.
I’d hold his cock in my hand and milk the last few drops into the crook of my thumb and forefinger. Then rub my palms together to complete the full set.Thor Hushovd stated before the Arctic Race of Norway that he didn't want to be just the ambassador for the event, but wanted to be a stage and overall winner as well. After a frustrating fourth place in stage 1, the Norwegian champion reached half of his goal, and took the lead with an advantage of three seconds over stage 1 winner Kenny van Hummel thanks to the time bonus he captured at the first intermediate sprint yesterday. Related Articles Second edition of Arctic Race of Norway to visit North Cape
"I was very determined to win today," Hushovd said as soon as he got off the bike. "It means a lot to me to be a winner at an event that I have supported a lot from the start. This is the best bike race I've ever taken part in. Yesterday I missed out because of the positioning, but I felt strong today. It couldn't be better for me. Winning here, in the Lofoten islands, it's so beautiful!"
Following a first stage marred by windy and cold conditions, the Arctic Race of Norway found the sun on the sublime Lofoten islands. From Svolvær to Svolvær through the coastal road along the Vestfjorden that is often described in touristic guides as the most scenic in the world, stage 2 saw a significant breakaway going after twenty kilometers of racing.
The breakaway was composed of six riders: Russel Downing (NetApp-Endura), Sander Helven (Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise), Edwin Wilson (Joker-Merida), Michael Olsson (People 4 you), Max Emil Korner (Ringeriks-Kraft) and August Jensen (Øster Hus-Ridley). The latter, hailing from Bodø, is the only participant of the event originating from northern Norway. One day after racing in front of his fans and family, he went on to win both King of the Mountains prizes of the day while Helven took profit of his three successful intermediate sprints to grab time bonus and move up to third place overall.
"It was an efficient breakaway," Downing told Cyclingnews prior to being awarded with an enormous dry fish for being the most aggressive rider of the day. "My legs weren't good yesterday [he finished stage 1 seventeen minutes down] because I hadn't raced for seven weeks. I blew out, but today, I felt 100% better. I insisted at the front as much as I could. I wouldn't go down without fighting."
The six leaders weren't allowed to stay away with more than 2:40 over the peloton led by Vacansoleil-DCM's teammates of Van Hummel, aand later helped by the likes of representatives of Argos-Shimano, BMC and Team Plussbank.
Hushovd gave a strong indication of his strength when he followed an acceleration by Europcar's Vincent Jérôme who was later involved in a crash that affected King of the Mountains Lars-Petter Nordhaug of Belkin with 13.5 kilometres to go.
Korner, Olsson and Downing refused to give up and got rid of their former breakaway companions 13km before the finish. As soon as they got reined in at the 7km to go mark, Amund Grondal Jansen (Plussbank) tried his luck, so did Paul Martens (Belkin) three kilometers further. But a bunch gallop was inevitable.
"The final sprint was a bit of a chaos but I got an excellent lead out by Adam Blythe," Hushovd said after netting his sixth victory of the 2013 season. "When I got out of his wheel and I launched my sprint with 200 metres to go, I got the feeling of being unbeatable. In fact, nobody managed to pass me. This is fantastic!"
With two days to go, the amazing Norwegian crowd has more to enjoy with their hero looking as strong as he was during his golden years at the Tour de France (2001-2011).
Full Results
# Rider Name (Country) Team Result 1 Thor Hushovd (Nor) BMC Racing Team 3:38:09 2 Tom Van Asbroeck (Bel) Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise 3 Marco Haller (Aut) Katusha 4 Kenny Robert van Hummel (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 5 Sondre H Enger (Nor) Team Plussbank 6 Jetse Bol (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling Team 7 Yannis Yssaad (Fra) BigMat-Auber 93 8 Louis Verhelst (Bel) Cofidis, Solutions Credits 9 Ralf Matzka (Ger) Team NetApp-Endura 10 Tony Hurel (Fra) Team Europcar 11 Zico Waeytens (Bel) Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise 12 Baptiste Planckaert (Bel) Crelan-Euphony 13 Jon Einar Bergsland (Nor) Oneco-Trek Cycling Team 14 Jonas Ahlstrand (Swe) Team Argos-Shimano 15 Mathieu Drujon (Fra) BigMat-Auber 93 16 Blaz Jarc (Slo) Team NetApp-Endura 17 Christian Bertilsson (Swe) Team People4You-Unaas Cycling 18 Haavard Blikra (Nor) Team Oster Hus-Ridley 19 Rudiger Selig (Ger) Katusha 20 Christer Jensen (Nor) Joker-Merida 21 Edwig Cammaerts (Bel) Cofidis, Solutions Credits 22 Clinton Robert Avery (NZl) Champion System Pro Cycling Team 23 Timofey Kritskiy (Rus) Katusha 24 Dion Smith (NZl) Champion System Pro Cycling Team 25 Barry Markus (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 26 Sep Vanmarcke (Bel) Belkin Pro Cycling Team 27 Matthias Friedemann (Ger) Champion System Pro Cycling Team 28 Hakon Frengstad Berger (Nor) Ringeriks-Kraft Look 29 Davy Commeyne (Bel) Accent Jobs-Wanty 30 Jan Ghyselinck (Bel) Cofidis, Solutions Credits 31 Jasper De Buyst (Bel) Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise 32 Arnaud Labbe (Fra) Cofidis, Solutions Credits 33 Moreno Hofland (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling Team 34 Gilles Devillers (Bel) Crelan-Euphony 35 Trond Hakon Trondsen (Nor) Froy-Bianchi 36 Filip Eidsheim (Nor) Team Oster Hus-Ridley 37 Florent Barle (Fra) Cofidis, Solutions Credits 38 Jo Kogstad Ringheim (Nor) Team People4You-Unaas Cycling 39 Kristian Dyrnes (Nor) Team Oster Hus-Ridley 40 Benoit Drujon (Fra) BigMat-Auber 93 41 Tobias Ludvigsson (Swe) Team Argos-Shimano 42 Vegard Robinson Bugge (Nor) Joker-Merida 43 Adam Blythe (GBr) BMC Racing Team 44 Steven Caethoven (Bel) Accent Jobs-Wanty 45 Nikias Arndt (Ger) Team Argos-Shimano 46 Andreas Erland (Nor) Team Plussbank 47 Wouter Mol (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 48 Sébastien Delfosse (Bel) Crelan-Euphony 49 Fabien Bacquet (Fra) BigMat-Auber 93 50 Tord Andre Sundhagen (Nor) Froy-Bianchi 51 Maxime Vantomme (Bel) Crelan-Euphony 52 Rick Flens (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling Team 53 Scott Thwaites (GBr) Team NetApp-Endura 54 Fredrik Ludvigsson (Swe) Team People4You-Unaas Cycling 55 Preben Van Hecke (Bel) Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise 56 Thomas Degand (Bel) Accent Jobs-Wanty 57 Reidar Bohlin Borgersen (Nor) Joker-Merida 58 Bjørn Tore Nilsen Hoem (Nor) Team Plussbank 59 Edwin Wilson (Swe) Joker-Merida 60 Kristoffer Skjerping (Nor) Joker-Merida 61 Stijn Neirynck (Bel) Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise 62 Flavien Dassonville (Fra) BigMat-Auber 93 63 Zachary Bell (Can) Champion System Pro Cycling Team 64 Gert Joeaar (Est) Cofidis, Solutions Credits 65 Kevin Van Melsen (Bel) Accent Jobs-Wanty 66 Sebastian Lander (Den) BMC Racing Team 67 Sondre Moen Hurum (Nor) Oneco-Trek Cycling Team 68 Mikhail Ignatyev (Rus) Katusha 69 Michael Olsson (Swe) Team People4You-Unaas Cycling 70 Oystein Stake Laengen (Nor) Oneco-Trek Cycling Team 71 Martin Kohler (Swi) BMC Racing Team 72 Reinier Honig (Ned) Crelan-Euphony 73 Maxim Belkov (Rus) Katusha 74 Rob Ruijgh (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 75 Dominik Nerz (Ger) BMC Racing Team 76 Paul Martens (Ger) Belkin Pro Cycling Team 77 Maurits Lammertink (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 78 Oyvind Lukkedal (Nor) Ringeriks-Kraft Look 79 Oddbjorn Klomsten Andersen (Nor) Froy-Bianchi 80 Sander Helven (Bel) Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise 81 Sindre Skjostad Lunke |
However, thirty of those points have come in the fourth quarter.
If they built a lead on Seattle two Sunday's from now, could they hold onto it?
- Super Bowl XLVIII will feature the top passing game versus the top passing defense, so what does history say about that?
There have been 13 instances of a top five passing offense facing a top five passing defense. In those games, the pass defense is 8-4-1 (remember the splits before? The 1968 Super Bowl featured two teams that were top five in both. Again, going back far enough, the data for ranking isn't good.)
The last four games to feature a top five pass defense versus top five pass offense has been won by the defense:
2008 Steelers vs Cardinals, 2002 Bucs vs Raiders, 1997 Broncos vs Packers, 1996 Packers vs Patriots.
The last time the offense beat the defense was, again, the 1989 San Francisco 49ers that did everything.
The only instance in history of a number one pass offense featuring a number one pass defense was the 2002 victory by Tampa Bay. Rich Gannon threw five interceptions in that game, half as many as he had thrown all season long.
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As noted earlier, Manning has also thrown 10 interceptions this season. Could he suffer the same fate as Gannon, and find himself in turnover turmoil in New Jersey against the best pass defense we've seen since '02? That's probably not a high probability.
Manning has thrown more than four interceptions only once in his career (6, in 2007 vs San Diego) and more than three just five times, including once in the playoffs.
But Seattle isn't necessarily hoping that Manning has a meltdown in the Super Bowl. They aren't banking on him having a terrible game or intercepting him three or four times, though they won't be mad about it if they do. This is about making the number one passing offense in the NFL to simply be average.
If they can take them down a notch, from historical to merely good, then you have to re-evaluate the Broncos and ask yourself what you've got if Denver is exactly the same in every other area of football as they have been all year, but with a worse offense. What you'd have is a team that probably isn't good enough to win the Super Bowl.
If the Broncos can play as good on offense as they have for the whole season, against the best secondary in the NFL, then they will be more than worthy.
History seems to favor the defense, and it leans even harder towards that side of the ball if you look at only the last 25 or 30 years, but the only thing I can guarantee you is this: In less than two weeks, a "D" is going to win the Super Bowl.
We just don't know which kind of D, yet.Real-world Visual Testing
Using virtual reality to cause a subject to correct for perceived motion has revealed that glaucoma patients’ reactions are more erratic than those of healthy individuals. ( Image courtesy Felipe A. Medeiros, MD, PhD.)
Another Virtual Vection Test
Making Standard Tests Portable
Capturing Virtual Live Surgery
France’s Moveo Foundation has funded 3-D, open-field recording of surgeries (note cameras attached to surgeon’s head), which are then translated into virtual reality format. The viewer can turn and look in any direction during the virtual playback. ( Image courtesy Julie Mercier/Moveo Foundation. )
What Lies Ahead?
REVIEW
, a new technology comes along that has the potential to be game-changing. Virtual reality—in which a subject is immersed in a manufactured visual and audio environment in which he can look around and even move around—is one of those technologies. Up until recently, virtual reality has been minimally used outside of the field of video gaming, for two reasons: technical problems and cost. The usefulness of early attempts to immerse people in a virtual setting were severely limited by lag-time; if you turned your head, the shift in your visual perspective took an instant to follow. This delay tended to make the subject feel sick. In addition, the cost of the equipment was prohibitive for most purposes.Today, new technologies may surmount both of those limitations. The latest virtual reality headsets, such as the Oculus Rift (Oculus, Menlo Park, Calif.), allow the visual to follow our changing gaze so quickly that the brain can’t detect a delay. Hence, no more feeling ill. And thanks to the ever-dropping cost of technology, the Oculus Rift will soon be available to the public for a cost of about $300. (Software developers can currently buy a kit to create one for $350.)This technology could have a drastic impact on many fields, from entertainment (virtual movies in which you can look around during the action) to extremely realistic training simulators (without most of the physical equipment) to mini-vacations (spend a few hours on a tropical island without leaving your home) to 3-D remote interactions with other people.Here, five individuals using this technology in ways relating to medicine talk about how it’s likely to impact the field of ophthalmology.One of the most promising uses of virtual reality in medicine is creating performance tests that simulate real-life conditions. (Traditional tests may bear little relation to the visual challenges faced by patients every day.) Felipe A. Medeiros, MD, PhD, a professor of clinical ophthalmology at the University of California, San Diego, and director of the Visual Performance Laboratory at the Shiley Eye Institute at UCSD, and colleagues have become the first to publish a study using virtual reality in this way. Their study used the Oculus Rift device to test subjects’ balance response to vection—the sense of motion we feel when the environment around us moves (or appears to move).“In real life we use vision in a dynamic way, involving complex scenes and motion,” Dr. Medeiros explains. “The tests we commonly perform to evaluate visual loss in glaucoma are static tests, like standard perimetry fields. We hypothesized that using dynamic stimuli would be a more effective way of evaluating how impaired a glaucoma patient has become.“We used an immersive 3-D virtual-reality environment to help us evaluate balance in patients who have glaucoma, in comparison to controls,” he continues. “The subjects wore an Oculus Rift while standing on a force platform. We projected a series of different visual stimuli, such as moving through a tunnel (translational stimulus) and standing in a rotating environment (rotational stimulus). Subjects reacted to the perceived movement by shifting their bodies to compensate. The platform measured the force their bodies applied when they attempted to regain or prevent their perceived loss of balance.“In patients with glaucoma, the responses were not appropriate,” he says. “Their responses were more erratic than those of healthy subjects, and they lost their balance much more easily. More importantly, we found that the metrics produced by this test were predictive of the risk of falling. A history of falls in these subjects revealed that those who had more falls performed worse in the test.” (Potentially being able to predict falling is a big deal; falling is the leading cause of injury-related death in older adults, especially those with glaucoma.)Dr. Medeiros points out that virtual reality offers ophthalmology a chance to break free of the traditional constraints of in-office testing. “Studies have shown that tests like the standard visual field are not very predictive of how patients actually perform in the real world,” he says. “I see virtual reality as a way of testing things in a more realistic way that will allow us to assess how visual impairment affects our patients’ ability to do things. For example, we have a very elaborate driving simulator in my lab; it’s a full car, so the test is very realistic. With virtual reality we might be able to recreate a portable version of that test.”Dr. Medeiros notes that the technology involved in the balance test is rapidly becoming less expensive. “An Oculus Rift can be purchased for a few hundred dollars,” he says. “And although we used an expensive force platform in our experiment to maximize our accuracy and the value of our data, the same test might be accomplished using the kind of floor mat people stand on when they play some Wii video games. We’re now working to develop a simplified version of the test that could be routinely used in clinical practice to predict which patients are at higher risk of falling. If you know your patient is at higher risk, you can provide some counseling and perhaps have the patient go into a program designed to reinforce balance through exercise or other means.”Dr. Medeiros notes that his group’s intention was not to create a diagnostic screening tool. “However, we did find that this test is able to predict the risk of falling even in those with only mild or moderate glaucoma, who may not realize they are at risk,” he says. “It would be interesting to evaluate the potential of this kind of test as a screening tool.”Researchers at the Vision Science Research Program of the Toronto Western Research Institute are also investigating the use of virtual reality to create vection—the sensation that you are moving—as a way to evaluate the status of glaucoma in a patient. Their results indicate that even individuals with early glaucoma experience vection differently than healthy controls, raising the possibility of a simple screening test for the disease. (They conducted their initial tests seating subjects in front of large screens to create images that fill the entire visual field, but they plan to replace those screens with a virtual reality headset.)“Our test presents the study participants with a random dot pattern that fills their entire visual field,” explains Taylor Brin, a graduate student in the Ocular Motor Laboratory, which is part of the VSRP. “The dot pattern rotates in a circle. This causes the participant to feel as if he or she is moving; in other words, it induces vection. The subjects simply press and hold a button as soon as they feel like they’re moving. We compared the vection response in individuals with healthy vision to the response from those with mild-stage glaucoma; we found that individuals with glaucoma had vection that was either impaired or completely absent compared to those with healthy vision.”Ms. Brin says the idea for this test originated when other members of the lab noted studies showing that vection was altered in individuals with age-related macular degeneration. “Initially we did our vection test in macular degeneration patients; we found they have a stronger sensation of vection because they have damaged central vision. That led us to think, why not try this in glaucoma where the damage is sort of the opposite of macular degeneration? Instead of having damaged central vision, people with glaucoma typically have damaged peripheral vision at first.”Ms. Brin says the early results have been highly statistically significant. “As we hypothesized, individuals with glaucoma have a weaker sensation of vection,” she says. “They either don’t experience vection at all—in contrast to healthy controls who universally experience vection—or it takes them a lot longer to experience it than controls. Notably, we only tested patients with early glaucoma, which makes this very promising as a screening tool. Even patients with 20/20 vision and very few visual deficits showed this effect.”Ms. Brin says the team is very interested in trying the same test using a tool such as the Oculus Rift. “Reality-based tests involving things like vection are very promising, but performing the test with a large screen is inconvenient,” she notes. “Virtual reality is compact and convenient; it’s easy to have in the doctor’s office, and it’s relatively inexpensive compared to some of the tests we have now. Using virtual reality to perform this sort of test could help to make diagnosis much easier.”One of the advantages of current virtual reality technology is its portability. Thus, existing tests such as perimetry can be recreated in virtual reality, eliminating the need for bulky, non-portable equipment. Along those lines, CREWT Medical Systems in Tokyo has developed a head-mounted device that can conduct a standard perimetry test without the usual equipment. The virtual test should be available for purchase in Japan later this year.Shinji Kimura, director and general manager at CREWT Medical Systems in Tokyo, notes that it’s not practical for most surgeons to increase the number of measurements taken in the office. “We chose to develop the head-mounted perimeter partly because its high portability helps to solve this problem,” he says. “In addition, the problem of finding a suitably dark place to give the test is settled because the head mount provides its own darkroom, and finding space for the equipment is no longer an issue.“This device is equipped with an optical system that provides a field of vision of 35 degrees from the center to the right and left,” he continues. “It uses a liquid crystal display and can create the broad dynamic range of brightness and various sizes of stimulus necessary for a perimeter. It makes it possible to measure perimetry binocularly, and there’s no need to close one eye for a monocular test. In fact, when performing binocular random perimetry, it is impossible for the subject to know which eye is being tested. The device can also monitor the pupil with high precision and use that information to control the stimulus point, making it easy for the subject to maintain fixation.” Mr. Kimura notes that the device is balanced to avoid feeling too heavy on the head, although he admits some elderly individuals might be bothered by the weight.Mr. Kimura says they have conducted a study comparing the device to a standard perimeter. “The correlation is very good, but the study has not yet been published, so I can’t share the numbers,” he says. He adds that the company is currently conducting a study including a questionnaire to help determine how subjects feel about taking the test in this way. They hope to eventually bring the product to the United States.Dr. Medeiros, along with members of the neuroscience department at the University of Southern California, San Diego, is also working on a virtual reality-based perimeter that takes things one step further: It removes the subjective part of the test by measuring visual responses using electroencephalograph technology embedded in the headset worn by the patient. “This not only eliminates the need for the standard perimeter, it will be an objective test of visual impairment that does not rely on subjective patient responses,” he says. “We’ll analyze the patient’s brain waves to determine whether he saw the stimulus or not. We’ve already created a prototype of the device.”The MOVEO Foundation, based in France, focuses on research projects aiming to modernize orthopedic surgery. Recently, the Moveo Foundation supported a project that pioneered the capturing of surgical procedures in 3-D; the procedures are then translated into a virtual reality experience that can be shared via the Oculus Rift, for multiple purposes including training.“Virtual reality enables the trainee to become an avatar of the surgeon, to be virtually in the operating theater,” says Thomas Gregory, MD, an associate professor at the European Teaching Hospital Georges Pompidou at Paris Descartes University in France, who is a founding member of the MOVEO Foundation. “This research project uses two advanced technologies: an open-field camera and a virtual reality headset. Two synchronized open-field cameras are placed on the surgeon’s head while he performs a surgery. (See picture, p. 20.) The visual and audio data are then adapted to virtual reality format.“When you watch the procedure through the virtual reality headset, you can move your head in this virtual world,” he continues. “If you are more interested in what the assistant is doing, or the scrub nurse, just turn your head toward them to see what they are doing; the stereoscopic 3-D and wide field of view create a striking immersive effect. A student can replay the surgery in detail and watch it through the eyes of the surgeon. Surgeons can also use this to observe and learn from their own work.”Taking the element of reality one step further, an English product-development firm, Plextek Consultancy, has been working with its government’s Defense Science and Technology Laboratory to create an immersive virtual reality simulation training system for medical members of the military, using the Oculus Rift. The system creates battlefield environments that can be experienced by multiple individuals at once, allowing them to learn to treat casualties in three-dimensional, high-stress, under-fire situations. Notably, the system also records the participants’ actions while responding to the virtual situation for later evaluation.“We’ve enabled the system to record everything that happens, monitoring the actions of the participants, visually and verbally,” explains Collette Johnson, medical business development manager at Plextek. “Everything is time-stamped and searchable. This should be very useful for surgeons in training; you can see whether the person was following the steps correctly. It could also be useful for a surgeon who simply wants to review his own surgery. What makes this different from simply filming a procedure is that it’s an intelligent system and a data pool; you can search for key moments and go straight to them; you can search for specific words in the audio track. And of course, because it’s virtual reality, you can look around, 360 degrees, at any moment during the recorded procedure. And it can automatically become part of the electronic record, if desired.”“Like other highly demanding surgical disciplines, ophthalmology will benefit from affordable immersive systems such as virtual reality,” says Dr. Gregory. “This will be a powerful way to train young surgeons, especially as the demand for remote training systems increases with the development of health-care systems in emerging countries. The potential of virtual reality is also huge for patient care, as it can be used advantageously in the framework of minimally invasive surgical techniques.”Ms. Johnson sees multiple potential uses for virtual reality. “Virtual reality can allow patients and family members to experience procedures and their benefits ahead of time,” she notes. “For example, many patients are nervous about getting an injection in the eye. With virtual reality they and any concerned family members can see what’s involved. Virtual reality could also be used to conduct tests that would normally have to be done in the office, tests that can detect musculature problems or neuro-ophthalmological problems, and conduct them outside the office in the community. That might make it easier to discover problems earlier when they’re more amenable to treatment.”Ms. Johnson also sees virtual reality helping individuals with low vision experience things that would be challenging or impossible to experience firsthand. “An individual with low vision might want to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but find it very frustrating—if he could even get there,” she notes. “Virtual reality would allow that person to spend as much time as desired interacting with the art, as closely as desired, either in the museum or at home. Possibilities like this might help to prevent some of the side effects we see in people with low vision, such as depression and feeling isolated. This technology is already helping people who can’t go outside for other reasons, such as anxiety about being in public, or individuals with late-stage cancer who simply can’t travel.”Dr. Medeiros also sees great potential in using virtual reality to overlay 3-D data on live images—which he refers to as augmented reality—such as the images seen through a microscope during surgery. “Having a reticle overlaid on the microscope view is a simple version of this,” he says. “I think this will go far beyond that. You could overlay topographic data, or a 3-dimensional rendition of the best incision architecture for a given case. Companies are already developing augmented reality glasses that will allow you to see a patient’s records and data while talking to the patient. You might even be able to turn the page or move the visuals around by waving your hand, as the characters did in the movie ‘Minority Report.’ ”More options: Share, Mark as favorite
When government agencies or heavily regulated industries are insulated from market competition, the incentives to offer better service and lower prices, along with the incentives to innovate, upgrade and improve are either significantly weakened or non-existent. But when faced unexpectedly with some market competition, it’s amazing how the normally sclerotic, anti-consumer and unresponsive government agencies or protected industries can suddenly become responsive and consumer-friendly. Here are two examples:
1. The Kelston Toll Road in the UK. I reported last August on CD that an entrepreneurial UK grandfather built a 400-yard private toll in just ten days that allowed drivers to bypass a 14-mile construction detour. A landslide last February closed a road between the towns of Bristol and Bath and construction was originally scheduled to take until last Christmas to complete. The private owner was therefore expecting toll revenue through December to cover his $500,000 in construction and repair costs, along with the cost of staffing a toll both 24 hours each day, and hopefully generate some profit for his entrepreneurial efforts.
But the local government, possibly unhappy with the competition from the private toll road, suddenly made an emergency decision to spend an extra $1 million to speed up the road construction project, which was completed six weeks ahead of schedule in mid-November. Now the toll road entrepreneur and his wife are upset and have accused the local government of trying to bankrupt him with the early opening of the road five weeks ahead of schedule. And perhaps the road construction would have been completed early even without the private toll road, but it seems pretty likely that the presence of competition from the private toll road may have imposed some additional incentives that changed the normal “we don’t care, we don’t have to” attitude of the local civil servants (who often are neither very “civil nor “servile”).
2. Big Taxi vs. Uber. After being protected from competition for generations by government regulations that restrict the number of traditional taxis in most major cities like New York, Chicago and LA, the “taxi cartel” has recently come under competitive pressure from new ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft that offer consumers a transportation alternative to taxis at lower prices and with better, faster service. Suddenly, the traditional, sleepy taxi industry is being forced to act and think more competitively in response to the upstart ride-sharing services, which is behavior that is completely alien to an industry that never faced the discipline of market competition before. For example, the LA Times is reporting that:
All taxicab drivers in Los Angeles will be required to use mobile apps similar to Uber and Lyft by this summer, according to a measure passed by the Los Angeles Taxicab Commission this week. The order, passed on a 5-0 vote, requires every driver and cab to sign onto a city-certified “e-hail” app by Aug. 20 or face a $200-a-day fine. The move is seen as a way to make taxicab companies more competitive with rideshare apps such as Uber and Lyft. Los Angeles cab companies reported a 21% drop in taxi trips in the first half of 2014 compared with the same period the previous year, the steepest drop on record. Cab companies largely attribute the drop to the popularity of app-based ride services. William Rouse, general manager of Yellow Cab of Los Angeles, says his company has utilized a mobile app for several years. The app, Curb, allows riders to hail and track a cab, provide payment and rate drivers. “If our industry is ever going to get a chance to move passengers from Uber back to taxis, each one of these companies should have an app,” Rouse told The Times. “It’s a shame that the city had to mandate it in order for this to happen.”
Last summer, ABC News reported that:
Meet the new secret weapon to get a leg up in the cutthroat competition among cabbies — charm school. Taxi drivers in Washington state are getting lessons that they hope will give them an edge against startups such as Lyft and Uber. About 170 taxicab operators paid $60 out of their pockets for a four-hour training session to learn about topics including customer satisfaction and developing relationships with institutional clients.
Pretty amazing how the taxi cartel is suddenly starting to change the way it operates now that its drivers are facing intense market competition/discipline from Uber and Lyft.
Bottom Line: Perry’s Law says that “competition breeds competence.” These two cases above help to illustrate that principle, and provide examples of how direct, ruthless, even cutthroat competition is often the most effective form of regulation, and provides the intense discipline that forces firms to maximize their responsiveness to consumers. To maximize the competence of producers and suppliers, we have to maximize competition, and to maximize competition we usually need to reduce the government barriers to market competition like occupational licensing and artificially restricting the number of taxis that are allowed to operate in a city. In other words, we need to move away from the ubiquitous crony capitalism that protects well-organized, well-funded, concentrated groups of producers like the taxi cartel, barbers, funeral home operators, and sugar farmers from market competition. Government regulation typically reduces competition, which then reduces the competence of producers, and reduces their willingness to serve consumers and the public interest, which make us worse off. I say the more market competition the better, for consumers and for the human race. As Bastiat pointed out in 1850:Part two of the new era of UFC begins on Oct. 3, as Daniel Cormier (16-1) faces Alexander Gustafsson (16-3) for the light heavyweight title, in the first title match since the implementation of not only random drug testing, but the banning of IV use to rehydrate after weigh-ins.
For Cormier, it's a return to a life he lived years ago, and he sees the changes as an overall positive.
"I've been through all the USADA stuff," said Cormier, who competed for years on the U.S. national wrestling team. "I've always competed with what God gave me. I think most fighters are happy with it, except the guys who have been cheating."
While that got a lot of headlines, the banning of IVs also changes the game somewhat. For Cormier, it means he's had to work even harder at getting his weight down, He's planning on being seven or eight pounds lighter in natural body weight for this fight so as not have to make such a drastic cut.
"We're the first ones after it goes into effect on Oct. 1," Cormier said about the IV ban. "We're the guinea pigs. So we'll see how much it changes things."
Cormier's girth and eating habits were such that he was able to make fun of himself in January doing an hilarious music video of the song "All About That Bass" at the MMA Awards show, called "I'm All About that Cake." Formerly known for midnight pizza and Popeye's chicken, he's traded that in for a meals of grilled chicken and cucumbers, and two gallons of water daily.
"I have a great nutrition coach, Don Leith, using a program from Fit TV," he said. "I'm working with George Lockhart, an expert in rehydration. He worked with Kenny Florian to get him down to 145, and he's working with Cris Cyborg right now."
A week-and-a-half before fight time, Cormier is noticeably leaner and more muscular than at the same period before previous fights. He's facing a challenger who, at 6-foot-5, is slightly taller and has about the same reach as Jon Jones. Jones is not only the only fighter Cormier has lost to, but he's the only fighter Cormier has ever had more than brief moments of trouble with.
"I'm usually 226 on Thursday (two days before the fight), so I'm way ahead of schedule right now," he said. "I expect to be 218, 219 next Thursday, and then lose 15 pounds. Most people do their cutting on Friday. I cut on Thursday so Friday is smooth."
Cormier first decided to move to light heavyweight after an undefeated run as a heavyweight, for a couple of reasons. First, his training partner, Cain Velasquez, was heavyweight champion and he had no intention of fighting him. Second, he had a natural rival at 205 in Jones.
But there were significant mental questions. At the 2008 Olympics, where he was considered a strong medal threat, while cutting weight before the competition his kidneys shut down and he wound up in the hospital, watching four years of training since a fourth place finish in 2004 go down the drain. His Olympic weight was 211.5 pounds, 6.5 pounds more than what he'd have to make to be a light heavyweight fighter.
But he's far more disciplined with his dieting and felt the Johnson fight really proved it. He was training for a June 6 fight with Ryan Bader, so that was the date he was looking to hit 206 and to peak his conditioning for. Then, suddenly, Jones was out of the fight with Johnson and stripped of the title. Cormier got the call to face Johnson two weeks earlier than scheduled. But he still made one pound less weight and competed well with less time in camp.
In hindsight, he felt he peaked three weeks early with Jones. With Johnson, circumstances of the late date change made it impossible to peak, but he performed well. In this fight, he's hoping he's gotten the peaking down.
Another change that he says is significant is having Cain Velasquez and Luke Rockhold around his entire camp. Velasquez was recovering from knee surgery when Cormier was getting ready for Jones.
"I had Liam McGeary and King Mo, so I had help for Jones, but it's just a difference, big time, because nobody can push me like Cain can push me."
He noted Rockhold is around every day. Velasquez is there pushing him both on his cardio, and working with him regularly on 7 a.m. weightlifting sessions. He also notes another key training partner for this fight is Ruslan Magomedov, a 260-pound heavyweight who is preparing to face Shawn Jordan on the same night. Magomedov is almost as tall as Gustafsson, and physically stronger.
"He's 6-4 1/2, about the same size as Gustafsson, and bigger and stronger so I'm used to that size."
The moment the Jones fight started, the difference in height and reach was more than noticeable. But Cormier said that there were things he can take out of that fight. The key was that he was able to get inside against Jones and somewhat negate the reach aspect. But being in close makes him more susceptible to knees, a Gustafsson specialty. Gustafsson proved with Jones that he's no slouch in the wrestling department, as he took Jones down and did well in defending Jones' takedowns, better than any previous Jones opponent.
Cormier does feel Gustafsson is overrated. He's getting the title shot coming off a knockout loss to Anthony "Rumble" Johnson, who Cormier finished to win the title vacated when Jones was stripped of it after his latest arrest.
"I know Rashad (Evans), he wanted to fight Gustafsson. (Ryan) Bader, he wanted to fight Gustafsson. It's what I said, Gustafsson's biggest claim to fame is that on his best day, he almost beat Jon Jones. His biggest win is Shogun Rua. A lot of the guys think Gustafsson is a myth that UFC created from the Jon Jones fight and that the fans believe it."
But he does concede that Gustafsson is a threat.
"He's improved greatly in his wrestling, he's got good striking and excellent footwork," he said. "Plus, he's going to be much better coming off a loss."
Still, Cormier said he was just as surprised as everyone when he found out he was facing Gustafsson for the title.
"I was surprised," he said. "I still want to beat up Bader for what happened (an incident where he and Bader got into a shouting match at the press conference after his win over Johnson). But when I got the word, I was kind of happy. I wanted to fight Alexander Gustafsson."
He also has the home field advantage with the fight taking place at the Toyota Center in Houston. He grew up in Lafayette, La., but Houston was where his family went on vacation.
Cormier points out that while it's important to promote a fight, he believes what he says when he's doing it.
"The last time, I pointed out that Rumble Johnson had lost by choke to Josh Koscheck and Vitor Belfort. And what happened?"
Cormier beat Johnson on May 23 to capture the light heavyweight title via third round choke. But to many, winning that title was a no-win situation because Jones was so dominant as champion, and had beaten Cormier in his last fight before being stripped. Cormier said he completely understands why fans some would feel that he's not the true champion, But he also doesn't think it makes sense to take it out on him, or not like him, because it wasn't his decision, and his job was to beat Johnson.
"I know people resent that, but they have to know that it wasn't my decision," he said about Jones being stripped of the title.
Cormier is one of the most likeable athletes you'll ever meet, and highly respected by his peers. He was voted team captain of the 2008 Olympic wrestling team, and is now the team captain at AKA in San Jose. But he knows in this day and age, you are always going to have people who don't like you, particularly in wearing a belt that arguably the most talented fighter in the history of the sport held and never lost in competition.
He has recognized that in 2015, when you are trying to build up a name and promoting fights, you can't make everyone like you.
"A lot of people are afraid to promote because when you do, some people will like you and some people won't," he said. "A lot of people are afraid because they don't want anyone to not like them. But it's just not going to happen."
"I don't care if you like me or don't like me now," he said. "I just have to get you to pay attention. It's hard for some people. Some people don't want people not to like them. But you learn. And it makes the difference in this sport between who makes money and who complains about not making money. But it's hard. Because you try to do things right. I'm a nice guy. You don't see me going out and partying. I love my fiance and my family. I'm not going to be caught with condoms in my car. I coach kids wrestling for free. I try and treat people well."
The ghost of Jones hovers over every title fight, but at this point Cormier doesn't want Jones to occupy his head space. "We're in a good place," he said leading up to this fight.
With Jones, he feels that his personal feelings worked against him. And with Johnson, while he had no personal animosity, he felt his back was against the wall because it was a fight he couldn't afford to lose.
"There's less pressure than ever before," he said. "I put so much pressure on myself with Jon Jones. It was so big of an event. It was two undefeated guys going for the championship. Then, with Rumble Johnson, I thought before that fight that if I lost, I may never get another title shot. But now, I'm happy. I'm nervous, but I'm always nervous before competition."
He came out of the Olympics broke when he began training for MMA in 2009. At that point there was pressure to succeed. Six years later he's achieved the world championship goal that eluded him in wrestling. But age is always an issue when a fighter passes 35.
"I'm 36, I'll be 37 in March. I don't think about retirement. I like doing this for the older guys. I have a job after this as an announcer. I can wear an expensive suit and eat. I can spend more time with my family. I won't have to wake up at 6:30 a.m. and drive 30 minutes to lift weights. I won't have to cut weight. If I start thinking about it, life after fighting isn't that bad, but I still love to compete."Get the biggest daily stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
A rapist who masqueraded as a devout Muslim was blasted as a hypocrite by a judge as he was jailed for 16 years for attacks on schoolgirls.
Mohammed Shaheen, of Harrow Street, Crumpsall, held himself out as a faithful believer who had been framed by his two victims.
But a Manchester Crown Court jury rejected his pleas of innocence and found him guilty of seven sex charges, including specimen charges reflecting multiple incidents of rape.
Jobbing decorator Shaheen, a 43-year-old father-of-seven, raped and groped the underage teenagers in Longsight and Crumpsall and then ordered them to keep silent.
One of the victims was told that if she spoke of what he had done he would kill himself.
He also told her he had an indecent recording of her that he would distribute if she reported him.
However Shaheen’s abuse of the pair came to light in 2014, after the older of the girls finally found the courage to confide in a schoolfriend. By that stage Shaheen had tried to force her into a degrading sex act.
In video interviews taken after his behaviour came to light, the girls were ‘hesitant, anxious, and plainly vulnerable’, Judge Martin Steiger QC said in Shaheen’s sentencing hearing.
But since speaking of their ordeal to police ‘there has been a considerable development in their self-confidence’, the judge said.
Shaheen has no previous convictions, but the court heard evidence there had been accusations of similar offending when he was living in Pakistan.
Adam Watkins, defending, said Shaheen’s relatives were in Holland and Pakistan, so he was not expecting any prison visits.
“Prison will be a particularly isolating experience for him”, Mr Watkins said.
Sending him down, Judge Martin Steiger QC said: “He masqueraded as religious when all along he was behaving in this hypocritical way. He said that if it got out he would kill himself with a knife.
"Most shockingly he appears to have made a secret recording of her naked, he threatened if she said anything he would show that to others, thereby traducing her reputation.
"He alleged these two young naive grls had invented this tale of sexual abuse and more shockingly still he pretended torn papers from condom packets had been planted by the girls themselves, when in reality it was compelling evidence of his guilt.
"A very substantial sentence indeed is called for, for these shocking offences.”165.7k SHARES Share Tweet Pinterest Stumbleupon Reddit Buffer Mail Tumblr
So you think you are a perfect geek just because you have a talking Homer and a Space Invaders mug at your desk? No chance.
Maybe a lava lamp or a not-so-exclusive Google mini-fridge? Meh, go away.
To become a respectable geek you should do more than buying used schwags on Ebay for your cubicle. Not to mention that hanging solar system built using old cds is your one way ticket to nerd city.
To become a real geek, just take a look at this gallery of uber-cool home and office appliances, furniture and other decorative elements |
sweeping Medicare overhaul in the debt-reduction talks that began at Blair House on Thursday.
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“The reality is this president has excoriated our budget plan and the Medicare proposal in the plan,” Mr. Cantor told reporters.
The negotiators, who agreed to meet next on Tuesday, are combing their respective budget proposals to find common ground.
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But given the parties’ differences and the short time frame for negotiations before Congress must increase the debt limit, both sides have indicated that any compromise is likely to be based less on specific policy changes than on proposals setting deficit-reduction targets for coming years. Those targets would be combined with triggers to make automatic cuts in spending — and tax increases, in Democrats’ view — if the targets are exceeded.
While Mr. Cantor outlined the House-passed Ryan budget as Republicans’ opening bid in the Blair House negotiations, he said little about the Medicare proposals, participants said.
“He didn’t need to talk about it in that room,” said one participant. “Everyone knows it’s dead.”
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Still, the leadership comments surprised many Republican lawmakers, who said they had expected to move forward on the plan.
Some members — especially freshmen from districts with steep re-election hills to scale — were upset to hear that the plan could be scotched after they had voted for the budget proposal and then invested so much hard work trying to sell it back home over the spring recess.
“I would be very disappointed if we didn’t follow through,” said Representative Joe Walsh, whose district lies in the Chicago suburbs. “We have spent, gosh, a month or two now trying to educate the American people to a pretty good reception. I appreciate the chairman’s notion, but I would continue to respectfully challenge him to get this thing through committee.”
Representative Bobby Schilling of Illinois said backing down now would be giving in “to lies and deceit told by the other side.”
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“We’ve just got to address this problem,” he said. “Is it going to be perfect? No, but it needs to be addressed.”
The House speaker, John A. Boehner, said Thursday that the party was not backing away from the Medicare overhaul. But he said Mr. Camp’s view was a recognition of the “political realities that we face.”
Democrats said it did not matter if Republicans decided to jettison their Medicare plan because they had already voted for it as part of the budget.
“The Republicans are slowly realizing their plan to privatize Medicare is a political disaster,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Democrat. “But until they renounce their vote for it, they are still going to own it.”
Mr. Ryan said he believed the future of the Medicare proposal would be decided in next year’s elections.
“At the end of the day, I think 2012 is going to make the decision,” Mr. Ryan said at a budget forum Thursday, predicting voters would back the plan he said protects Medicare from insolvency. “The people are ahead of the political class.”Arsenal 13-14 Away Kit
Nike Arsenal 2013-14 Away Kit released. This is the new Arsenal 13-14 Away Kit produced for the last time by Nike after Puma signed a contract with Arsenal beginning at the 2014-15 season. Arsenal 2013-14 Home Kit will be the same as the 12-13 Home Kit and Arsenal 13-14 Away Kit is again sponsored byThis is the new Arsenal 2013-14 Away Kit.The new yellow Arsenal 2013-2014 Away Jersey will feature blue and red details. The Arsenal 2013/14 Home Kit will keep the same as the 12/13 Arsenal Home Kit. The collar of the Arsenal 13/14 Away Kit is a classical one in blue featuring a yellow and a red stripe.The shorts of the Arsenal 13-14 Away Kit are blue with a yellow Nike logo, while the socks are blue/yellow-hooped.Hulu will be the exclusive subscription streaming home to the breakout new comedy series of 2016, FX’s award-winning Atlanta, the streaming network announced at its upfront today.
Atlanta‘s SVOD sale to Hulu is part of the multi-year output agreement the streaming service signed with Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution in December 2014 that gave Hulu the exclusive SVOD rights to FX Networks’ original series produced by FX Productions and launched on the cable networks from 2014 on. Other FX/FXX original series streaming on Hulu under the deal include You’re The Worst, Baskets and The Strain.
The complete first season of Atlanta will become available to stream exclusively on Hulu ahead of its second season premiere, slated for 2018 on FX, and subsequent seasons will become available to stream on Hulu following their run on FX.
Created by Donald Glover, Atlanta took home two 2017 Golden Globe Awards for Best TV Comedy series and Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy for star Donald Glover. The series follows two cousins who work through the Atlanta music scene in order to better their lives and the lives of their families. Atlanta stars Glover, who also serves as Executive Producer, along with Paul Simms and Dianne McGunigle.BEIJING (Reuters) - China adopted a controversial cyber security law on Monday to counter what Beijing says are growing threats such as hacking and terrorism, but the law triggered concerns among foreign business and rights groups.
A map of China is seen through a magnifying glass on a computer screen showing binary digits in Singapore in this January 2, 2014 photo illustration. REUTERS/Edgar Su
The legislation, passed by China’s largely rubber-stamp parliament and set to take effect in June 2017, is an “objective need” of China as a major internet power, a parliament official said.
Overseas critics of the law say it threatens to shut foreign technology companies out of various sectors deemed “critical”, and includes contentious requirements for security reviews and for data to be stored on servers in China.
Rights advocates also say the law will enhance restrictions on China’s Internet, already subject to the world’s most sophisticated online censorship mechanism, known outside China as the Great Firewall.
Yang Heqing, an official on the National People’s Congress standing committee, said the Internet was already deeply linked to China’s national security and development.
“China is an internet power, and as one of the countries that faces the greatest internet security risks, urgently needs to establish and perfect network security legal systems,” he told reporters at the close of a bimonthly legislative meeting.
More than 40 global business groups petitioned Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in August, urging Beijing to amend what they said were controversial sections of the law. Chinese officials have said it would not interfere with foreign business interests.
Contentious provisions remained in the final draft issued by the parliament, including requirements for “critical information infrastructure operators” to store personal information and important business data in China, provide unspecified “technical support” to security agencies, and pass national security reviews.
Those demands have raised concerns within companies that fear they would have to hand over intellectual property or open back doors within products in order to operate in China’s market.
“VAGUE, AMBIGUOUS”
James Zimmerman, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, called the provisions “vague, ambiguous, and subject to broad interpretation by regulatory authorities.”
Human Rights Watch said elements of the law, such as criminalizing the use of the Internet to “damage national unity”, would further restrict online freedom.
“Despite widespread international concern from corporations and rights advocates for more than a year, Chinese authorities pressed ahead with this restrictive law without making meaningful changes,” Sophie Richardson, China Director at Human Rights Watch, said in an emailed statement.
Zhao Zeliang, director of the Cyberspace Administration of China’s cyber security coordination bureau, told reporters that every article in the law accorded with rules of international trade, and China would not close the door on foreign companies.
“They believe that [phrases such as] secure and independent control, secure and reliable, that these are signs of trade protectionism. That they are synonymous. This is a kind of misunderstanding, a kind of prejudice,” Zhao said.
China’s foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a regular press briefing that the law was similar to other countries’ rules and did not distinguish between foreign and Chinese companies.
Many of the provisions had been previously applied in practice, but their formal codification coincides with China’s adoption of a series of other regulations on national security and foreign civil society groups.
The law’s adoption comes amid a broad crackdown by President Xi Jinping on civil society, including rights lawyers and the media, which critics say is meant to quash dissent.
Last year, Beijing adopted a sweeping national security law that aimed to make all key network infrastructure and information systems “secure and controllable”.
“China’s government has come to recognize that cyberspace immediately and profoundly impacts on many if not all aspects of national security,” said Rogier Creemers, a researcher in the law and governance of China at Leiden University in the Netherlands.
“It is a national space, it is a space for military action, for important economic action, for criminal action and for espionage,” he said.We returned from Orlando around noon Sunday, and after a quick stop at the grocery store and the long, desolate drive down our long, desolate gravel road, I headed straight…for my kitchen. I’d been gone for exactly two weeks.
As God is my witness, I’m never leaving my house again!
Until next week.
We ate in restaurants (obviously) the entire time we were in Florida, and at Hard Rock Cafe twice. I ordered things suggested to me by the waitresses both times I was there (It’s a hobby I have. “Just bring me something yummy,” I say. Weird.) but wound up regretting not ever ordering a quesadilla they had on the menu—one containing grilled chicken, cheese, and (are you ready?) grilled pineapple.
I love grilled pineapple. But it had never occurred to me to stick some inside a quesadilla. Sometimes it takes me awhile.
So within an hour of returning home Sunday, I’d whipped one up. I had to get it out of my mind and move on with my life.
Here’s what you need: Flour Tortillas, Monterey Jack Cheese, Pineapple, Cilantro, Chicken Breasts, and Barbecue Sauce…and whatever spices you’d like to use to spice up the chicken.
Hack off the top of the pineapple…
And hack off the bottom.
Then you hack it down the middle.
Hack, hack, hack.
Then cut them into four wedges…
Then cut the four wedges to make eight wedges.
Then cut the hard triangular core off of each wedge.
They’re kinda tough and useless.
Next, cut off the hard, prickly skin.
Stick a skewer through the pineapple, lengthwise.
Set the skewers on a grill pan over medium to medium-high heat.
Move the pineapple around as it grills…
Remove them from the cutting board and cut into thin slices. Eat a few slices. Faint from bliss.
Grilled pineapple is…AWESOME. You can just dice it up at this point and turn it into a salsa if you’d like. Yum!
Stick the chicken breast in a large plastic bag and pound it flat with a mallet or a large, heavy can.
My mallet is in the bottom of our pond. Thank you for understanding.
Place the chicken on a plate and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Next, sprinkle on whatever spices you like—cumin, cayenne, taco seasoning…anything!
I used this stuff. It’s spicy, baby.
Next, throw the chicken onto the grill pan (or grill, if you’re into that sort of thing) and grill it up!
Pour on a little barbecue sauce if you’re into that sort of thing.
Remove the chicken from the grill pan…
Slice the chicken breast into thin slices and set aside.
Next, pre-grill the tortillas on a skillet. I just swirl some butter or margarine around for awhile, throw on the tortilla, and cook both sides for a minute or two. Do this until all eight tortillas are browned, and set them aside in a pile.
Next, grate up some Monterey Jack cheese. You can use the pre-grated stuff, but it’s coated in corn starch and will ruin your life. But go ahead and use it! It’ll be fine!
Finally, slice a jalapeno if you can HANDLE the spice.
I was feeling brave.
To assemble…
Start with a layer of grated cheese, then arrange strips of chicken all over the top.
Next, add slices of pineapple and sliced jalapeno.
Yum!
Finally, drizzle on a little more barbecue sauce.
This is hot barbecue sauce, by the way.
You don’t have to add the barbecue sauce at the end.
Here’s one without the sauce.
When they’re all assembled, throw them on a griddle…
Top each half with another tortilla, and grill until golden and the cheese is melted.
Cut the quesadillas into six wedges…
And serve with sour cream, pico de gallo, and lots of cilantro.
Scrumptious!
Here’s the handy dandy printable. (Note, if you missed the Le Creuset wieners, here’s the post.)It looks like Ridley Scott has even bigger plans for the Prometheus franchise than anyone ever realized, extending beyond the promised sequel. In an interview with German film site FilmFutter, the Alien director said he has plans to delve into the origin of the Xenomorph across maybe even four films.
When asked how he planned to address the original film's many loose ends — what happened to the Engineers? when will Weyland Industries become the villainous Weyland-Yutani Corporation? what became of that weird proto-Xenomorph at the end of the movie? will Damon Lindeloff stop being so awful? — Scott said the answers will come, but slowly.
Answers to Prometheus' biggest questions are coming, but slowly
"It won’t be in the next one, it will be in the one after this one or maybe even a fourth film before we get back into the Alien franchise," he explained. "The whole point of it is to explain the Alien franchise and to explain the how and why of the creation of the Alien itself. I always thought of the Alien as kind of a piece of bacterial warfare. I always thought that that original ship, which I call the Croissant, was a battleship, holding these biomechanoid creatures that were all about destruction."
All this, while fascinating, also means that Alien 5 is even lower on Scott's priorities at the moment. Fans may view those first films (let's try to ignore anything that happened after Aliens) as ultimately superior, but it could now be a long time before we catch up with Ellen Ripley or her descendants.It is so nice to be right.
To summarize what I wrote 2 and 3 years ago, here and here—based on my experience, patients and families will accept the theoretical risk of a future cancer if it means they’ll get an accurate diagnosis.
A new study validates that opinion.
MedPage Today reports that parents of 742 children who arrived at the emergency department with head injuries were surveyed by researchers from Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children. The parents were queried before receiving any recommendation for CT scanning.
Parents, almost half of whom had previously known that CT scanning might cause a cancer to develop in the future, were told of the radiation risks of CT scanning in detail. The authors found that, although the parents’ willingness to go ahead with the CT scan fell from 90% before the explanation of risk to 70% after they were briefed about radiation, at crunch time only 42 (6%) of them refused to let their child be scanned.
And of the 42 who initially refused, 8 eventually went ahead with the scan after a physician recommended it.
So to put it another way: Even after they were fully informed of the potential risk of CT scan radiation to their child (lifetime risk of cancer is about 1 in 10,000, according to the authors), nearly all parents opted for the scan.
Also of note are the following: The median age of the children was 4; 12% of the children in the study had undergone at least one previous CT scan; 97% of the children were diagnosed with only concussions or mild head injuries.
An article in Scientific American puts some of the radiation risk into perspective. It is long, but worth reading — as it explains how risk has been calculated, the best guess as to the true level of risk, and what radiologists are doing to lower the radiation exposure associated with CT scanning.
According to that article, “Any one person in the U.S. has a 20% chance of dying from cancer [of any type]. Therefore, a single CT scan increases the average patient’s risk of developing a fatal tumor from 20 to 20.05%.”
I agree that CT scans should be ordered judiciously. The area scanned and the amount of radiation should be limited as much as possible.
But if you need a CT scan to help diagnose your problem, go ahead and have it. As pediatric intensivist Dr. Christopher Johnson said on the KevinMD website, “Respect diagnostic radiation but don’t have an irrational fear of it.”
Bottom line: When it comes to accuracy in diagnosis vs radiation-induced cancer risk, parents overwhelmingly chose the former.
Skeptical Scalpel is a recently retired surgeon and was a surgical department chairman and residency program director for many years. He is board-certified in general surgery and a surgical sub-specialty and has re-certified in both several times. For the last two years, he has been blogging at SkepticalScalpel.blogspot.com and tweeting as @SkepticScalpel. His blog averages over 900 page views per day, and he has over 6,300 followers on Twitter.News » Price Drops, Tax Schemes, and Other Marijuana Legalization Hype
Politics is usually a shell game of right and wrong, good and evil, with the average person being the middle shell that never gets to hide the coin. The debate over marijuana legalization in California is no different.
A recent press release and report from the RAND Corporation regarding the legalization of marijuana and its effect on price and tax revenues made headlines with its assumption that marijuana prices on the street would drop by almost 900% from its current $375/ounce to $38/ounce.1
The report may well be true, but it fails on two key points: it ignores a current model that could have been used to gauge how marijuana usage might be changed by legalization; and it ignores the fact that marijuana is not a one-size-fits-all product, but instead has various forms and price tags (“grades”).
First, Some Background – California’s Two Legalization Efforts
Most people are unaware that there is more than one initiative to legalize marijuana in California.
Proposition 19, a ballot initiative, is the most often cited effort. It would legalize marijuana for people over the age of 21 and allow cultivation of up to 25 square feet (5×5) of MJ plants. A person over 21 could possess, transport, and even share up to an ounce of marijuana – thus all current marijuana clubs and seed (and bud) trading groups would instantly become legalized. In addition, this proposition would also tax commercial cultivation and sales of the herb.
The other is Assembly Bill 2254, which would likewise legalize marijuana for those over 21 years of age. Unlike the proposition, though, it leaves the taxation, regulation, and other duties up to California’s Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. It would create a $50 sales tax (per ounce), which would be used to fund drug awareness and rehabilitation programs.
Both ideas have their up and down sides, but most of the focus is on Proposition 19, as it is more likely to pass into law.
Meanwhile, the Board of Equalization issued a report to the Assembly’s Committee on Public Safety which gave the BoE’s examination of the impact of legalized marijuana on tax revenues. Robert Ingenito, of the BoE, gave the Board’s rather conservative approach at arriving at total tax revenues from the sale and use of legalized marijuana. His total number is “up to $1.4 billion” with actual numbers likely being, they think, in the $1 billion range. The bulk of that would be in excise taxes, at the $50 assumed rate of the Assembly’s bill. The rest would be into state General Fund and various county and city coffers.2
An interesting highlight in Mr. Ingenito’s report was the citing of the United Nation’s numbers on marijuana use. They show that only 9% of users consume it daily and only 4% of those use it more than once daily. The bulk of users use it four or less times annually (45%) and 100 times or less annually (41%).
Ignoring Alaska
The report from RAND ignores the fact that marijuana has had a somewhat legalized status in Alaska for 35 years. It’s legal to own and cultivate marijuana inside a person’s personal property (enclosed, such as a house) to produce up to one ounce per adult. While this isn’t the full legalization that California might get, it is the closest thing to it geographically and legally.3
What Alaska has had to deal with is the same thing California has already had a taste of and will have to deal with even more if legalization happens: federal laws. Despite Obama’s promise that prosecution under federal law for state-legal marijuana use would cease, it continues to happen. So in this case, the issue will become a state’s rights problem with, again, the average person in California being caught in the middle.
One Size Fits All Pot
The other assumption by RAND that is wrong is that marijuana has a one-size-fits-all attribute. The RAND researchers seem to have ignored sites like CannaCentral that list a huge number of various grades and strains of cannabis that exist. RAND’s assumption of $375 per ounce shows this, as the price per ounce can fluctuate wildly depending on factors such as the quality, grade, type, freshness, and so forth.
Of course, non-savvy buyers will buy anything. It’s possible, even now, to get low-grade garbage skunk that is more stems and seeds than it is buds for less than $200 an ounce. So RAND’s assumption that it will drop down to $38/ounce is a little off putting to say the least.
Most of the taxation of marijuana under either proposition in California will likely take place for commercial growing and distribution, not for home grown plants. This is where the grey and black markets will continue and there is (and has always been) little that can be done to stop it.
Commercial growers, however, have a market incentive to deal with that RAND doesn’t seem to be taking into consideration here.
The Marijuana Market After Legalization
All businesses, whatever their product or service, must provide the highest quality at the lowest price they can. There will be Walmart pot sellers and there will be Wild Oats pot sellers. The $38 Fine China at the W might get some people by while others will demand the Chronic at the O. Most will fall in the middle.
Add to this mix the common cultivation of proprietary strains, the branding that goes into many strains and growers, and the various ways that marijuana can be consumed and it becomes a very vibrant, competitive market.
Whatever the legalization method of choice in California, it will open up a vast new business market that will suddenly go from underground to above board. Efforts will be made to curtail and stop it, of course, and a lot of effort will go into controlling it – usually in order to collect taxes. In the end, though, like any other market, marijuana will become a vast opportunity for entrepreneurs large and small.
Like wines, some areas will have specific, local blends and flavors while others will have theirs. Some will be $8/bottle off the shelf at the W and others will be $200/bottle at the O. This will be the reality: pot will drop in price, of course, but not by 900%. Average drops will depend on a lot of things, but $38 (plus tax) pot will not be common on the legal market.
References:
1 – Legalizing Marijuana in California Would Sharply Lower the Price of the Drug press release from the RAND Corporation, July 7, 2010.
2 – Prepared Testimony of Robert Ingenito, Chief, Research and Statistics Section, Board of Equalization to the Interim Hearing of the Assembly Committee on Public Safety, October 28, 2009.
3 – NORML > State By State Laws > Alaska NORML.org
Tags: California, feature, legalization, marijuana prices, RAND corporation"You can only compromise your principles once. After then you don't have any."
-- Smug Lisp Weeny
"If you want to do good, work on the technology, not on getting power."
-- John McCarthy
"If you’re interested in being on the right side of disputes, you will refute your opponents’ arguments. But if you’re interested in producing truth, you will fix your opponents’ arguments for them. To win, you must fight not only the creature you encounter; you must fight the most horrible thing that can be constructed from its corpse."
-- Black Belt Bayesian
"I normally thought of "God!" as a disclaimer, or like the MPAA rating you see just before a movie starts: it told me before I continued into conversation with that person, that that person had limitations to their intellectual capacity or intellectual honesty."
-- Mike Barskey
"It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier, not the lawyer, who has given us the right to a fair trial. It is the soldier, who salutes the flag, who serves under the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag."
-- Father Dennis Edward O'Brien, USMCOlivier Giroud: Would be happy to link-up with Younes Belhanda again at Arsenal
The Morocco international has confirmed he wants to quit Montpellier in the summer and has been linked with a move to Germany or England, with north London rivals Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal said to be keen.
Gunners forward Giroud played with Belhanda at Montpellier for two seasons prior to his move to the Emirates Stadium last year and was part of the side that won the French title in 2011/12.
When asked about a potential move to Arsenal for Belhanda, Giroud told L'Equipe: "I would welcome him with open arms. He called me to ask advice about the Premier League.
"He has the right physical abilities and is built for that league. He would just need to work on his fitness to resist challenges."
Reflecting on his first year in an Arsenal shirt, Giroud admits he felt under pressure to perform following Robin van Persie's high profile departure to Manchester United.
The 26-year-old responded with 17 goals in all competitions as the Gunners snatched fourth place from under the noses of rivals Spurs on the final day of the season.
"I am quite happy with my first season at Arsenal," he added. "I am very happy we secured Champions League qualification because a lot of people didn't have any faith in us.
"There was an unconscious pressure due to the departure of van Persie, with a lot of expectation. But the boss played me little by little in the starting IX to ease the weight of that expectation."Before 28-year old Kevin “The Silencer” Belingon (13-4-0) challenges Bibiano “The Flash” Fernandes (18-3-0) for the ONE Bantamweight World Championship this tonight at ONE Wujie: Dynasty of Champions which takes place at the Changsha Stadium in Changsha, China, let’s take a look at what earned the Filipino fighter his shot at ONE Championship gold.
Here are three fights that earned Kevin a shot at the title.
1. Kevin Belingon def. Yusup Saadulaev at 3:18 of Round 1 via TKO (Punches), October 6, 2012
Russian wrestler Yusup Saadulaev was making his ONE Championship debut against Kevin, who was at the time 0-2 since debuting for Asia’s largest mixed martial arts promotion. Kevin’s back was against the wall and he needed a win badly.
Yet matching him up with Saadulaev was certainly no easy task. The “Maestro” was widely considered to be a complete mixed martial artist with a terrific ground game which has proved problematic for Filipino fighters.
Much to the surprise of those in attendance, Kevin didn’t give Saadulaev a chance to show off his skills and even held his own on the ground with the world-class wrestler.
After a failed Kimura attempt, Kevin blasted Saadulaev with a punch from the top, knocking the Russian out cold in one fell swoop. Referee Yuji Shimada had no choice but to step in and call a halt to the contest.
Saadulaev would later fight on in his career, even defeating the enigmatic former flyweight champion Adriano Moraes, proving that he was certainly no push-over and that Kevin’s win was no fluke.
2. Kevin Belingon def. Thanh Vu at 1:00 of Round 2 via TKO (Punches), April 5, 2013
Fresh from his resounding victory over Yusup Saadulaev, Kevin took on the tenacious Thanh “Aladdin” Vu who at the time had only lost one bout prior.
Two high-level strikers entered the cage that night, but Vu quickly found out that Kevin was on a completely different level.
Few fighters can match Kevin’s level of intensity when he’s in the zone. The Team Lakay veteran starts fights off very fast, always looking for the knockout.
Kevin tagged Vu repeatedly with powerful leg kicks and lightning quick counters. When the fight hit the ground, Kevin proved once again that he could grind against an exceptional grappler in Vu who had three submission victories to his credit.
The fight-ending sequence came when Kevin landed a right roundhouse kick to the head and followed it up with lightning quick combinations as Vu was pinned against the cage. A devastating left hook would dump Vu to the canvas and this time, it was referee Kenichi Serizawa’s turn to save Kevin’s opponent from further punishment.
3. Kevin Belingon def. David Aranda Santacana at 2:53 of Round 1 via KO (Punches), December 6, 2013
Bantamweight standout from Barcelona, David Aranda Santacana, debuted for ONE Championship and was supposed to give Kevin the toughest test of his career but things didn’t go exactly as he had planned.
The Spaniard was riding the momentum of being unbeaten in nine professional fights at the time, and went into the cage with confidence.
Alas, that confidence was quickly swept under the rug as Kevin needed only a few minutes to lay waste to Santacana via his powerful fists.
From early on, Kevin’s edge in speed and power was evident as Santacana awkwardly tried his best to defend against such an overwhelming force. Kevin employed his usual blend of mixed offense featuring his trademark zippy leg kicks and punches with bad intentions.
The end came from out of nowhere when Kevin pressed the action, stalking the hapless Santacana like a lion advancing toward its prey.
Kevin, looking for the finish, landed two left hooks in the clinch with the second one dropping Santacana to the mat like a sack of potatoes. Referee Olivier Coste intervened, awarding Kevin with the knockout win.
Well-earned title shot
There is no doubt that Kevin Belingon is one of the bantamweight division’s most fearsome competitors and now, he’s earned his opportunity to be called champion.
Belingon will finally get his chance against world-ranked and reigning champion Bibiano “The Flash” Fernandes, in a five-round bout for the ONE Bantamweight World Championship.
It’s a fight that fans will not want to miss.Deep sea fish help keep more than one million tons of CO2 from UK and Irish surface waters every year - that's worth £10 million per year in carbon credits, if anyone actually paid full price for those. Those fish living in deep waters on the continental slope around the UK may play an important role in carrying carbon from the surface to the seafloor, but they do it solely for free.
It is assumed that deep water fishes all depend on particles that fall from the surface for their energy. These bottom-living deep water fishes never come to the surface and the carbon in their bodies stays at the seafloor. However, at mid-slope depths there is an abundant and diverse ecosystem where a huge volume of animals make daily vertical migrations to feed at the surface during the night.
The animals conducting this migration then transport nutrients from the surface back to the deep.
Researchers from the University of Southampton and Marine Institute, Ireland used novel biochemical tracers to piece together the diets of deep-water fish revealing their role in transferring carbon to the ocean depths.
They found that more than half of all the fishes living on the seafloor get their energy from animals that otherwise go back to the surface, and not from settling particles. These bottom-living fishes therefore become a carbon capture and storage facility. Global peaks in abundance and biomass of animals at mid slope depths occur because this is the depth range where the vertically migrating animals are most easily captured by fishes that live at or near the seafloor.
Lead author, Dr Clive Trueman from the University of Southampton, says: "As fishing, energy extraction and mining extend into deeper waters, these unfamiliar and seldom seen fishes in fact provide a valuable service to all of us. Recognising and valuing these ecosystem services is important when we make decisions about how to exploit deep water habitats for food, energy or mineral resources."
As it is difficult to study animals living under a kilometre or more of water, the researchers measured forms, or isotopes, of carbon and nitrogen, in the muscles of fish caught in deepwater research surveys on the continental slope west of Ireland, at water depths ranging from 500 to 1800m. These were collected on the RV Celtic Explorer, a multi-disciplinary research vessel operated by the Irish Marine Institute.
Small differences in the mass of these isotopes mean that they are processed at slightly different speeds in the body, leading to patterns which can show who eats who in the slope ecosystem. By measuring the isotopes in all of the most common species, the researchers were able to estimate how much carbon is captured and stored by these deep water fish.
The study, which is published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, was funded by the University of Southampton and the Marine Institute.In the early 1990s, Compton, California emcee King T (t/k/a King Tee) was working on his third album, Tha Triflin’ Album with longtime musical partner, DJ Pooh. Pooh, who would later write the script to Friday with this partner, had been working with Ice Cube at the time, on the emcee’s third solo LP, Predator. The Boyz N’ Da Hood supporting star gave T and Pooh an idea: to form a group.
King T Says That Tha Alkaholiks’ Creation Was Inspired By Da Lench Mob
“All the ideas came from messin’ with Ice Cube,” revealed T. “Ice Cube and I never did a lot of music together, but he’s been there in the beginning of my career, helpin’ and things like that. That’s how [DJ] Pooh was able to go on and produce on his albums. We saw how he created a brand in Da Lench Mob,” T observed that the quartet of J-Dee, Shortie, T-Bone and Maulkie had found commercial and critical success on their 1992 debut, Guerrillas In The Mist, a Top 25 release for Priority Records. “So me and Pooh wanted to create somethin’, a crew. We had a party crew and all that; we wasn’t really with the goin’ out, beatin’ up muthafuckas. We partied. We liked fuckin’ with girls and all that type of shit,” explained the emcee who made hits out of “Act A Fool” and “Played Like A Piano.” Looking at his daily activities, T pointed out “What do we do? We get drunk, fucked up. So we came up with Tha Alkaholiks,” he explains with a hearty laugh. “It was either gonna be The Daily Chronics or Tha Alkaholiks.”
Two of the three would-be Alkaholiks were already near to King Tipsy. “J-Ro was with me from the beginning; he was like my hype-man. He and I went on tour and did shows,” he recalled. “So J-Ro brought E-Swift in, and E-Swift became my deejay, after [DJ] Aladdin [stopped]. [Laughs] ‘Cause Aladdin went on to do Low Profile with WC.” E-Swift had already secured a co-production credit on King T’s 1990 sophomore album, At Your Own Risk on the aptly-titled, “E Get Swift.” T continued,
“E-Swift came in, and then they brought Catastrophe [n/k/a Tash] in, from Ohio. We was all just a big crew. They actually started working on a demo together under the name of E.S.P., Everyday Street Poets. They were trying to do a deal with A&M [Records].” With the branding, the group changed their name and began recording.”
“We booked a studio, went in, got fucked up, and started recordin’ shit. We recorded ‘Make Room’ and ‘Likwit’ and Steve Rifkind heard it.” According to King T, another affiliate paid it forward for the would-be famous trio. “Broadway, who was the crew called Mad Kap, he took ’em to Loud [Records]. Steve heard ’em and signed ’em right up, around the same time he signed Wu-Tang [Clan], RZA and all that. It was lovely. It’s been on ever since.” Between the 1993 debut, 21 & Over that resulted from those early sessions and 2006’s Firewater, the Alkaholiks released five group albums, two of which broke the Top 50 on the overall charts. The group is presently recording an EP with Queens, New York duo The Beatnuts, as LikNuts.
King T |
we started winning, our whole game style changed so much, it is more adapted to the players we have. So yes I was obviously happy about that change. I love my team today, we have amazing people. We just need to work harder to be unstoppable."
After the victory at ECS Season 1, G2 departed for ESL One Cologne, where they were dealt a hard hand in the form of a group consisting of SK, fnatic and FaZe. Both their recent form and ScreaM's best efforts against fnatic were to no avail, as the French-Belgian squad went 0-2, failing to get out of the groups of a Major once again.
"[The most important event for me] was Cologne, we just won ECS and I felt like we could finally do something at a Major... But we got the worst group, so nothing happened." "The group of death was tough, two close games and we’re out. So sad, but I'm happy Swiss format is in for the next Majors. Our time with the Majors will come!"
After the summer break, G2 attended SLi StarSeries Season 2 Finals and were seemingly back to their pre-Major winning ways. After dispatching of MVP Project easily and ScreaM putting up a masterclass against FaZe, G2 moved on to the playoffs where they eliminated EnVyUs and dignitas to reach the finals against NiP.
ScreaM was the best player in his team in the grand final of StarSeries S2, especially on the second map where he picked up 35 kills, but that wasn't enough for his team to take down the Swedes - G2 had to settle with another second place finish in 2016. Even though ScreaM was the PotM in the two aforementioned games and was above average rated in all 8 maps they played at StarSeries, he was still only the second best-rated player of his team at the event - behind shox.
Scream got his second EVP of the year at StarSeries Season 2
The troubles of G2 started at ESL One New York, where the team finished last in the Swiss group stage, with three straight losses - to Astralis, Liquid and OpTic. The three maps weren't that bad for ScreaM though, who ended the tournament with an about average 0.99 rating, but the fact that he was the best-rated player of G2 and 23% above his team average shows the drop-off his teammates had in New York.
At EPICENTER: Moscow, G2 squeezed through the group stage with a 3-3 score, but couldn't make it past SK in the round-of-six despite ScreaM's above average performance in the series and the tournament overall - he was once again the second best player of his team with a 1.06 rating and two PotM awards.
After attending the stacked EPICENTER, the French-Belgian team traveled to Montreal for the second Northern Arena event of the year. With no other elite team in attendance, G2 were favorites to take the title - especially after overcoming their rivals Envy in the semi-finals. ScreaM had a decent, consistent showing over the course of the tournament, but his drop off in the grand final combined with an in-form Oscar "mixwell" Cañellas on the opposing team led to G2 losing the series against OpTic 2-0.
G2's struggles started at ESL One New York and continued in Moscow and Oakland
The last big tournament G2 played in 2016 was IEM Oakland. ScreaM was underwhelming in the first two games - against Astralis and Immortals, but stepped it up in the following group stage matches, with the win over Liquid on Nuke standing out. In an overtime game, ScreaM picked up 34 kills while his partner in crime shox contributed with 36 to clinch the playoffs for their team.
"I think people [called me and shox the deadly duo] because we were both playing really good this year, I feel like we both have the same vision of how to play the game, and we feel pretty good being free. I don’t remember any specific round, but I know I could always count on him in important matches."
Moving on to the playoffs, G2 encountered SK in the round-of-six once again. With the series tied 1-1 and moving on to Dust2 as the decider, it seemed like shox's troops have a good chance of taking down the Brazilians. Despite Dust2 being somewhat of a home map of G2, they were absolutely destroyed by SK in the decider, picking up only three rounds.
"Well, we kinda lost ourselves about how we play [Dust2], I think it's a lack of work. A lack of thinking about the problem, if we had thought about it, we would have found the solution for sure. It's a map we all love, so we will be the best at it again."
ScreaM was the best player of his team at IEM Oakland, with a slightly above average rating, high KAST% and two PotM awards, finishing the year with a string of solid tournament showings since the addition of bodyy. To wrap up the year from his perspective, we asked ScreaM what his favorite moment of the year was:
"Obviously travelling is amazing but my favorite moment stays ECS, I was so proud of my team and myself. Overall I'm proud of my team and what we have done this year."
Looking forward at 2017, where is the bar set for the 22-year old?
"My goal is to be a top5 player in the world next year. Winning a Major would be amazing, though."
ScreaM and shox forged a formidable partnership over the course of 2016
Why is he the 9th best player of 2016?
ScreaM is ranked 9th in our top20 players of 2016 list because of his great performances in G2's best tournaments of the year - MVP at ECS S1, which they won, and EVP at both ESL Pro League Season 3 and SLi StarSeries Season 2, where they ended second.
He had great fragging overall with 0.77 KPR (ranking 8th out of all players), 82.8 ADR (10th) and a multi-kill in a high percentage of his rounds - 19.8% (8th). Adding to that, he was quite consistent in 2016, especially after the addition of bodyy, on both a tournament-to-tournament and a round-to-round basis - which can be seen in his 71.9% KAST statistic.
These two things show his improvement from 2013 - when inconsistency and the lack of contributions in his team's tournament wins were the two things that stopped ScreaM from being placed higher in the VeryGames days.
As expected, ScreaM was the best aimer of 2016 with 0.50 headshots per round and 65% of his kills being headshots, leading by far in both categories - even though with lower numbers than in previous years.
"Well I'm still going for [headshots], but less than before. I think the game has changed a lot, so I have to adapt my game." "I also wouldn't play as good this year as I had if I didn't have good gamesense. People still think about me like 2 years ago."
What ScreaM lacked in 2016 was more standout tournaments, he was fairly average in all the tournaments this year except the three he received a personal award for. Also, his kills had a below average impact compared to the rest of the top 20 - G2 won just 63.4% of rounds where he got a kill, meaning a large portion of his kills were inconsequential.
Another drawback to ScreaM's year were his showings at the Majors (0.99 rating), but he balanced that out with a good rating in both big events (1.11) and big matches (1.13), resulting in a fairly high 9th spot in our top 20 players of 2016 list.
Bold prediction
We asked ScreaM to pick out a young player, someone who hasn't done anything notable yet, but that he thinks could somehow become a star and find himself on the top 20 list of 2017. Adil was bold with his prediction and went for the Belgian AWPer Selman "BEASTy" Ersahin, who played with Sector One at ESWC 2016.
Selman "BEASTy" Ersahin "I would say BEASTy one of my best friends, he reminds me of kennyS with his reactions! I don’t know about 2017 though, but he has some good potential and hopefully he gets an opportunity next year."
Stay tuned to our Top 20 players of 2016 ranking powered by EGB.com and take a look at the Introduction article to learn more about how the players were picked.Ivanka and her son, Theodore (Photo : Getty Images)
Goddess Ivanka continues to win the hearts of Chinese people as she began teaching Mandarin Chinese to Theodore, her youngest son. The boy began his Mandarin lessons just a week following his first birthday.
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On Tuesday, Ivanka posted a photo of herself and Theodore having play time together in the living room of her $5.5million Kalorama home in Washington, D.C.
The 35-year-old mother of three captioned the photo “the best moment of the day!”
In the picture, Theodore is seen playing with a set of colorful building blocks designed with Chinese symbols.
The Uncle Goose Chinese Character Blocks, worth $43 per set of 32 blocks, seeks to help children learn the symbols and pronunciation of animal names in Mandarin. Each wooden block has symbols and words on one side and a picture of the corresponding animal on the other side.
The blocks seem to be a useful tool in teaching Mandarin to children. Ivanka’s talented daughter, Arabella, now speaks the language.
The Chinese culture has also been introduced to Ivanka’s children. Over the past four years, Ivanka has posted a photo or video of Arabella to celebrate the Chinese New Year.
Arabella has become China's new darling. Her videos, which were posted by her mother, went viral in Chinese social media platforms. A particular video showing the 5-year-old star in a traditional Chinese blouse, reciting Tang Dynasty poems in Mandarin, gained nearly 10 million views.
Ivanka and Arabella have come to the Lunar New Year celebration hosted by Ambassador Cui Tiankai at the Chinese Embassy in Washington DC. The young internet sensation was dressed in red, from head to toe, just like what she wears every Chinese New Year.
The mother and daughter, accompanied by the Chinese Ambassador, walked through the crowd and expressed their love for China. Wendi Deng, one of the family’s closest friends, has Chinese origins.
A musical performance which featured dancing, opera and acrobatics were enjoyed by the guests, including Ivanka and Arabella. The Kushner couple had photos with the performers who were wearing traditional Chinese costumes. Their daughter, on the other hand, enjoyed the Chinese food served at the event.
Goddess Ivanka continues to show her love for China by teaching her children to speak Mandarin Chinese.Even to a casual observer, it’s fairly obvious that corvids—a family of birds that includes crows, ravens, and jays—have more going on between their ears than most birds. They’re masters at curbing impulses, are cognizant of familiar faces, and meticulous when taking stock of their stash.
A new study, published today in Science, suggests that ravens are even smarter than suspected. The series of experiments shows that ravens are able to use past experiences to plan ahead for future events, and exhibit some self-control in the process—behaviors previously observed only in humans and apes.
“Evolutionarily, there is a vast separation between great apes and corvids,” says Can Kabadayi, an author of the study and graduate student in cognitive science at Sweden’s Lund University. The last time ravens and apes shared a common ancestor was 320 million years ago, he says, “yet ravens show similar skill sets and combine them, similarly to great apes.”
In a first set of experiments, similar to those conducted on great apes and humans, Kabadayi and Lund University’s Mathias Osvath looked for signs of corvid foresight by studying how Common Ravens use and store objects with no immediate use, but in the future might provide them with a reward. Five adult ravens were presented with a selection of objects: some could be bartered with a person for treats, and others could open a puzzle box with a treat hidden inside. The ravens quickly learned that they could trade certain tokens for treats, or use the correct tool—in this case a small stone—to release the treat from the box. They began saving tokens and stones, as though they planned to use them when the next opportunity to trade or open a box presented itself.
“Ravens like to hide and cache items, but not at random,” Kabadayi says. “Caching shows that they value items for a specific purpose. In this context, ravens cached boring stones and tokens because they saw value based on how they used the items before.”
Juno the raven uses a “tool” on a puzzle box to win big. Video: Can Kabadayi and Mathias Osvath
The researchers then tested whether the birds could remember how their ‘boring’ objects worked, first after 15 minutes, and again after 17 hours. During the waiting periods, the ravens continued to fixate on the tokens and tools they’d need for future treats, and ultimately, they excelled at the task. Even after the delays, they were better at planning future trades than orangutans, bonobos, and chimpanzees, and they matched apes at planning and using tools—despite the fact that they never need tools to gather food in the wild.
“These experiments nicely show that ravens flexibly tackle a certain problem outside of what they do naturally,” says Markus Böckle, a psychologist at the University of Cambridge who wrote an opinion piece for Science about the new research.
In a second set of tests, the researchers wanted to see if ravens could show some self-control. They presented the ravens with a number of objects on a tray, including bartering tokens, box-opening stones, miscellaneous items, and a treat that was subpar compared to the treat in the box. Instead of going for the instant gratification of the subpar treat, the ravens opted to use the tokens and tools to get the superior treat from the box—100 percent of the time when they could nibble on their prize immediately after opening the box, and about 70 percent of the time when they had to wait 15 minutes. The longer they had to wait, the less they valued a future reward.
Even though the ravens’ abilities matched those of apes—or even surpassed them—they actually evolved separately. “In the early 1990s, we discovered that birds share several neurobiological structures with mammals, showing the capability of complex cognition,” Böckle says. “We are sure that the common ancestor of ravens and great apes didn’t have complex cognitive behavior, so somewhere along the line, we believe birds evolved cognition independently.”
The discoveries by Kabadayi and his team open up new avenues for understanding how intelligence has developed in different branches of the evolutionary tree. And for many birders, this work confirms what we’ve long known: Raven smarts aren't too far off from our own.
***
Audubon is a non-profit, and stories like this are made possible by readers like you. To support our journalism,This article was first published on Coconuts Manila.
A Filipino taxi passenger in Singapore got too drunk at the lunchtime birthday party of his boss that when he took a taxi (after first stopping at another bar for a few more drinks), he gave the driver a piece of paper as payment.
When the driver refused, 47-year-old Achilles Tomanpos Estremos, an interior designer, tried paying with his debit card but couldn't remember his correct PIN code.
Probably exasperated, the driver was willing to forego the S$7 (PHP230) fare and asked Estremos to leave the vehicle so he could pick up other passengers instead.
"Estremos refused, insisting that he had money to pay the fare. He lay down and kicked the side door several times, and then used an umbrella to hit the rear windshield and side window. Estremos also challenged the driver to call the police," reports The Straits Times.
The driver jumped out of the taxi and locked Estremos inside while waiting for help.
What did our kababayan do next?
"Estremos then climbed over to the driver seat and released the handbrake. The taxi rolled backwards and dented the other taxi, which was parked behind. When the other driver tried to reverse his taxi, Estremos released the handbrake again causing the cab to roll back and dent the taxi a second time."
Estremos has been fined S$6,000 (PHP197,000) and had to pay the taxi company S$2,280 (PHP74,821) in damages.
So what was he on? According to the report, Estremos had two bottles of wine.Erasing unwanted memories isn’t yet possible. However, Israeli scientists are now reporting that they have succeeded in erasing one type of memory in mice – fear.
This new technique may one day help extinguish traumatic memories in humans – for example, in people with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.
“The brain is good at creating new memories when these are associated with strong emotional experiences, such as intense pleasure or fear,” says Ofer Yizhar, senior researcher at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot.
“That’s why it’s easier to remember things you care about, be they good or bad; but it’s also the reason that memories of traumatic experiences are often extremely long-lasting, predisposing people to PTSD.”
In a study recently reported in Nature Neuroscience, the Israeli researchers report how they succeeded in shutting down a neuronal mechanism by which memories of fear are formed in the mouse brain. After the procedure, the mice resumed their earlier fearless behavior, “forgetting” they had been frightened before.
In the study, postdoctoral fellows Oded Klavir (now an investigator at the University of Haifa) and Matthias Prigge, both from Yizhar’s neurobiology lab, together with departmental colleague Prof. Rony Paz and graduate student Ayelet Sarel, examined the communication between two brain regions: the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex.
The amygdala plays a central role in controlling emotions, whereas the prefrontal cortex is mostly responsible for cognitive functions and storing long-term memories.
Previous studies suggested that the interactions between these two brain regions contribute to the formation and storage of aversive memories, and that these interactions are compromised in PTSD. But the exact mechanisms behind these processes were unknown.
Precise control over cellular interactions
In the new study, the Weizmann researchers first used a genetically engineered virus to mark those amygdala neurons that communicate with the prefrontal cortex. Next, using another virus, they inserted a gene encoding a light-sensitive protein into these neurons.
Using optogenetics – a biological technique using light to control cells in living tissue, extensively studied in Yizhar’s lab – the researchers activated only those amygdala neurons that interact with the cortex, and mapped out the cortical neurons that receive input from these light-sensitive neurons.
Once they had achieved this precise control over the cellular interactions in the brain, they turned to exploring the behavioral observation that less fearful mice are more likely to venture farther than others.
The researchers found that when the mice were exposed to fear-inducing stimuli, a powerful line of communication was activated between the amygdala and the cortex.
The mice whose brains displayed such communication were more likely to retain a memory of the fear, acting frightened every time they heard the sound that had previously been accompanied by the fear-inducing stimuli.
The scientists then developed an innovative optogenetic technique for weakening the connection between the amygdala and the cortex, using a series of repeated light pulses.
It turned out that once the connection was weakened, the mice no longer displayed fear upon hearing the sound. In other words, “tuning down” the input from the amygdala to the cortex had destabilized or perhaps even destroyed their memory of fear.
“Our research has focused on a fundamental question in neuroscience: How does the brain integrate emotion into memory? But one day our findings may help develop better therapies targeting the connections between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex, in order to alleviate the symptoms of fear and anxiety disorders,” said Yizhar.Mark Goffman has closed a two-year overall deal with CBS Television Studios to supervise and develop new projects for the studio.
He has served as showrunner on Fox’s “Sleepy Hollow” for the past two seasons but is exiting that post. The supernatural series has yet to be renewed for a third season.
“We are thrilled to be in business with Mark. He is a highly regarded showrunner and has emerged as a unique voice that crosses worlds and genres,” said Julie McNamara, exec VP of drama deveelopment, in a statement. “We look forward to a successful creative collaboration in the coming years.”
Prior to “Sleepy Hollow,” Goffman was an executive producer on USA’s “White Collar.” His credits include “The West Wing,” “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” and “Law & Order: SVU.”
Goffman is repped by UTA and attorney P.J. Shapiro at Ziffren Brittenham.Anna-Marie Lever
Science and nature reporter, BBC News
Giraffe populations have dropped by 30% over the past decade
A report in BMC Biology uses genetic evidence to show that there may be at least six species of giraffe in Africa.
Currently giraffes are considered to represent a single species classified into multiple subspecies.
The study shows geographic variation in hair coat colour is evident across the giraffe's range in sub-Saharan Africa, suggesting reproductive isolation.
"Using molecular techniques we found that giraffes can be classified into six groups that are reproductively isolated and not interbreeding," David Brown, the lead author of the study and a geneticist at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), told BBC News.
"The results were a surprise because although the giraffes look different, if you put them in zoos, they breed freely."
Spots and maple leaves
The study also found that the two giraffe subspecies that live closest to each other - the reticulated giraffe (Currently: Giraffa camelopardalis reticulate) in North Kenya, which has reddish round spots; and the Maasai giraffe (Currently: Giraffa camelopardalis tippelskirchi) in South Kenya - separated 0.5 to 1.5 million years ago.
SOME GIRAFFE FACTS The familiar animals can grow up to 6m (20ft) in height Their remarkable tongues grow up to 45cm (18in) long Adult giraffes can weigh in excess of 1,000kg (2,200lbs) Long legs enable speeds of up to 35miles/hour (55km/h)
Mr Brown added: "There are no rivers or forests to prevent breeding, but some evolutionary process is keeping the two groups reproductively separated."
The researchers have suggested these processes may be ecological differences, such as differences in vegetation at a macro-level, which are keeping the populations separate or sexual selection.
"The female Maasai giraffe may be looking at the male reticulated giraffe and thinking, 'I don't look like you; I don't want to mate with you'," Mr Brown explained.
Need for conservation
Mr Brown also highlighted the conservation implications of this study: "Lumping all giraffes into one species obscures the reality that some kinds of giraffe are on the brink.
"Some of these populations number only a few hundred individuals and need immediate protection."
Over the past decade there has been a 30% drop in giraffe numbers, with total numbers under 100,000.
It is hoped that classifying current subspecies as fully fledged species will help inform conservation plans to save the most threatened populations. These include:
The Nigerian giraffe (Currently: Giraffa camelopardalis peralta). The last 160 individuals are found in West and Central Africa.
The Rothschild giraffe (Currently: Giraffa camelopardalis rothschildi). The last few hundred can only be found in a few protected areas in Kenya and in Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda.
The animals' status is currently under review by an International Giraffe Working Group (IGWG). Its evidence will inform the IUCN Red List of threatened and endangered species.
The genetic research was supported by the US-based Wildlife Conservation Society.As a journalist, I am sworn to bring facts to light by any means necessary. So here is a picture of me in a tutu with a shoe on my head at Gawker HQ. (A size 9 1/2 men's Reebok Question, to be exact.)
Anonymous had demanded that Gawker post this picture before they granted interviews to anyone about their latest hack that's freaked out the internet: 12 million Apple device IDs, allegedly stolen from an FBI cybersecurity agent's laptop. If true, the revelation of an enormous database of iPhones and iPads on an FBI computer would have worrying privacy implications.
But yesterday Anonymous wrote in a press release accompanying the leak of one million of the IDs:
no more interviews to anyone till Adrian Chen get featured in the front page of Gawker, a whole day, with a huge picture of him dressing a ballet tutu and shoe on the head.
And so far, Anonymous hasn't released any more details about the alleged hack—even as the FBI has claimed the group lied about the data coming from them.
I wanted at least some sense that Anonymous' offer wasn't just for the lulz, as they say, before I posted this and further stained my already-pretty-stained Google results. So I signed on to Anonymous' IRC chatroom and asked why I should trust the author of press release.
"I do understand your position, i'd like a word before stunting like that, too xD," one of his colleagues said. "On the bright side, I've worked with him for long time now and the man does live up to his word." The author himself went offline soon after posting the press release and hasn't returned.
But why me?
"People don't actually like you that much," said another Anonymous member. He then linked to a May Facebook post in which another Anon complained about how I'd called bullshit on a ludicrous claim that Anonymous had access to "every classified database in the U.S." Anonymous and I have had a rocky relationship since I first started writing about them in the summer of 2010, in fact.
So, there's me in a tutu. Get used to it because it's going to be up until around 6:30pm tomorrow. (I left my shirt on, because nobody needs to see that. )
My email address is Adrian@gawker.com, and I'm on Twitter at @AdrianChen if any Anonymous hackers and/or journalism prize committees would like to chat.Image: Nomadic Lass/Flickr
America's first powdered alcohol has been approved. Again.
The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) has given the greenlight to Palcohol, a powdered alcohol that you mix with water to make, well, liquid alcohol. The TTB had already approved the product for sale last year but almost immediately backtracked on that decision, saying the approval had been "issued in error."
TTB spokesperson Tom Hogue today said the approval is only based on whether or not the label on the product matches what's actually inside, according to the Associated Press. Palcohol sorted out the labelling issues since last year and so four flavors of Palcohol are now approved for legal sale.
"Potential for abuse isn't grounds for us to deny a label," Hogue told the AP.
And since alcohol is legal, there was no other reason for the agency to deny the approval.
Palcohol's inventor, Mark Phillips, wrote on the company blog that he hopes the product will be available as early as this summer.
However, states can choose to outlaw powdered alcohol, and some are working to do so before the product even hits the shelves. Alaska, Delaware, Michigan, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Vermont have already banned powdered alcohol, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, and Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, and Ohio have considered it.
The main concerns are around the safety of the product. Will people snort it? Will it be easier to spike drinks or for kids to get their hands on?
But Phillips refutes all of the worries and has said he believes Palcohol is actually safer than liquid alcohol. He doubts anyone would snort it, at least not more than once.
"It's painful to snort due to the alcohol," Phillips wrote on the company blog. "Second, it's impractical. It takes approximately 60 minutes to snort the equivalent of one shot of vodka. Why would anyone do that when they can do a shot of liquid vodka in two seconds?"
As for sneaking it in, he says the large packaging is no easier to sneak into an event than a small bottle of booze and besides, "Alcohol in any format is subject to abuse if someone is determined to do so," he says, which is pretty true.
Spiking a drink, while a pretty easy feat with liquid alcohol, would actually not work too well with Palcohol since you need to shake or stir the powder for a good minute before it dissolves, Phillips says.
The Kool-Aid like flavored powders might be appealing to kids and teens, but Phillips argues that it is no easier to access than regular alcohol since it will be sold and regulated in the same way. And powdered alcohols are already on the market in Europe without any real panic.
Still, state legislatures seem set on not even giving Palcohol a chance to fail and the race is on for Phillips to get the product on the market before lawmakers outlaw it. He envisions lots of potential uses for his powdered alcohol, from partying to using it to make easily-transportable medical antiseptics—Phillips says he's had medical personnel touch base about the need for lightweight antiseptic in remote locations where it's hard to transport supplies.
But if local legislators have their way, the party will be over before it even begins.Point Edward’s waterfront is is getting a new attraction alongside fry trucks and scenic river views.
For those chomping at the bit for farmers’ market fare outside of weekends and work hours, the Sarnia-Lambton Business Development Corporation (SLBDC) is bringing in an evening event Thursdays under the Blue Water Bridge.
The not-for-profit recently unveiled plans for the Point Edward Moonlight Farmers’ Market, 4-8 p.m. Thursdays starting June 25.
Specialty food vendors, artisans and local producers, 15 to 20-strong, will fill in weekly along a service road near Livingtston Street and Michigan Avenue, at the end of the village’s commercial district, said the corporation’s Tracy Ranick.
“It is an emerging trend,” she said about keeping evening hours for farmers’ markets. This model lets people peruse after work, or while down under the bridge for events like soccer games, she said.
It’s also a key tenet to energizing downtowns, espoused by marketing guru Roger Brooks during a recent Sarnia visit.
“I was trying not to smile” during his presentation earlier this month — when he made the recommendation — Ranick said, noting the local project has been in the works for about two months.
“It gives the opportunity for more people to take advantage of the market experience and it’s very much a trend that’s been successful in a lot of other cities,” she said.
Hopes are it’ll not only be profitable for the merchants and vendors involved, but also for the village’s downtown, she said.
An information table will be set up to highlight special offers and events in the Point, and there’ll also be live music and demonstrations highlighting aspects of agriculture, she said.
Citing the Ontario Culinary Tourism Alliance, the business development corporation said for every $1 spent on local food or culinary tourism, $4 flow back into the local economy.
Other farmers’ markets in the area include one on Sarnia’s Proctor Street that runs year-round Wednesdays and Saturdays, and seasonal daytime markets in Grand Bend, Petrolia and Forest.
The Point Edward market will be the first in Sarnia-Lambton open later than 2 p.m.
Up until 2013, a seasonal market also run by the business corporation was open Sundays at the Sarnia Bay Marina, but it wasn’t attracting enough traffic and went on hiatus last year, Ranick said.
This is its rebirth, she said, with a slightly altered format, new digs and new hours of operation.
“We were looking for something that had very high traffic,” she said about the location under the bridge.
“That location is controlled, it’s very simple in terms of setup, we’re not taking any parking away from anybody,” she said, calling the spot “ideal.”
Many merchants involved in the former marina market are on board this time around too, she said.
Plans are to continue into September, possibly October, she said, based on weather and vendors’ availability.
“It’s going to be a fantastic experience for everyone, and I hope a very profitable experience for everyone that’s involved,” Ranick said.
tyler.kula@sunmedia.caGLENDALE, Ariz. — Indianapolis Colts linebacker D’Qwell Jackson says he noticed nothing wrong with the football he intercepted against the New England Patriots in last week’s AFC Championship Game.
Talking after his Pro Bowl team practiced at Luke Air Force Base on Thursday, he said he merely wanted to keep the ball as a souvenir.
“Some guys, you make a big play, you want the ball,” Jackson said. “That was my intention.”
He said he took it to the sidelines, hasn’t seen it since and probably never will.
“I’ll do my best to try to get ahold of it,” Jackson said. “But right now it’s in the middle of, what do they call it, ‘Deflategate.'”
The normal procedure when a player wants to save the ball, he said, is for it to go to the equipment staff “and you have it in your locker come Monday morning.”
“I don’t know how it got to this point,” Jackson said, “but somehow I’m in the middle of it.”
Jackson said he doesn’t handle the ball enough to know whether it was properly inflated or not.
“The deal about me saying that I noticed anything about it, that’s totally false,” he said.
Initial reports claimed that Jackson told a Colts equipment manager the ball felt under-inflated after he intercepted it. A later report from FOX Sports’ Jay Glazer claimed that the referees planned to inspect the Patriots’ footballs at halftime before the game even started.
Thumbnail photo via Stew Milne/USA TODAY Sports ImagesSacrifice of 200,000 Animals Proceeds Despite Pleas, Prayers
Every five years, animals and birds are slaughtered in the name of the Hindu deity Gadhimai. The event on the premises of Gadhimai Temple in the village of Bariyapur is believed to be the largest ritual sacrifice anywhere in the world and draws thousands of visitors from India and Nepal.
French actress and animal advocate Brigitte Bardot is one of those who sent a letter to Nepal's President Dr. Ram Baran Yadav, who is a Hindu, pleading with him to stop the Gadhimai sacrifice. "I have dedicated my life to protect animals and the best gift I could receive for this lifelong struggle would be the announcement of the stopping of ritual sacrifice of animals," Bardot wrote. "I personally find it hard to imagine that your heart can withstand such cruelty, knowing that you, being the head of the country, are ultimately responsible."
The advocacy organization Animal Nepal is organizing protest events in Kathmandu ahead of the event and filing a case at the Supreme Court, as well as performing a symbolic ritual blessing in the hope that compassion will reign.
In addition, the Animal Welfare Network Nepal, which shares the Animal Nepal headquarters office, has joined with Anti Animal Sacrifice Alliance in an 11th hour plea to head priest Mangal Chaudhary and organizing committee chairman Shiva Chandra Kushwaha to stop the killing.
An Animal Nepal poster protesting the Gadhimai sacrifice. (Photo courtesy Animal Nepal)
"We beg to you on our knees to consider our plea. You, as the main two responsible persons for the world's largest animal sacrifice, have the ability to show wisdom, compassion and courage by doing everything in your power to abolish the killing of innocent creatures in the name of the God. If you do so, the world will always remember you as the key decision-makers in stopping the killings," the groups wrote.
The plea was reinforced during a symbolic peace ritual today at the Gahawa Mai temple in Birgunj.
Animal Welfare Network Nepal has also petitioned Nepal's ministers of tourism, agriculture, peace and law and justice to put an end to the sacrifice.
Humane Society International says, "This horrendous cruelty somehow existed without much publicity until this year. Animal advocates and religious leaders both within Nepal and around the world have displayed outrage and disgust and are working together to pressure on the Nepalese government to put a stop to the mass animal sacrifice."
HSI and its supporters are beseeching Nepalese leaders with a letter writing campaign, saying, "Even tradition is no excuse for cruelty in a civilized society."
In a November 3 article in the "Kathmandu Post," Maneka Gandhi appealed to the people of Nepal to abandon the killing of animals at the Gadhimai Festival.
A minister in four governments, the Indian politician, animal rights activist, and environmentalist said that this is not a way to honor the goddess, who will be instead be dishonored by the deaths and suffering of the animals. "Priests frighten villagers into believing that terrible things will happen if the goddess is not placated with animal sacrifices," she wrote.
She detailed the ways in which the festival is a profitable enterprise for priests, moneylenders and animal sellers. "The festival is a business, and profit is the motive for killing so many animals. Villagers go into debt to buy the animals to be sacrificed. Debt leads to bankruptcies, and when the small farmers’ lands are confiscated to become the property of large landowners, then the former farmers become day laborers," wrote Gandhi. "The festival exploits both humans and animals."
The local business community is expected to raise about two million euros from sales of animal hides and carcasses as well as payment for logistics |
went missing after suffering from malarial fever. Lady Elizabeth left Callao, Peru with a crew that included several Finns on 26 September (year unknown, but between 1906 and 1913). Just after leaving port, one of the Finns, a man named Granquiss, became ill. Captain Hoegh diagnosed his condition as malarial fever.
A few days later, another Finnish crewman, Haparanta by name, also became ill with malarial fever. A third crew member also complained of feeling ill, but not as severely. The captain prescribed some remedies to help the sick crew members, and they were allowed to walk the deck to get fresh air. A short time later, Granquiss went missing and the crew were unable to locate him on the ship.
Captain Hoegh came to the conclusion that the sick crew member must have deliberately jumped from the ship, taking his own life, as the fine weather that day made an accidental fall overboard unlikely. Around 7:00 pm, Captain Hoegh discovered the other sick Finnish crewmember was also missing. A search turned up no evidence of him. It was concluded that the malaria had caused both men to become delirious and jump overboard, and Captain Hoegh ordered the crew to keep close watch on the man with the less severe fever.
Lady Elizabeth eventually arrived at Newcastle New South Wales and filed a report with authorities. A consul from Norway named H. C. Langwill held an official inquiry.[8]
Final years [ edit ]
Lady Elizabeth. An ad placed in October 1900 for
On 4 December 1912, Lady Elizabeth left Vancouver bound for Delagoa Bay Mozambique,[9] with a shipment of lumber. The ship encountered severe weather halfway through the voyage and was damaged just off Cape Horn. Four crew members were lost overboard, along with the ship's two boats and part of her deck cargo. She also sustained damage to the deck fittings, wheel, moorings, and other parts of the ship. Captain Hoigh ordered the ship to the nearest port for repairs. Lady Elizabeth altered course for Stanley, Falkland Islands. 15 miles (24 km) outside Port Stanley, Lady Elizabeth struck Uraine Rock just off Volunteer Point and suffered a 6-foot (1.8 m) break in the hull and keel along with a 1-foot (30 cm) hole. The ship began to sink but was able to get to Port Stanley for repairs. After she was examined, Lady Elizabeth was condemned (declared unseaworthy) because of the damage.
In June 1913, she was condemned and converted into a coal hulk. She was sold to the Crown Receiver of Wrecks, Falkland Islands for £1,000. Lady Elizabeth remained stationed there until 17 February 1936 when her mooring lines broke during a storm and she drifted to where she now lies in Whale Bone Cove in Stanley Harbour.[10]
Current status [ edit ]
Lady Elizabeth in 2012. in 2012.
Lady Elizabeth can be seen on the left in this 2007 photo of the harbor. can be seen on the left in this 2007 photo of the harbor.
Lady Elizabeth is still intact and partially beached in Whale Bone Cove.[11][12] The ship has been reported to rock back and forth during high tides from the pounding waves. Many of the ship's accessories are still attached to Lady Elizabeth including the main crank for the anchor, the davits that would hold the two lifeboats, part of the crow's nest, part of the spiral staircase, and most of her wooden decking. However, most of the ship is suffering severe rust and the keel has started to rust away leaving large holes. During high tide, the bottom of the ship is flooded. There are still sections of paint on the inside of the ship. Some of the iron rivets have rusted away causing the starboard bulkhead to spring out.
In June 1984, the owner assessed the damage of Lady Elizabeth. Using original reports from the assessment made on the damage in 1913, they found the foot-long hole in the keel and reported that this was indeed the reason the ship would not stay afloat. However, if Lady Elizabeth was towed for repairs in drydock, she could possibly sail again. Unfortunately, there was no dry dock in Port Stanley in 1984.
Since coming to rest in Whale Bone Cove, the poop deck quarters have been removed of all wood and vandalized. The rudder of the ship is still intact but showing severe corrosion and is turned to port with the steering gears still intact but also corroded. The ship's wheel is missing. The original anchor has not been located; however, it is believed to be buried where Lady Elizabeth was used as a coal hulk. Plans were made by the Crown Receiver of Wrecks to salvage Lady Elizabeth and convert her into a floating museum. Due to lack of funding, however, the project was never completed.[13]
In the winter of 2008, the ship’s bowsprit broke during a storm. The Falkland Islands Museum & National Trust has discussed removing the bowsprit.[14]
See also [ edit ]MSNBC dayside anchor Stephanie Ruhle is on fire this week. On Tuesday, she casually destroyed the entire premise of the Clinton Foundation “scandal,” and on Friday morning, she gave RNC spokesman Sean Spicer a Passion of the Christ-style beating when he repeatedly tried to change the subject away from Donald Trump‘s racism, and on to Hillary Clinton.
Ruhle was quizzing Spicer about the back-and-forth between Hillary and Trump over his courtship of the racist “alt-right,” and Trump’s random assertion that Hillary is a “bigot,” and each time Spicer tried to take her for a walk into the woods, Ruhle forcefully kept him on the path. The interview itself lasted nearly 13 minutes, but here’s the best part:
Stephanie Ruhle: Hold on. If you’re saying Hillary Clinton is pivoting I would like you to not pivot. Donald Trump called her a bigot. Sean Spicer: i’m not pivoting. Hillary Clinton says a lot of things about Donald Trump. She puts out a video like the white supremacists and the KKK and then everyone says look what Donald Trump says. At some point some people have to look at what Hillary Clinton has done and said. Stephanie Ruhle: Outlandish. For Rudy Giuliani to say “Google Hillary Clinton and health? That’s not outlandish? Please answer my question. Sean Spicer: I am. Stephanie Ruhle: Is that not outlandish?
As a matter of plain fact, the images that were featured in Hillary Clinton’s ad were of actual Klansmen and white supremacists who have endorsed Trump, in the act of endorsing Trump.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.At DC’s retailer roadshow at Orlando yesterday, the assembled crowd were told a story about the original plans for the 2011 Flashpoint event from DC Comics.
The event from 2011 saw the DC Universe reality change, Age Of Apocalypse style, and the DC books replaced by twisted parallel dimensional versions, before the New 52 relaunch that soft rebooted DC continuity.
Originally, Flashpoint was supposed to do what Convergence is doing now, becoming a holding place, a band aid, for books during the originally planned move of DC Comics from New York to Burbank, which was then delayed until 2015. At the end of Flashpoint, the books were originally going to continue as normal without the reboot, and Multiversity was intended to be born from Final Crisis.
But obviously, things change. But they told the crowd that Convergence is the culmination of everything DC has had planned and on the table from the New York era.
And DC will be reborn in Burbank.
About Rich Johnston Chief writer and founder of Bleeding Cool. Father of two. Comic book clairvoyant. Political cartoonist.
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None foundFresno Police Tuesday announced the arrest of two people accused of running down and beating a Sikh man. They also released the video of the crime. 68 year old Amrik Singh Bal was already bloody but the crushing blow came from a car. Fresno Police say a 17 year old driver of a black 2016 Dodge Challenger deliberately hit him. Fresno County District Attorney Lisa Smittcamp said the case was difficult to investigate and prove. "Clearly we can all see from this video that the person driving that vehicle has a clear and completely disregard for human life."
Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer says weeks of determined police work and assistance from the FBI helped them track down 22 year old Daniel Wilson Junior and a 17 year old boy. On the morning of December 26th of last year Sing Bal was in the area of Shields and Brunswick waiting for his ride to work.
Police say Wilson and the teenager got out of the car and started punching his head and face. They drove off but then returned as he crossed the street and ran him down. "Neither one of those individuals are talking to us so it's different for us to determine why in fact they initially did what they did."
Sing Bal was knocked out for six minutes. It was a crime that shook the city and rattled and outraged the Sikh community. Police considered it a hate crime because the victim was wearing East Indian Sikh attire and he told detectives one of the two that beat him up shouted, "Why are you here?" Detectives canvassed the neighborhood up to a mile away from where the attack occurred. They tracked down five different videos in their investigation but say the one they played at the news conference was the most telling.
Wilson and the teenager both face charges of assault with a deadly weapon with great bodily injury, elder abuse with a hate crime enhancement and conspiracy. The District Attorney says the teen could be tried as an adult.Tomorrow, we'll be moving into our new office. The
(This process only slows down development of The Awakening by one weekend, which we had already factored in to our schedule). From 2006 to 2008, Grinding Gear Games was based in my garage at home. In 2008, we moved to our first office. Since then, we've expanded to take up three of the six offices in that building. Working in three separate spaces isn't ideal for communication, so we've been looking for a better office for a number of years. With 57 staff, it's a bit cramped in the old offices.Tomorrow, we'll be moving into our new office. The birds at the old office know that something important is happening. Our new office should support expansion of up to around 110 people. I'll get you some photos once it's all tidied up!(This process only slows down development of The Awakening by one weekend, which we had already factored in to our schedule). YouTube |
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on Grinding Gear Games onWhen Richard Nares and his wife Diane lost their only child, Emilio, just shy of his 6th birthday, they were devastated.
After marrying later in life, Emilio had been their joy. During his treatment for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, the San Diego-area couple was saddened watching other families struggle just to make it to the hospital, many of them immigrants and low-income without reliable transportation.
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In 2005, to honor their late son, who died on Oct. 15, 2000, they created the Emilio Nares Foundation with a unique and badly needed mission: offering free rides from home to treatment for any sick children in their area.
Emilio Nares Foundation
“We were fortunate we had a big family and a safety net, but many families we were with during his treatment, they did not have the resources,” Richard Nares tells PEOPLE. “Whether a car, money, someone to talk to — these things were so important for us to get through his journey. And then you realize many people lack that. When Emilio passed away we just felt this big moral obligation to help.”
Richard, who left his career as a professional picture framer, began working for the foundation using his own car and money. But with grants and community support from donors, 12 years later the foundation’s “Rides With Emilio” program has six passenger vans and full-time drivers. They provide 4,200 rides to about 220 families each year in San Diego, Imperial, and nearby Orange County, California.
Richard Nares with a patient getting a ride Emilio Nares Foundation
Patient Jessica Blackmon, who lives in San Diego, describes the service as a lifesaver. At 19, she passed out while at work only to be diagnosed with aplastic anemia, which required her to endure rounds of chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant.
“I never knew I was sick,” she tells PEOPLE of her shocking diagnosis and difficult treatment, which requires her to visit hospitals weekly.
Trying to use public transportation to get to the hospital was hard, she said, adding that her mother is disabled and she does not own a car.
“When I do catch the bus, people are always coughing, and some are sick, and my immune system is already slow and compromised,” she says. “I use this service as often as I can. I have come to rely on the foundation and drivers to get me to my appointments. They have been very helpful to me and my family.”
Often, Blackmon adds, she uses her time in transport to be supportive to younger children who share her van, encouraging them to be strong.
“A lot of them are scared and they have a lot of questions,” she says. “I just try to lift their spirits up. Mine were down in the beginning, so I try to just listen and let them know that you’re going to get through it.”
Emilio Nares Foundation
Richard Nares says the foundation’s goal is to expand their model to children’s hospitals all over the nation. Many hospitals, he says, already pay for taxi, bus and meal vouchers to help their patients get to them for treatment. And it is costly.
Bus driver Blanca Lopez of Santa Ana, California has been transporting sick kids for the foundation since 2014. Watching them suffer is hard, she says, but it makes her feel good that she is offering not only a ride but also her compassion.
She typically makes six round trips daily for families living in Orange County. Many of them can’t believe the service is free, and often they try to give her 50 cents or a dollar as a meager tip.
“Sometimes there aren’t a lot of people there for poor people, and they are so appreciative,” Lopez observes. “They don’t have money to pay a taxi or call Uber. Most of them are so poor. They live day by day, and this offers a lot of help for the families.”
In addition to driving, she also tries to offer them compassion, knowing that most are navigating a life and death struggle.
Emilio Nares Foundation
“I like to work with kids. And these kinds of families, they need someone to be there for them,” Lopez says. “I think sometimes I might not have exactly the right words to say, but I feel like if they want to talk, I am here.”
Richard Nares says his foundation is supported by the gifts of many individual donors and now employs 11 people. In addition to the transportation, they offer a “Knitting for Hope” program, providing knitting, sewing and crocheting programs to help mothers constructively pass their time while at the hospital.
They also have begun a “Loving Tabs” program where they supply t-shirts for young patients that have convenient and more dignified side snaps so doctors and nurses can easily — and modestly — access chemotherapy ports in their patients’ chests.
Richard Nares Emilio Nares Foundation
Nares said they continue to grow the foundation in their son’s memory, adding that that there are people in his community who are desperate for help. He recalls listening to one single mother talk about her arduous journey with her 2-year-old son who had a brain tumor. She would get up with her child at 4 a.m., to take four or five different bus transfers to get to San Diego to make an 8:30 a.m. cancer treatment appointment. After the boy was there all day, and often feeling sick, they had to make the same long return trip home.
“She could not believe she could get door-to-door transportation in a clean, reliable vehicle,” Nares tells PEOPLE.
“These families we serve, for many, if they miss their job, they lose their job,” he says. “We’ve seen how some had to either give up food or be late on utility bills or rent because they would have to give their neighbors gas money just for a ride to the hospital. We wanted to help them. They are dealing with so much.”
Know a hero? Send suggestions to “heroesamongus@peoplemag.com. For more inspiring stories, read the latest issue of PEOPLE magazine.O trailer promocional de "Real: o plano por trás da história" despertou na extrema-esquerda os mais primitivos sentimentos. A economista do PSOL Laura Carvalho chiou. Afinal de contas, ela era muito pequena na época para reclamar do plano. Já a Cynara Menezes partiu para o deboche. A Socialista Morena já tinha idade para se manifestar, e provavelmente viu sua derrota sacramentada pelo sucesso do plano. Alguns dizem que a irritação se deu por conta da frase atribuída ao economista Gustavo Franco, que teria dito: "Eu não me formei em primeiro lugar da turma para ficar anos corrigindo prova de aluno comunista". "Não é só apenas isso", como diria Seu Creysson.
O sucesso do Plano Real foi contundente, estabilizou um país que viveu uma inflação de 1.037,6%. Para quem tem menos de vinte anos, isso é surreal. Para os que tem mais de trinta, foi uma realidade espinhosa. Que a extrema-esquerda sempre atacou, pregando a gastança pública e a manutenção do estado paquidérmico como saída. Não faz muito tempo, a deputada comunista Alice Portugal afirmou em uma comissão da Câmara que o único feito de Fernando Henrique Cardoso na época foi ter "esmagado várias moedas de Cruzeiro em uma única moeda".
Olhando assim, fica claro o que se passa com a extrema-esquerda. No passado, eles atacaram o Plano Real e as privatizações. Promoveram protestos violentos, greves e tumultos. Tentaram paralisar o Congresso. As medidas não só funcionaram, como também se tornaram exemplos históricos de medidas arrojadas em prol do país. Se os críticos fossem apenas ingênuos mal informados, teriam reconhecido o erro nos dias de hoje. A virulência nas críticas ao filme que diz o óbvio, que o plano funcionou, mostra que a solução da inflação não era a pauta da extrema-esquerda. A pauta era o poder, que deve ser obtido de qualquer forma. Se custar o sangue do povo, isso é um detalhe.
Hoje, a pauta é a Reforma da Previdência. Mais uma vez, a extrema-esquerda coloca seu bloco na rua contra uma medida acertada. Mais uma vez, parte da Direita se acovarda e se omite do debate por temer a controvérsia. Outra parte se perde em abstrações, enquanto outros preferem fazer papel de corno achando que a extrema-esquerda está apenas "desinformada" sobre o rombo da previdência. Não é disso que se trata. Eles sabem que o sistema de pirâmide vigente é deficitário, mas irão persistir em suas estratégias fraudulentas porque para eles o lance é vender o sonho suíço com soluções bolivarianas. Algo como curar diabetes com bombas de chocolate. O fato de estarem irritados com a admissão de que o Real deu certo em pleno 2017 dá a dimensão do quanto eles estão se lixando para o trabalhador brasileiro. A única coisa diferente, é que daqui a vinte anos ninguém contará sobre o sucesso da reforma da previdência. Afinal de contas, poucos ousaram desafiar a extrema-esquerda para defender o óbvio.I’m talking about Channel 10 and Brianna DiPilato.
She’s a young woman just starting a broadcasting career, and it’s a big-money bully trying to crush her.
That’s how I read the lawsuit.
She is some cop’s daughter, grew up around here, went off to school to learn how to be a meteorologist and a broadcaster, and came back to a hometown station to work.
Everything was great. They liked her, they wanted her forever, they had her doing both news and weather, and she excelled at both. A daughter of this community making good, and making us proud.
And then she decided to quit.
To live her own life and make her own choice. Like everybody else. Maybe she wanted to do something different, maybe she got tired of the management culture, maybe she didn’t like the hours, maybe she wanted to make more money.
For her reason she made her choice.
Just like you and me.
Except they went nuclear. They went patriarchal. They went proprietary.
They decided to wheel out the lawyers and rain hell fire down on her. They decided to remind her who’s got the power and who doesn’t.
So Channel 10 filed a breach-of-contract suit, claiming to own her and her time and demanding money for her departure and some legal order to keep her from working for another television station. They said that they made her, and that consequently they could control her.
Personally, I thought Lincoln put an end to that.
And I thought common decency would leave a former employer wishing you the best as you walked out the door.
Apparently, common decency is in short supply at Channel 10, and the brass has decided to attack and destroy.
Because she’s young? Because she’s a she?
Which particular prejudice is it that makes them feel they can treat this human being like property?
Which particular arrogance is it that makes them feel they can screw someone’s life this way?
And what particular insanity is it that makes them believe that you won’t care?
I don’t really give a damn about the contracts they force on people who need to work, or the nonsense that you can’t market your skills to the highest bidder, or go to a shop where the boss respects you. I don’t care about any of that. What I care about is the fact this daughter of Rochester is being smashed by a company that needs public support and good will to survive.
And that ought to be what Channel 10 cares about, too.
Because while it may win this case in the court of law, it is going to lose it in the court of public opinion.
Who wants to watch a TV station that beats the hell out of somebody we like?
Good will is what draws viewers, and pursuing this suit against this broadcaster will hemorrhage good will for Channel 10.
And that would be too bad. It has a generally excellent news report. Its staff is second to none and better than most. People like it and its profile is growing.
But this nasty decision endangers all that. Somewhere off in an office, where they listen to lawyers instead of their better angels, they’ve decided to skewer this woman. It is not in keeping with the spirit of the Channel 10 newscast. It is not beneficial to the Channel 10 brand. It does not jibe with community expectations.
Brianna DiPilato worked hard and well for Channel 10. They paid her for her time. She has decided to move on. She should be allowed to.
Channel 10 should stop this attack on a daughter of Rochester.
It should drop its lawsuit.
Or risk turning the stomach of its viewers.The Other Side Of Were
The curse of the Werewolf has existed for many years, scaring young children and savaging mighty heroes. These days the Werewolf has many companions to share its curse with: Werebears, Wereboars, Wererats and Weretigers are just a few of the many animal types that have become part of the Lycanthropic curse. With all the savage rampages and furious snarling howls filling the nights of the full moon, have you ever wondered if their was a curse or disease that had an almost opposing affect? Rycanthropic curses can affect all forms of life, shifting and morphing them into humanoids. Below are the descriptions and ecologies for some possible types of the Rycanthropic disease.
The Rycanthropic Curse
During the days and nights of the new moon, strange people wander the forests and cities of the world. These lost and confused souls are sufferers of Rycanthropy, simple animals that have been infected and spend three days every month in the form of a humanoids. Over many years of infection, a certain amount of intelligence is acquired and maintained through the constant transformations. For all intensive purposes the cities greatest warrior could actually be a horse, while the savage deaths on the rural farmstead is the vagrant soul of a wolf in human form. The infection maintains the life of these animals for many years past their normal life expectancy, with some Werelves living nearly as long as their namesake. In most cases, confrontations with Werehumans, Werelves and Weredwarves are harmless, as the creature maintains it’s primal mentality for many years. Rangers, druids and any other adventurers with a strong connection to nature can communicate with these frightened and confused creatures. While in the later stages of the curse, open conversations are commonplace as the Rycanthropes travel throughout cities and towns, interacting with the locals. The transformation from beast to human, elf or dwarf is not magical in its origin, therefore magical detection of these creatures shows them as the race they are portraying. This undetectable disguise has lead to some civilised yet sinister beings infecting themselves in order to infiltrate kingdoms or wreak havoc upon their enemies. Goblins masquerade as small children, kidnapping and enticing the young away from their homes, while orcs fill taverns and bars causing fights and killing innocents to sate their blood lust. Several undead creatures also use the Rycanthropic curse to move amongst the living undeterred, Zombies feed relentlessly passing both their undead and metamorphic curse to their victims. Lichs and vampires use the curse to avoid magical detection, with the later walking the sun lit paths for three days each month
Who Man
Werehumans, come in all shapes and sizes. Wide-eyed children skitter across the walkways and alleys. Cow brained farmers wander farms aimlessly, unaware of their altered physical state. When a Werehuman needs to be dealt with, they can only be killed with a weapon crafted from Gold.
Lythi is a sixteen year old Werehuman that has earned a name for herself amongst the local thieves guild. Her cat like reflexes and agility has let her pull jobs and gain access to places other more seasoned thieves have only dreamed of. However this expert thief spends the majority of her time walking the halls of the local lord’s manor in the form of the family cat. The matron of the ‘Silk Orchid’ thieves guild has sought to recruit Lythi for almost a year now, but the lack of reply and the fact that Lythi has been able to allude the ‘Silk Orchid’s’ agents for so long has made the matron furious with the Werehuman. Several law enforcers and ‘Silk Orchid’ agents are hunting Lythi, something the cat is still oblivious to as she searches eagerly for a way to make her transformation more permanent.
The Pale Skin orcs have been tormenting local settlements for years under the guise as human bandits. The wizened war chief Grunam, has kept his small tribe safely hidden in the mountains for many years, killing anyone that wanders near their elaborate cavernous stronghold. During the cycle of the new moon, the orcs rush forth from their bastion and assault any human structure they can find, causing mayhem and destruction for three full days. The locals of the area believe the rampaging horde to be a curse. Many warriors and even farmers tell tales of striking down these vicious bandits with mighty blows, only to see the fallen bandit rise up and rejoin the fight in a matter of minutes. The Pale Skin orcs have yet to face an opponent wielding golden weapons and believe themselves invincible, they act rashly and strike in uncoordinated frenzies that could easily be quelled with the right weapons.
Where Dwarves!
Considered a blasphemy against the prestigious bloodlines of Dwarven lineage. Weredwarves a very rarely accepted by the mountainous folk they take after. The lives of any Weredwarf found within the sacred halls of Dwarven kingdom are forfeit, however such drastic actions are not so quickly taken outside the Dwarven bastions. Weredwarves found wandering the world are often left alone, but treated with disgust and hatred when near dwarves. Humans and Elves do not tend to hold the same grudges to Weredwarves. Weapons crafted from the sacred Dwarven metal, Mithral are the only way to dispatch a Weredwarf.
Insatiable greed and a lack of morale fortitude has lead the mining tycoon Alistair to begin catching and training Weredwarves. This foolish human, uses his trained Weredwarves to infiltrate Dwarven holds and steal their most precious treasures and large quantities of Mithral. As time has past, Alistair’s operation has grown to be more profitable than his actually mining expeditions. The constant deaths of his Weredwarf slaves are of little consequence, with his farms churning out several Weredwarves each month, cows being the easiest to train. As the Dwarven kingdoms fury mounts at their losses, they tirelessly search for the cowardly mastermind behind the thefts of their sacred heirlooms and treasures. Their investigation has lead them to the nearby human city, where diplomatic endeavours of enraged Dwarves have not ended well. With tensions between the two mighty kingdoms constantly mounting, the only person set to gain from war and turmoil is Alistair.
We Are Elves
Meandering through the blessed forests and sacred groves of Elven kind are the Werelves. Without the grace and poise of an actual elf, Werelves are often easily identified by their namesake. Instead exiling the impostors, most woodland elves cherish the appearance of Werelves. Believing the appearance of these creatures to be a blessing from Mother Nature. Most elves take in their morphed brethren and help them learn the ways and methods of the elves. On the days of the new moon, many woodland creatures can be found within the grand cities of the elves, trading, talking and learning. Werelves have a strong resistance to all metals and as such can only be harmed and killed by weapons crafted from wood.
Deep within the Underdark a powerful Drow family holds a very powerful secret. Within the ranks of Del’Zaath, an elite squad of Werelves is hidden. With the poise and grace of Drow warriors, the cursed Werelves easily blend within Elven streets. During the three days of the new moon, this small contingent of Werelves is hidden deep within the sacred halls of the families shrine to Lolth, protecting them from the prying spells of a high priestess. The Del’Zaath have used the curse of the Werelf to rise to prominence within the Underdark, the exploits of the Del’Zaath families countless topside missions is legendary. The Del’Zaath has never lost a single skirmish with their forsaken cousins and the matron mother holds the crown of an ancient Elven king. Using the cursed Werelves to infiltrate and sabotage Elven cities before the Del’Zaath army strikes, keep this noble Drow family in very high esteem with Lolth.
After countless years of difficult study and patience, the Werelf Druid, Wilid, is believed to be most powerful druid upon the material plane. Starting life a millennia ago as a small Finch, the bird was quickly infected with Rycanthropy. Finding acceptance and a home amongst the grove of some local Elves, Wilid was cared for and taught the Elven methods. Over the years of her long life, the small bird has managed to retain her intellect and abilities will in her natural form. All animals calm in the presence of Wilid, rabid wolves will quiet and even cower within the graceful presence of the druid. Her healing abilities are second to none and her mastery of the natural forces could sink entire continents. A constant link to her home and surrounds keeps Wilid busy, saving and healing animals throughout the forest. Any would be adventurer and vagrant spirit that gets lost within the grand woods of her kingdom, will often be rescued and led to safety by a small yellow finch, while those that wish harm upon her charge are never seen again.
What weird creatures have you Were’d? What kind of havoc would you play on your party with a Rycanthrope? Tell us in the comments section!
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loading...In fact, it is not surprising that teachers test math all the time—in the last decade teachers’ jobs have come to depend on student performance on narrow state tests. The Common Core promises an improvement in the types of tests used—with questions that are less narrow and require thinking, instead of choosing a letter (A, B, C or D)—but the bigger problem is the testing culture in classrooms. It is not unusual for high-school math teachers to test children every week, communicating to students that they are constantly being evaluated.
Educators know that the most productive math-learning environments are those in which students receive positive messages about their unlimited potential and work on interesting and complex problems; in which they feel free to try ideas, fail, and revise their thinking. Students with a “growth” mindset are those who believe that their ability is not “fixed” and that failure is a natural part of learning. These are the students who perform at higher levels in math and in life. But students don’t get the opportunity to see math as a growth subject if they mainly work on short, closed questions accompanied by frequent tests that communicate to them that math is all about performance and there is no room for failure. When students inevitably struggle, most decide they are not a “math person.” The last decade has seen a nation of children emerge from our schools terrified of failing in math and believing that only some students can be good at it—those who can effortlessly achieve on narrow tests.
Teachers see some of the damage caused by our nation’s procedural and over-tested math classrooms in the ideas students hold about math. When asked what math is, students typically give descriptions that are very different from those given by experts in the field. Mathematicians define their subject as the study of patterns. They say it is an aesthetic, creative, and beautiful subject (for example, Keith Devlin, “Mathematics: The Science of Patterns”; and Steven Strogatz, “The Joy of x”). Knowledge of mathematical patterns has helped people navigate oceans, chart missions to space, develop technology that powers cellphones and social networks, and create new scientific and medical knowledge. But students will typically say that math is a subject of calculations, procedures, and rules. They believe that the best mathematical thinkers are those who calculate the fastest—that you have to be fast at math to be good at math. Yet mathematicians are often slow with math. I work with many mathematicians and they are simply not fast math thinkers. I don’t say this to be disrespectful to mathematicians. They are slow because they think carefully and deeply about mathematics.
Laurent Schwartz won the Fields Medal in mathematics and was one of the greatest mathematicians of his time. But when he was in school he was one of the slowest in his class. In his autobiography, A Mathematician Grappling with His Century, he reflects on his school days and how he felt “stupid” because his school valued fast thinking:
I was always deeply uncertain about my own intellectual capacity; I thought I was unintelligent. And it is true that I was, and still am, rather slow. I need time to seize things because I always need to understand them fully. Towards the end of the eleventh grade, I secretly thought of myself as stupid. I worried about this for a long time. I’m still just as slow.... At the end of the eleventh grade, I took the measure of the situation, and came to the conclusion that rapidity doesn’t have a precise relation to intelligence. What is important is to deeply understand things and their relations to each other. This is where intelligence lies. The fact of being quick or slow isn't really relevant.
Yet, more than any other subject, mathematics continues to be presented as a speed race: Teachers take answers from the first student to shoot up their hand in class, parents and teachers give timed math tests and drill with flash cards, and math apps race against the clock. It is no wonder that students who think slowly and deeply are put off by mathematics.“When you throw something in the trash, most people think it’s gone. It just disappears,’’ said Assaf Biderman, associate director of the SENSEable City Laboratory. “What would happen if you knew what happened to the plastic cup you threw in the garbage three days earlier?’’
The tag is small, waterproof, and nearly indestructible, meaning it can be attached to everything from water bottles to pizza boxes and survive its journey. Using cellphone towers, the devices send information about their locations back to MIT computer servers that map the coordinates in real time.
Scientists from MIT’s SENSEable City Laboratory, a research team that uses sensors and other technology to analyze cities in new ways, hope that tracking the trash through the disposal system - and making it viewable in real time on a blog - will cause consumers to give more thought to what they are tossing out. They also want to answer a question dear to the hearts of recyclers: Do the soda cans, pickle jars, and old newspapers placed in recycling bins arrive at their intended destinations or take unexpected detours?
The tracking devices - called smart tags - will make their prime-time debut next month in Seattle, where thousands of volunteers will attach the tags to trash selected by the researchers and then discard the rubbish as they normally would. Smaller launches will take place |
commercial area.
Growing, processing and selling could be conducted in secrecy. Call this one the Home-Buyer’s-Surprise Provision.
This is really the dumbest thing in the entire editorial. The reason that this bill is being introduced is precisely because the “growing, processing and selling” is “conducted in secrecy”. By licensing and regulating both growers and dispensaries, you take this industry out of the shadows and allow the cities and counties to establish the proper location for these activities to take place. This bill fixes the problem of having large numbers of grow operations hidden in people’s basements. The fact that O’Callahan thinks that this bill would cause that is the clearest indication that he doesn’t have the foggiest idea what the hell he’s talking about.
There’s more: Police officers would have to check state databases for medical marijuana licenses before responding on probable cause to “cannabis-related incidents” (also known, under federal law, as “crimes”).
I’m having trouble not getting too snarky about this, but this attitude is extraordinary and O’Callahan’s lack of understanding of the law is terrifying. For starters, our local police aren’t supposed to be enforcing federal laws, so the fact that marijuana is illegal under federal law is irrelevant to any law enforcement official in this state. Second, asking that a police officer check a database – before bursting into someone’s home with weapons – to see if the person they’re about to invade might be a law-abiding citizen is not unreasonable. In fact, it should be considered a very basic part of a police officer’s job.
Individual officers could be personally fined or sued for failure to do so. There’s no obvious reason this wouldn’t apply to, say, a cop who spots dope and money changing hands in a dark alley. Odd: The law doesn’t paint a legal bull’s-eye on officers for responding to “alcohol-related incidents.”
As far as I can tell, this is completely untrue. If a police officer sees a transaction between two people in a dark alley, the officer should be able to respond exactly the same way whether it’s alcohol or medical marijuana being purchased. Those transactions should not be occurring outside of licensed establishments.
The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, has been touted as a “clarification” of the legal status of the illegal marijuana dispensaries that Washington cities and counties – including Tacoma – have begun to tolerate. The measure’s actual reach is far, far more sweeping; it amounts to legalization with privileges.
Again, O’Callahan says this but doesn’t provide any actual evidence to back it up. This bill does not change – in any way – the process by which an individual with one of the qualifying conditions goes to a doctor and gets an authorization. Recreational use is still illegal. The result of this bill won’t be an increase in the amount of medical marijuana users, it will be a better system for ensuring that those individuals can have a safe place to obtain it.
To legitimize the dispensaries, the logical first step would be to impose genuine medical-pharmaceutical rigor on the authorizations that allow people to acquire “medicinal” pot in the first place.
And that would be a wonderful thing that just about every medical marijuana patient would welcome, but sadly the Federal Government makes this impossible so long as marijuana is considered a Schedule I drug.
As things stand, a handful of clinics – often fly-by-night operations – do brief, assembly-line-style “exams” of marijuana seekers and churn out authorizations like factories. They rubber-stamp the documents – often for about $200 a pop – for users with nebulous complaints of “intractable pain.” These mills have been transforming who knows how many garden-variety marijuana smokers into “patients.” The law permits little effective regulation, and no one has ever been sanctioned for over-authorizing marijuana. The lack of controls blurs the line between legitimate providers and money-hungry enablers.
I have no doubt that this happens. And I have no problem with medical boards coming down on doctors who do it. But this phenomenon has minimal effect on anyone. In some ways, it’s better that recreational users become medical users because then the money they spend on marijuana is more likely to go to a local business rather than a criminal organization. That’s why over half the people in Washington state just want it legalized for both medical and recreational use. But until that point, you’ll likely always find some subset of the medical profession who decide that money is more important than their integrity. Just like journalism.
Instead of tightening the process, Kohl-Welles’ bill would actually loosen it. Under the existing law – an initiative approved by the voters – marijuana is largely treated as a last resort to be used only when legal, conventional treatments and FDA-approved medications fail. Her measure would let it be used as a first resort.
As I mentioned above, this language was taken out because it was putting judges in a position to make medical determinations for the folks in their courtrooms. It’s odd that in a world where we’re so easily terrified of “death panels” and “government getting inbetween you and your doctor”, a newspaper is actually editorializing in favor of giving the government the ability to send you to jail for a health decision that you and your doctor agree upon. That’s stunning.
With this in place, any drug abuser who didn’t get his get-out-of-jail-free card would deserve to be arrested for sheer stupidity.
This is even more stunning. Regardless of how one feels about the language of the bill, believing that “drug abusers” belong in jail is a sign of complete moral bankruptcy. Hardly anyone in our society still believes that the proper way to deal with a drug addict is to send them to prison. Even worse, that’s still quite separate from the reality here. The vast majority of both medical and recreational marijuana users aren’t “abusers”. They aren’t destroying their lives with it. But to believe that the few who do abuse the drug will turn their life around if you send them to jail is beyond stupid. Seeing something that dumb in an editorial from one of the state’s largest newspapers is quite remarkable.
Words fail. This bill could have been written by Cheech and Chong 30 tokes past midnight. Any lawmaker inclined to support it should make a point of reading it first.
I’m not sure what else there is to say. The sad reality is that people this clueless and blindly ideological are still employed by the major newspapers of this state, even as they’ve been under intense pressure to trim budgets. Like O’Callahan, I strongly encourage every lawmaker to read this bill, and if they have as much trouble as O’Callahan did in understanding it, I’d encourage them to do something he didn’t do: talk to someone who’s actually knowledgeable about medical marijuana and the history of how the law has worked in this state.
UDPATE: I was just sent this clarification to the “long-term impairment” part of O’Callahan’s editorial over email:
[T]he “long-term impairment” that confuses Mr. O’Callahan is exactly the same “long-term impairment” already described in the statutory provision allowing judges to preclude or limit visitation based on a parent’s struggles with “drug, alcohol, or substance abuse,” RCW 26.09.191(3)(c). Family law judges and attorneys are quite familiar with it.PARRAMATTA will consider luring the club’s former NRL hooker Nathan Peats back to the club, according to Eels chief executive Bernie Gurr.
But he insists no such move has been made to bring fellow Gold Coast player Jarryd Hayne back home.
Wednesday marks one year to the day since Parramatta were stripped of 12 premiership points for breaching the salary cap, and were forced to offload a number of players.
Peats was the most high profile of those discarded members, but is off contract at the end of the year at the Gold Coast after signing a one-and-a-half year deal on leaving the Eels.
And Gurr said the club is considering attempting to bring him back.
“Nathan Peats has been on the radar for our club as well,” Gurr said. “We’re looking at our roster at the moment and we’re always looking at our roster to try and improve it. Nathan’s name has been tossed up.”
The Eels are in need of a hooker and Peats would be seen as a perfect fit. Isaac de Gois is on the wrong side of 30 and is struggling due to concussion, while Kaysa Pritchard has played just 80 minutes out of dummy-half just once this year.
Peats had an immediate impact when he arrived at the Eels in 2014 and is seen as a contender for the State of Origin hooker’s role.
Both parties were also unhappy to split last year, as the 26-year-old became the unlucky man to be off-contract in 2016 as the Eels had to find their way back under the cap to compete for competition points again.
However they are cashed up heading into the 2018 season.
Meanwhile, Gurr said he had not received any approach to bring Hayne back to the club.
The former Eels fullback has an option in his favour to leave the Titans at the end of the year and there had been reports his representatives had contacted the Eels to discuss a homecoming.
But it’s understood the Eels have moved on from the 2014 Dally M medallist, while they have an up-and-coming star in 21-year-old Bevan French at fullback.
“I’ve not had an approach and if it was coming, it would be through me,” Gurr said of Hayne.
“There have been no substantial discussions around Jarryd Hayne returning to the club.”ForexMinute.com, the world’s leading forex news and resources portal, has now listed the top bitcoin exchanges to ensure traders with an effective and reliable bitcoin trading plan.
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Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/5/prweb10768424.htmRepresentative Scott Perry (R-PA) reacted to reports that San Bernardino attacker Tashfeen Malik received a K-1 visa despite social media posts that indicated she had become radicalized by arguing, “you wonder if the existential threat is just ISIS…or is it also an administration that for political narrative puts policy and political correctness above the national security of the nation” on Monday’s “On the Record” on the Fox News Channel.
Perry said, [relevant remarks begin around 4:00] “it goes beyond incompetence. When you find out they missed it, you think well how did that happen? Well, you realize there’s actually a memo signed by Jeh Johnson that says that this was actually the policy not look at their social media, then you wonder if the existential threat is just ISIS or Islamists, or is it also an administration that for political narrative puts policy and political correctness above the national security of the nation.”
He added, “I think it’s just to fit a political narrative. I understand the president is out today selling the program telling us that it’s the most robust screening process, and that we’re vetting all these people. Understanding, now the American people are finally hearing that we don’t check social media, that this is simply a question, a very simple questionnaire. the person that’s getting the K-1 visa, or the Fiancé(e) visa, just has to state that she saw the other person, or he saw the other person once in two years, and that they have communicated with one another, and then they can come here and be married. i mean, what is robust, about that and what is thorough about that?”
Perry concluded, “why would this be that this political narrative is so strong that they would put the rights of people that aren’t citizens, potential jihadists, in front of the rights and the protection that they’ve taken an oath to uphold and preserve of the American people. You wonder what’s in that mindset that allows for this to happen to America.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchettTwo members of the House Intelligence Committee have told The Daily Beast that they have now seen "more than circumstantial" evidence of collusion between Trump associates and Russia.
"The evidence is more than circumstantial," said Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the committee said. Rep. Mike Quigley, another Democrat on the committee, said in a separate conversation Thursday he had seen the same as Schiff.
Schiff said that the public would have to wait until the panel completed its investigation into Russian interference with the U.S. election to see the evidence he’s referencing.
"I certainly think at the conclusion of the investigation we ought to disclose as much as we can, but I don't think we should be disclosing evidence during the investigation," Schiff told The Daily Beast.
—Tim MakDublin's €60 million Samuel Beckett Bridge, designed by internationally renowned architect Santiago Calatrava, opened to traffic this morning.
The 120-metre long, 48-metre high bridge spans the river Liffey from Sir John Rogerson’s Quay near Macken Street on the south side to Guild Street at the site of the new National Convention Centre on the north side.
It was one of two bridges commissioned from Calatrava by Dublin City Council 10 years ago. The other, the James Joyce Bridge, opened at Blackhall Place near Heuston Station on Bloomsday, June 16th, 2003.
The new bridge was projected in 1998 to cost £10 million, but the costs ultimately rose to almost €60 million.
Designed to represent a harp on its side the cable-stayed bridge was made in the Netherlands and arrived in Dublin last May.
It had a difficult introduction to the city, with two failed attempts to put it in place on the river due to high winds and generally poor weather.
However, it opened slightly ahead of schedule, having been due to open in early 2010.
The bridge will be capable of rotating through an angle of 90 degrees to facilitate maritime traffic.
It has four traffic lanes, cycle tracks and footpaths and will be capable of accommodating a Luas track.
Motorists have been advised that there is no right-turn from the bridge on either side of the river and there is no left-turn from North Wall Quay onto the north side of the bridge.
It was opened to pedestrians yesterday by Lord Mayor of Dublin Emer Costello.
Relatives of Samuel Beckett attended the event as did actor Barry McGovern, known internationally for his Beckett performances, and poet Seamus Heaney.Picture - Christer Ostmark
Picture - Remi Dallot
Madrid visit Picture - Jose M. Palacios
Picture -Damiano Gualdoni
Dublin Visit Picture - Carl Ford
Stockholm Visit Picture - Stefan Bjaerkemark
Madrid Visit Picture - Ariel Shocron
Paris Orly - Final Festination - Dayot Jean-Charles
As its market shares were eroding on the soft drinks market, the US company Pepsi Cola undertook a major re-branding project of $500 million US which would be unveiled in 1996 after about two years of work. Pepsi therefore started to look around for a spectacular and efficient manner to advertise its new brand style and enhance its sales. It was eventually decided to have an advertisement operation involving the Concorde. Pepsi started requesting proposals from both Air France (AF) and British Airways (BA), the sole two Sud Aviation/BAC Concorde operators. Eventually, the French carrier was awarded the contract (of which terms were not disclosed). Because the new identity of Pepsi was based on the color blue, the aircraft would have to be painted alike. Therefore the Air France maintenance staff had to call Aerospatiale (successor of Sud Aviation) as the airplane, for which temperature is so important, was only certified with a white color scheme. They received approval to paint the fuselage in blue, but were advised to keep the wings in white (because of the fuel temperature). It was advised to remain at M2.02 for about 20 minutes at most, but there was no restriction under M1.70. This was not a concern for Air France as the aircraft was not due to operate any scheduled flight to New York ‚ John F. Kennedy (JFK) or any such long sector. A part of the preparation included the constitution of a maintenance package, necessary handling tools and ground equipment, etc., as for any unscheduled Concorde operation. Air France required its name to be kept close to the cockpit, as well as the seahorse despite the Pepsi scheme. This is a usual requirement from the airline, which was for the occasion very important as Concorde was due to be presented in British Airways' backyard. The Concorde registered F-BTSD (c/n 213) was selected for maintenance availability reasons. The paint work was started in late March 1996 at the Air France maintenance facility of Paris ‚ Orly (ORY), where all airplanes go after their D-check to get a new livery. It required 200 liters of paint and 2,000 hours of work. The whole operation was to be undertaken secretly, as Pepsi wanted to keep all the surprise for the moment when it would unveil its new identity. "Sierra Delta" was thus covered by brown wrapping paper after it was painted, so that as few people as possible would be aware of the event. It eventually left the hanger on March 31st at night, and was quickly rolled to the runway where it took off for London - Gatwick (LGW), where Pepsi had planned to receive its guests. The aircraft was immediately towed to the hanger after its arrival, and made ready for the show. And yet, a few days before the new brand was unveiled, Richard Branson had apparently heard about the advertisement operation, as proved ads for the Virgin Cola soft drink in the British press. A few articles about an Air France Concorde being repainted with a blue color scheme were issued in the newspapers. The show took place on 02 April 1996, with the presence of Claudia Schiffer, Andre Agassi, Cindy Crawford, and hundreds of journalists invited by Pepsi for the event. People were really astonished to see the Concorde with the blue livery. Flight attendants each had a special pin on their uniform designed for the occasion. Afterwards, "Sierra Delta" started a promotion campaign in Europe and the Middle East. For the Pepsi commercial operation, there were a total of 16 flights (including the ferry flights from ORY) and 10 cities visited. Each flight, except the first and last ones, would have been occasions to go supersonicThe chairman of Google's parent company says Canada is smart to quadruple down on artificial intelligence.
Alphabet Inc. chairman Eric Schmidt called out Canada specifically in a series of tweets and lauded its efforts in AI among government, universities, large companies and startups.
The former Google CEO's social media comments come weeks after Ottawa released its short list of nine superclusters, as part of its strategy to bring together academia and industry to spur innovation in various areas including AI.
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It also comes one week after one of Google's sister companies announced it would help build a high-tech neighbourhood on the Toronto Waterfront.
Alphabet-owned Sidewalk Labs won the competition to partner with Waterfront Toronto to develop the project as part of the Quayside neighbourhood.
Schmidt says he will be speaking with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau next week at its annual Go North technology conference in Toronto.Half a century ago, in the great hippie year of 1967, an acclaimed young American science fiction writer, Roger Zelazny, published his third novel. In many ways, Lord of Light was of its time, shaggy with imported Hindu mythology and cosmic dialogue. Yet there were also glints of something more forward-looking and political. One plot strand concerned a group of revolutionaries who wanted to take their society “to a higher level” by suddenly transforming its attitude to technology. Zelazny called them the Accelerationists.
He and the book are largely forgotten now. But as the more enduring sci-fi novelist JG Ballard said in 1971, “what the writers of modern science fiction invent today, you and I will do tomorrow”. Over the past five decades, and especially over the past few years, much of the world has got faster. Working patterns, political cycles, everyday technologies, communication habits and devices, the redevelopment of cities, the acquisition and disposal of possessions – all of these have accelerated. Meanwhile, over the same half century, almost entirely unnoticed by the media or mainstream academia, accelerationism has gradually solidified from a fictional device into an actual intellectual movement: a new way of thinking about the contemporary world and its potential.
Accelerationism: how a fringe philosophy predicted the future we live in – podcast Read more
Accelerationists argue that technology, particularly computer technology, and capitalism, particularly the most aggressive, global variety, should be massively sped up and intensified – either because this is the best way forward for humanity, or because there is no alternative. Accelerationists favour automation. They favour the further merging of the digital and the human. They often favour the deregulation of business, and drastically scaled-back government. They believe that people should stop deluding themselves that economic and technological progress can be controlled. They often believe that social and political upheaval has a value in itself.
Accelerationism, therefore, goes against conservatism, traditional socialism, social democracy, environmentalism, protectionism, populism, nationalism, localism and all the other ideologies that have sought to moderate or reverse the already hugely disruptive, seemingly runaway pace of change in the modern world. “Accelerationism is a political heresy,” write Robin Mackay and Armen Avanessian in their introduction to #Accelerate: The Accelerationist Reader, a sometimes baffling, sometimes exhilarating book, published in 2014, which remains the only proper guide to the movement in existence.
Like other heresies, accelerationism has had generations of adherents, declared or otherwise: passing its ideas on to each other, refining some and renouncing others, communicating with each other in a private language, coalescing around dominant figures, competing to make the faith’s next breakthrough, splitting into factions, burning out. There are, or have been, accelerationists from the United States, Canada, Britain, Germany, Italy and France. The movement has produced books, essays, journals, manifestos, blogs, social media battles – and cryptic, almost unclassifiable communiques combining dystopian fiction with a dizzying range of political, cultural and economic theory.
Occasionally, accelerationists have held teaching posts at universities. They have held sporadic public gatherings, in order to think out loud, argue and acquire converts. A few recorded fragments of these can be found on YouTube: dim footage of intense young people talking mesmerically about the future, often with electronic music and abstract visuals churning in the background, to sometimes baffled audiences in badly lit lecture rooms.
At any one time, there have probably only been a few dozen accelerationists in the world. The label has only been in regular use since 2010, when it was borrowed from Zelazny’s novel by Benjamin Noys, a strong critic of the movement. Yet for decades longer than more orthodox contemporary thinkers, accelerationists have been focused on many of the central questions of the late 20th and early 21st centuries: the rise of China; the rise of artificial intelligence; what it means to be human in an era of addictive, intrusive electronic devices; the seemingly uncontrollable flows of global markets; the power of capitalism as a network of desires; the increasingly blurred boundary between the imaginary and the factual; the resetting of our minds and bodies by ever-faster music and films; and the complicity, revulsion and excitement so many of us feel about the speed of modern life.
“We all live in an operating system set up by the accelerating triad of war, capitalism and emergent AI,” says Steve Goodman, a British accelerationist who has even smuggled its self-consciously dramatic ideas into dance music, via an acclaimed record label, Hyperdub. “Like it or not,” argues Steven Shaviro, an American observer of accelerationism, in his 2015 book on the movement, No Speed Limit, “we are all accelerationists now.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Illustration by Bratislav Milenkovic
Celebrating speed and technology has its risks. A century ago, the writers and artists of the Italian futurist movement fell in love with the machines of the industrial era and their apparent ability to invigorate society. Many futurists followed this fascination into war-mongering and fascism. While some futurist works are still admired, the movement’s reputation has never recovered.
One of the central figures of accelerationism is the British philosopher Nick Land, who taught at Warwick University in the 1990s, and then abruptly left academia. “Philosophers are vivisectors,” he wrote in 1992. “They have the precise and reptilian intelligence shared by all who experiment with living things.” Iain Hamilton Grant, who was one of Land’s students, remembers: “There was always a tendency in all of us to bait the liberal, and Nick was the best at it.”
Since Warwick, Land has published prolifically on the internet, not always under his own name, about the supposed obsolescence of western democracy; he has also written approvingly about “human biodiversity” and “capitalistic human sorting” – the pseudoscientific idea, currently popular on the far right, that different races “naturally” fare differently in the modern world; and about the supposedly inevitable “disintegration of the human species” when artificial intelligence improves sufficiently.
Other accelerationists now distance themselves from Land. Grant, who teaches philosophy at the University of the West of England, says of him: “I try not to read his stuff. Folk [in the accelerationist movement] are embarrassed. They think he’s sounding like a thug. Anyone who’s an accelerationist, who’s reflective, does think: ‘How far is too far?’ But then again, even asking that question is the opposite of accelerationism.” Accelerationism is not about restraint.
Even its critic Benjamin Noys concedes that the movement has an allure. “Accelerate is a sexy word,” he says – not a common thing in philosophy. The determinedly transgressive artists Jake and Dinos Chapman are associates of the movement and longstanding Land collaborators. One of their frenzied, grotesque paintings is on the cover of his collected writings, Fanged Noumena, published in 2011, which contains some of accelerationism’s most darkly fascinating passages. Earlier this year, secondhand copies of the paperback, which is now being reprinted, were on sale on Amazon for £180.
The manic presidency of Donald Trump has been seen as the first mainstream manifestation of an accelerationist politics
In our politically febrile times, the impatient, intemperate, possibly revolutionary ideas of accelerationism feel relevant, or at least intriguing, as never before. Noys says: “Accelerationists always seem to have an answer. If capitalism is going fast, they say it needs to go faster. If capitalism hits a bump in the road, and slows down” – as it has since the 2008 financial crisis – “they say it needs to be kickstarted.” The disruptive US election campaign and manic presidency of Donald Trump, and his ultra-capitalist, anti-government policies, have been seen by an increasing number of observers – some alarmed, some delighted – as the first mainstream manifestation of an accelerationist politics. In recent years, Noys has noticed accelerationist ideas “resonating” and being “circulated” everywhere from pro-technology parts of the British left to wealthy libertarian and far-right circles in America. On alt-right blogs, Land in particular has become a name to conjure with. Commenters have excitedly noted the connections between some of his ideas and the thinking of both the libertarian Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel and Trump’s iconoclastic strategist Steve Bannon.
“In Silicon Valley,” says Fred Turner, a leading historian of America’s digital industries, “accelerationism is part of a whole movement which is saying, we don’t need [conventional] politics any more, we can get rid of ‘left’ and ‘right’, if we just get technology right. Accelerationism also fits with how electronic devices are marketed – the promise that, finally, they will help us leave the material world, all the mess of the physical, far behind.”
To Turner, the appeal of accelerationism is as much ancient as modern: “They are speaking in a millenarian idiom,” promising that a vague, universal change is close at hand. Noys warns that the accelerationists are trying to “claim the future”.
In some ways, Karl Marx was the first accelerationist. His Communist Manifesto of 1848 was as much awestruck as appalled by capitalism, with its “constant revolutionising of production” and “uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions”. He saw an ever more frantic capitalism as the essential prelude to the moment when the ordinary citizen “is at last compelled to face … his real conditions of life” and start a revolution.
Yet it was in France in the late 1960s that accelerationist ideas were first developed in a sustained way. Shaken by the failure of the leftwing revolt of 1968, and by the seemingly unending postwar economic boom in the west, some French Marxists decided that a new response to capitalism was needed. In 1972, the philosopher Gilles Deleuze and the psychoanalyst Félix Guattari published Anti-Oedipus. It was a restless, sprawling, appealingly ambiguous book, which suggested that, rather than simply oppose capitalism, the left should acknowledge its ability to liberate as well as oppress people, and should seek to strengthen these anarchic tendencies, “to go still further … in the movement of the market … to ‘accelerate the process’”.
Two years later, another disillusioned French Marxist, Jean-François Lyotard, extended the argument even more provocatively. His 1974 book Libidinal Economy declared that even the oppressive aspects of capitalism were “enjoyed” by those whose lives the system reordered and accelerated. And besides, there was no alternative: “The system of capital is, when all’s said and done, natural.”
In France, both books were controversial. Lyotard eventually disowned Libidinal Economy as his “evil book”, and moved on to other subjects. Deleuze and Guattari warned in their next book, A Thousand Plateaus, which was published in 1980 – as relatively benign postwar capitalism was being swept away by the wilder, harsher version of the Thatcher-Reagan era – that too much capitalist acceleration could suck society into “black holes” of fascism and nihilism.
Yet in Britain, Anti-Oedipus and Libidinal Economy acquired a different status. Like much of postwar French philosophy, for decades they were ignored by the academic mainstream, as too foreign in all senses, and were not even translated into English until 1983 and 1993 respectively. But, for a tiny number of British philosophers, the two books were a revelation. Iain Hamilton Grant first came across Libidinal Economy as a master’s student at Warwick in the early 90s. “I couldn’t believe it! For a book by a Marxist to say, ‘There’s no way out of this’, meaning capitalism, and that we are all tiny pieces of engineered desire, that slot into a huge system – that’s a first, as far as I know.” Grant “got hooked”. Instead of writing his dissertation, he spent an obsessive six months producing the first English translation.
Such exploratory philosophy projects were tolerated at Warwick in a way they were not at other British universities. Warwick had been founded in the 1960s as a university that would experiment and engage with the contemporary world. By the 1990s, its slightly isolated out-of-town campus of breeze-block towers and ziggurats looked worn rather than futuristic, but its original ethos lived on in some departments, such as philosophy, where studying avant-garde French writers was the norm. At the centre of this activity was a new young lecturer in the department, Nick Land.
Land was a slight, fragile-looking man with an iron gaze, a soft but compelling voice, and an air of startling intellectual confidence. “Lots of people are clever,” says Grant, “but I’ve never witnessed anyone who could so forensically destroy a thesis.” Robin Mackay, who also became one of Land’s students, remembers: “Nick was always ready to say, ‘Don’t bother reading that.’ But he had read it all!”
By the early 90s Land had distilled his reading, which included Deleuze and Guattari and Lyotard, into a set of ideas and a writing style that, to his students at least, were visionary and thrillingly dangerous. Land wrote in 1992 that capitalism had never been properly unleashed, but instead had always been held back by politics, “the last great sentimental indulgence of mankind”. He dismissed Europe as a sclerotic, increasingly marginal place, “the racial trash-can of Asia”. And he saw civilisation everywhere accelerating towards an apocalypse: “Disorder must increase... Any [human] organisation is... a mere... detour in the inexorable death-flow.”
Land gave strange, theatrical lectures: clambering over chairs as he spoke, or sitting hunched over, rocking back and forth. He also spiced his pronouncements with black humour. He would tell lecture audiences, “I work in the field of The Collapse of Western Civilisation Studies.” A quarter of a century on, some former Warwick philosophy students still talk about him with awe. Robin Mackay says, “I think he’s one of the most important philosophers of the last 50 years.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Illustration by Bratislav Milenkovic
But for a would-be guide to the future, Land was in some ways quite old-fashioned. Until the late 90s, he used an ancient green-screen Amstrad computer, and his initial Warwick writings contained far more references to 18th- and 19th-century philosophers – Friedrich Nietzsche was a fixation – than to contemporary thinkers or culture. The Warwick version of accelerationism did not crystallise fully until other radicals arrived in the philosophy department in the mid-90s.
Sadie Plant was one of them: a former Birmingham University lecturer in cultural studies, the study of modern popular culture. Mark Fisher, a former student of hers at Birmingham, was another incomer. He was jumpy and intense, while she was warm and approachable. For a time in the early 90s, she and Land were partners.
Like Land, Plant and Fisher had both read the French accelerationists and were increasingly hostile to the hold they felt traditional leftwing and liberal ideas had on British humanities departments, and on the world beyond. Unlike Land, Plant and Fisher were technophiles: she had an early Apple computer, he was an early mobile phone user. “Computers... pursue accelerating, exponential paths, proliferating, miniaturising, stringing themselves together,” wrote Plant in Zeroes and Ones, a caffeinated 1997 book about the development of computing. Plant and Fisher were also committed fans of the 90s’ increasingly kinetic dance music and action films, which they saw as popular art forms that embodied the possibilities of the new digital era.
With the internet becoming part of everyday life for the first time, and capitalism seemingly triumphant after the collapse of communism in 1989, a belief that the future would be almost entirely shaped by computers and globalisation – the accelerated “movement of the market” that Deleuze and Guattari had called for two decades earlier – spread across British and American academia and politics during the 90s. The Warwick accelerationists were in the vanguard.
Yet there were two different visions of the future. In the US, confident, rainbow-coloured magazines such as Wired promoted what became known as “the Californian ideology”: the optimistic claim that human potential would be unlocked everywhere by digital technology. In Britain, this optimism influenced New Labour. At Warwick, however, the prophecies were darker. “One of our motives,” says Plant, “was precisely to undermine the cheery utopianism of the 90s, much of which seemed very conservative” – an old-fashioned male desire for salvation through gadgets, in her view. “We wanted a more open, convoluted, complicated world, not a shiny new order.”
The Warwick accelerationists were also influenced by their environment. “Britain in the 90s felt cramped, grey, dilapidated,” says Mackay, “We saw capitalism and technology as these intense forces that were trying to take over a decrepit body.” To observe the process, and help hasten it, in 1995 Plant, Fisher, Land, Mackay and two dozen other Warwick students and academics created a radical new institution: the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU). It would become one of the most mythologised groups in recent British intellectual history.
The CCRU existed as a fully functional entity for less than five years. For some of that time, it was based in a single office in the tight corridors of the Warwick philosophy department, of which it was |
desk from the pilot was a beauty with its backside display shelf (lonely and bare) but it was replaced with something that was much more common in an American office at the time: a larger Knoll or Steelcase, with metal legs and an overhanging surface.
The drab walls of the pilot office get the biggest upgrade: rich wood paneling. Dan Bishop says in a special feature of the Season 1 DVD that the panels are real walnut (stained in the typical way), but creator Matthew Weiner thought it as too cold, so they added a red dye.
Boxy Sofa
Simplaform
unnamed sofa
Jydsk Møbelværk
Goetz Sofa
Herman Miller
The lounge area of Don’s office is anchored by a Boxy sofa, armchair, and coffee table from Futurama, a Los Angeles shop that reproduces vintage designs. (Thanks to Javi!) The Futurama sofas are manufactured by Simplaform and are inspired by Jydsk Møbelværk and Milo Baughman. If you like this look, don’t forget Autoban’s Box and Herman Miller’s Goetz.
And oh, that steel ashtray on a pedestal … the roulette cigarette dispenser … they make even non-smokers dream about decorating their pads with smoking accessories.
What sort of desk will Don Draper grace in the new agency? Maybe we’ll find out tonight. In the meantime, the Mid-Century Modernist “Mad Men” Furniture series will continue. In the next installment we’ll step outside Don’s nest and explore the rest of Sterling Cooper’s former offices and the new digs of Season 4’s Sterling Cooper Draper Price.
Read more:
Props Gallery with commentary by Property Master Scott Buckwald
Collectors Weekly interview with Buckwald
Interior Design interview with Amy WellsCAMPBELL — An employee at a Campbell nightclub was shot and wounded early Saturday after complaining about loud music coming from a group of men in the parking lot, police said.
The shooting was reported about 1:55 a.m. outside The Spot, a nightclub on Orchard City Drive, according to Campbell police. The victim, a 33-year-old man, and club bouncers approached a group of men in their 20s and asked them to turn their music down.
That prompted a man in the group to open fire on the employee, police said. The injured worker was taken to the hospital and is expected to survive.
Police released vague descriptions of the shooter and other men, saying said they were accompanied by a woman. They were last seen driving east on Orchard City Drive in two cars, a light-colored newer-model four-door sedan and a dark-colored late-1990s model Chevy Camaro.
Anyone with information for Campbell police can call 408-871-5190.Combining power to operate equipment, as well as delivering substantial data rates that are good enough for video — in the same piece of radio kit — is now obtainable, scientists say.
The developing system works similar to how charging pads provide power to a toothbrush or a mobile phone without having to be connected through wires. However, in this case, the apparatus doesn’t need any physical contact with the device and data can be sent at the same time.
Magnetic fields are being used to transmit power through the air, North Carolina State University researchers say in a press release.
The radios used in those devices operate with narrow bandwidth antennas that were thought couldn’t handle data at the same time. (A second sending and receiving radio has to be incorporated. That adds to the weight, bulk and cost — three things that adversely affect take-up.)
However, the North Carolina State scientists say that premise isn’t correct. While you do indeed need ultra-narrow bandwidth antennas, you can actually push more bandwidth down them than anyone previously thought. And they say they’ve proved it, publishing their findings in a paper in IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters — “Ultra-high Data-rate Communication and Efficient Wireless Power Transfer at 13.56 MHz.”
“We’ve shown that you can configure a wide-bandwidth system with narrow-bandwidth components,” says David Ricketts, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at North Carolina State and an author of the paper.
High data rates can be achieved, the researchers claim. They say they have attained 3.39 Mbps throughput — enough for video. Additionally, enough power to operate a Netflix-displaying tablet can be sent at the same time.
In the tests, the tablet was placed about six inches from the transmitter, and three watts was beamed over with little inefficiencies. The team lost only 2.3 percent of the power sent when adding the media stream. They used 13.56 MHz.
“Our system is comparable in power transfer efficiency to similar wireless power transfer devices,” Ricketts says. But “streaming a movie on Netflix” is achieved, too, he says.
Growing interest in wireless power transfer
Wireless power transfer (WPT) is seeing a surge in interest as we gear up for a future of ubiquitous electric vehicles and Internet of Things (IoT) devices, all of which need convenient powering. Consequently, many technologies are being conceptualized and tried, with differing use cases: microwave, for example, for space-based solar power, where power might be collected optically from barrier-free outer space and beamed to spacecraft is one.
End-games for a power/data combo over distance might be similar to that found in wired Power over Ethernet (PoE), where power is sent along the same Ethernet cable as data, making for simple one-wire provisioning — in this case, over the air.
Power-beaming, long-distance WPT, such as what might one day be used to power airborne drones, for example, could benefit from simultaneous data transmission in the same space- and weight-saving radio equipment package.
Communicating between a source and load is also a potential use for a communicating version of WPT. That’s where the power-delivering apparatus, such as a charger, communicates details to a portable device about its status. For example, a battery supplying power wirelessly could broadcast elaborate algorithmic data about its remaining capacity wirelessly in the same radio.This post has been originally published on June 20, 2016 and has been extensively revised and updated on January 14, 2019.
How does your dream job look like?
Take a second to mingle about that.
No matter what you have just envisioned, you have the power to get one step closer to that career of yours. That step is learning how to write a resume that instantly grabs attention and results in call-backs.
Our detailed guide features essential tips both for recent grads and seasoned professionals covering everything from general design and styling tips, to resume objectives and resume summary statements, work experience, education and cover letter.
Use the table of contents below to hop to the right section.
Resume vs. CV vs. Portfolio: What’s The Difference We get your confusion! The terms CV (curriculum vitae) and resume get tossed around interchangeably by so many recruiters around the world. So let’s establish some clarity first. A resume is a short (typically one-page long) summary of your professional, personal and educational experiences. It provides a brief overview of your credentials and intends to grab the recruiters’ attention and call you in for the interview. You are very much encouraged to customize your resume for every job posting you are applying to. A CV is a more detailed version of your career and personal history. It goes on for two or more pages (depending on how long you have been in the workforce) and provides the reader with more exhaustive information about your career goals, past achievements, educational credentials, and other accomplishments. In most cases, CVs are organized chronologically and don’t require extensive customization for different job postings. You should build up your case in a cover letter instead. A portfolio is the curated collection of your work assets and activities. The main goal of a portfolio is to attest your skills and talents, by giving a quick sneak-peek of what you are capable of. Portfolios are an absolute must-have for those in the creative industries – graphic design, copywriting, journalism, architecture, videography – and freelance/contract workers. Portfolios are catching on in the IT niche as well for UX/UI designers, app/website developers and coders. For candidates with little-to-no work experience on their resume, a portfolio featuring a few leisure, college or sample projects can serve as an excellent mean for breaking into the desired industry. Yet, you don’t need to pile up a portfolio if your job assumes no tangible deliverables for review. As a marketing manager, for instance, you don’t need to create a portfolio of campaigns you have worked on. Instead, you can just list up your main achievements in your resume. The key difference between a resume and a CV is that resumes are competency-based, whereas CVs are credential-based. Think of your resume as a marketing asset – it’s your brandable showreel of your key skills, work experience and biggest career or educational achievements. It should be memorable, on-point and tailored to match the employers’ requirements A CV is a more detail-heavy backlog of all your work experience, educational details, certifications, awards, professional affiliations, certifications and so on. In the US, CVs are mainly required for positions in academia, medicine, and scientific research. Add a portfolio to your application only when applying for creative jobs, and/or if specifically asked to provide one in the job posting. NB: Job hunting internationally? Mind that in the UK, Ireland, the EU and New Zealand most employers will expect you to file a CV, not a resume. For reference, you can grab an official EU format CV format template for free. In Australia and South Africa, file a resume when applying for a job in the private sector, and prep a CV for a public service position.
What To Think About Before Creating Your Resume Your resume is a reflection of you, so just like you, it should be smart, confident, honest and open. You should be proud of your accomplishments so these should be well summarized without making you come across as self-absorbed. Be careful not to over-share. There are occasions where it is OK to bend the rules when drawing up your resume, but certainly not break them. If you have a good reason to bend the rules by including unrelated information on your resume because the position you are applying for needs a bit more personality than your average job, and you think your potential employer needs to know more about you as an individual, then include it. However, try not to go over the top with your information as you have to remember that your resume is only the first part of your job application. It can open the door to an interview, but you will want to keep a little something back about yourself to impress them in person. Presentation is everything. Regardless of the type of job you are applying for, there are always going to be some rules that never change when drawing up your resume. You should always ensure it looks clean and easy to read. Try to steer clear of graphical resumes wherever possible. Including images and useless graphics can make your document particularly difficult to read, and you will end up sacrificing crucial content for pretty pictures that take up more space and will be off-putting to potential employers who are doing a first quick scan-through of your resume.
The Best Resume Formats To Follow Before you put any word down, you need to think about how you will lay out all your personal info. Fret not though, you don’t need to make up anything new here. Most employees expect you to stick with either of the next resume formats: Chronological resume format – lists up all your work and educational information in reverse chronological order. It’s the most widely used resume format out there, also used by LinkedIn to organize your profile information. Pros: An “easy” and familiar read for any recruiter. Delivers a clear view of your career progression.
An “easy” and familiar read for any recruiter. Delivers a clear view of your career progression. Cons: Employment gaps and illogical career progression are more visible. Functional resume format – places your skills and experiences in the highlight, rather than employment history. It’s a great choice for recent graduates, internship applicants, or those changing career fields. Pros: Emphasize your skills to draw the attention away from your work history. Excellent choice for recent grads, and those who want to transition to another industry.
Emphasize your skills to draw the attention away from your work history. Excellent choice for recent grads, and those who want to transition to another industry. Cons: Not all HR managers are fans. Some may be left wondering about your employment or lack of job details. Combination resume format takes the better of two worlds and focuses on skills themes, accompanied by more detailed work history. Pros: Best for experienced workers with transferable skills, seeking positions in another industry. Again, it can help conceal some work gaps.
Best for experienced workers with transferable skills, seeking positions in another industry. Again, it can help conceal some work gaps. Cons: Less familiar to a lot of recruiters. Some may want to just read about your work history. Read more about how to choose the best resume format.
Winning Resume Layouts The first thing a prospective employer will evaluate is your resume look and layout. Clearly, you don’t want to appear as an amateur and file some sloppy, hodge-podge document. So here are the essential resume design tips: Use plenty of white space, especially around the margins.
Add icons instead of spelling out words like “email” or “phone”.
Headings are a must. Bullet points too.
Don’t experiment with fonts (unless you really know what you are doing). Stick with serif fonts (like Times New Roman or Georgia). Use a 12-point size or larger for the main texts and 15-point or higher for headings/subheadings. Google for proven font pairings, instead of trying to create personal ones (unless you are a designer).
Align your content to the left to make it more skimmable.
Use bold, italics, Capitalization and underlines to highlight the key information.
Give each section a simple sub-heading – career objectives, work experience education, skills. No need to exercise your creativity here and propose something fancier.
Add clickable links to your portfolio, social media profile and/or research publications.
Use a two-column layout to fit in more information on one-page (without making your resume look messy).
Write in short, succinct sentences. Make clear statements, do not babble and get sidetracked. Clarity is everything! Feeling discouraged by all these design rules? We have a bunch of pre-made free resume templates that slash the design process by 10X. Download one of our modern, creative, simple or professional resume templates and quickly fill in the gaps with your personal info. The Anatomy of a Successful Resume The best resumes include the following sections: Header area with your contact information + headshot (optional).
Professional title
Quick resume summary/objective or career statement.
Work Experience
Skills
Education
Optional: hobbies, interests, languages, volunteering experience. Now let’s tackle every one of these step-by-step.
Resume Header Section: What To Include + Styling Tips
Don’t waste an inch of that prime “real estate” atop your resume. The header section should feature the next essentials:
Full Name and contact information
Professional title
Professional headshot
Essential Contact Information to List on Your Resume
Personal cell phone number
Email address: make sure it’s a professional one, not something like katiy123@email.com
LinkedIn profile URL
Optional:
Full mailing address – some crusty employers still send snail-mail offers & rejection letters. Also, this may be handy if you are applying for a position in another city/state to indicate that you’d rather start with a phone interview.
– some crusty employers still send snail-mail offers & rejection letters. Also, this may be handy if you are applying for a position in another city/state to indicate that you’d rather start with a phone interview. Other social media links: suitable only if those showcase your work e.g. link to a Behance portfolio as a designer or to Instagram as a photographer.
suitable only if those showcase your work e.g. link to a Behance portfolio as a designer or to Instagram as a photographer. Personal website/blog. Add the URL only if the information there is relevant e.g., you have a portfolio, client/employer testimonials or thought leadership content published.
What to omit:
Birthdate
Any additional personal details, e.g., marital status, nationality, religion, etc.
Second email or phone number – these can lead to further confusion.
Professional Title
The best option is to keep it short & sweet e.g., Senior Java Programmer or Sales Manager.
If you are somewhat well known in your industry and have an established online presence, it’s OK to make your title more brandable, e.g., “The Original Conversion Copywriter”.
“Photo” or “No Photo” Resume Debate
Some career “experts” say that you should never-ever consider slapping a photo of yourself on your resume. Because most employers are so fearful of discrimination allegations that will automatically discard any submission with a pic on it.
But today when anyone can be found on social media in a few clicks, such rationale starts making less and less sense.
Some job seekers may even achieve better results while adding a photo to their resumes. Rob Asghar, a Chicago-based management consultant and writer, has shared his own experience in an interesting article published in Forbes:
A few years ago, I had several top-tier companies and universities calling for interviews when I used a professionally designed resume that used the same tasteful headshot that my LinkedIn profile used. I’m no George Clooney, but I imagine some HR folks and hiring managers thought, “This looks like a pleasant enough fellow with a nice smile, and he has a good record—what the heck, let’s call him in. A few years later, I sent out many rounds of resumes without photos, and I heard not a peep. This is far from a scientific sample—but let’s be clear, it’s no less scientific than the advice from the no-photo crowd.
For startups and employers from the creative industry, it’s no longer unusual to ask for video resumes or quick self-introduction videos as part of their application process. But the “old guard” companies may not be that accepting of a photo resume. According to Talent Inc survey, a resume headshot is considered a deal breaker by 28% of HR executives. Ultimately, it’s your call whether to include a picture of yourself or not within a particular application.
Resume Objective, Resume Summary or Personal Statement: Do I Need These?
Most likely yes. Recruiters are extremely busy folks, rumored to give each resume just a 6-second look on average. So how do you convey your fit for the role in such a brief timeframe? With a banging professional statement and a resume objective enticing the reader to dwell longer on your application.
A resume objective statement outlines what you are seeking for within a new role and what you can bring to the table. Typically, it’s 1-2 sentences long, taking a prominent place just under your header.
For example:
“Senior Data Scientists with 7 years of professional experience, eager to participate in a deep learning research project”
Review more resume objective examples in this guide.
A resume summary statement shifts the focus on the company’s needs and serves as a “what I can do for your business” pitch from you as an applicant.
Example:
“Hard-working, efficient and detailed oriented Senior Sales manager. With 10 years in pharmaceutical sales, maintained and cultivated over 150 client relationships, generating over $1.5 million in new business for the company X.”
If you plan to file a functional resume, consider expanding either of your statements into more detailed summaries that would further outline your work experience, highlight transferable skills, personal qualities, achievements and indicate your desired career trajectory.
A personal statement is just another name for a resume/career summary. You don’t need to write all three of them – just pick the best option that works better for you.
A resume objective works best when….
you lack work experience.
you are switching careers and want to highlight transferable skills from another industry.
you are applying to a very traditional, corporate company.
A resume or career summary is your best bet when you have some great achievements, solid credentials and a long track of successful projects.
What is the optimal length of a resume summary? If you are filling a chronological resume, keep it brief – around 50-80 words. Your goal is to serve just a quick “teaser” to the reader and entice them to read your application further.
How to List Your Work Experience
Work experience is the main “serving” of your resume. This section will occupy the most space on the page. But it doesn’t mean that it should be full of “fluff” and generic filler statements. On the contrary – customize your resume depending on the position you are applying for, highlighting various skills, achievements and job chores.
As a rule of thumb, you should format the resume work experience section in the following manner:
Job Title – should go atop of every new entry, styled as a bold heading. This way the reader can easily scan through all the titles at one quick glance.
Company Name, City, State – place this tidbit just under the job title.
Employment dates – list the timeframe of your employment with a particular company. Typically, you should add the year or year plus month. If you are still employed by the first company, format the dates in the following manner: Jan 2017 – Current.
Key Responsibilities – use bullet points to briefly list your duties and common tasks. There’s no need to highlight every single thing you did on the job. Add chores that are the most relevant to your new job. Aim for listing 5-6 key responsibilities per work entry.
Main Achievements – throw in some bragging rights that will show the potential employer how well you did your chores. You can back up selected few responsibilities with an achievement statement or enlist one main achievement per job.
Example:
Hired, on-boarded, managed and trained a team of 25 international contractors. Achieved 95% retention over 3 years time (vs. 75% industry average).
Keywords – sprinkle those strategically throughout your work experience section. This both helps if you want to get by the applicant tracking system, designed to weed out candidates without relevant skill sets and impress the recruiter as well.
How to Find and Use Keywords For Your Resume
Cherry pick phrases and skills listed in the job ad. Pay special attention to the qualification section – it has just the right keywords you need.
Image Source: Jobvite
Add some power words that will convey the right impression about you to the HR folks.
See what skills others are listing. A quick Google search will yield you a bunch of resume examples for your industry.
Image Source: Monster
We have lined up a few examples as well:
Additionally, you can create a separate Skills section that will highlight your key talents as featured in this template.
Which Key Skills To Include in Your Resume?
Use the cues from the job description to guide you. If you are applying for a software development position, you should spell out your familiarity with different programming languages, databases, tools and technologies, along with the general desirable soft skills like teamwork, collaboration, etc.
Here is a quick list of the best skills to add to your resume for professionals in different industries:
Digital Marketing
Certifications: Google Analytics Certified, PPC Certified, Email Marketing Certification by HubSpot.
Google Analytics Certified, PPC Certified, Email Marketing Certification by HubSpot. Key skills: SEO, Content Marketing, PPC, Email Marketing, Growth Hacking
SEO, Content Marketing, PPC, Email Marketing, Growth Hacking Tools: Google Analytics, Facebook Ad Manager, Amazon Ads, Ahrefs, Google Search Console, MOZ.
Google Analytics, Facebook Ad Manager, Amazon Ads, Ahrefs, Google Search Console, MOZ. General skills & qualities: result-oriented, analytical, creative thinker, great project manager, and a strong communicator.
Accounting
Certifications: Licensed CPA
Licensed CPA Software: SAP ERP, QuickBooks, Advanced MS Excel user, Sage.
SAP ERP, QuickBooks, Advanced MS Excel user, Sage. Key skills : tax audit, payroll preparation, enterprise bookkeeping, accounts management, inventory management.
: tax audit, payroll preparation, enterprise bookkeeping, accounts management, inventory management. General skills & qualities: detail-oriented, analytical, efficient, ability to work under pressure.
Customer Support
Software/tech skills: ZenDesk, LiveChat, CRM, Support Center, Microsoft 360 Office.
ZenDesk, LiveChat, CRM, Support Center, Microsoft 360 Office. Key skills: Cross-selling/up-selling, time management, conflict resolution, customer retention, phone support.
Cross-selling/up-selling, time management, conflict resolution, customer retention, phone support. General personal qualities: tenacity, solid communication skills, articulate, results-oriented.
Don’t forget to proofread your work experience & skills sections! Also, do check for the following resume deal-breakers:
Don’t over-stuff your application with keywords. Not every second word should be a keyword you have taken out of the job description or somewhere else.
Customize your resume to match every job listing. HRs have zero tolerance for generalized applications.
Eliminate repetitive words or phrases. Different work entries should not sound the same, even if your duties didn’t differ much.
Make sure you demonstrate and quantify the results of your work for every entry.
How to Format Your Education Section If you are straight out of college, it’s best to place the education section before work experience. It will then compensate for the lack of hands-on work experience. In other cases, it’s better to list education after work experience. Here are the basics for formatting the education section of your resume: List your highest degree first
Add all other degrees in reverse-chronological order.
If you haven’t yet graduated, it is still OK to list your current degree and the courses you have completed. Essential information to include: Type of degree – Ph.D., MA, BS, BA, etc.
Your major/minor.
The name of your university/college and its location.
Graduation year. You can add extra information about your education if you like, though this isn’t really necessary for seasoned professionals. The key here is to make sure that you use a consistent format for all your entries.
How to List Certifications on Resume
Certifications can prove that you are a more valuable and skilled candidate. So don’t be shy to list up relevant courses and license you have obtained.
These can go straight under your education section in reverse chronological order. Style them using the next format:
Full name of Certification
Name of Certifying Agency or Body
Dates of Certification
Location (If Applicable)
Example:
PRINCE2 Foundation & Practitioner Certification, PRINCE2, 2016
Be sure to list only relevant certifications when applying for a job. Being CPR certified is great, but that cert will not boost your chances of landing a job in Accounting. Though a CPA (certified public accountant) definitely will.
You may also be tempted to list e-courses from Lynda, Coursera, and other MOOCs in your resume. If those are very relevant to the application, go on and mention them. But if you took something like Phycology 101 course, better keep that info to yourself for now.
Optional Resume Sections: Interests, Languages, Volunteering, Accoldates
Still, have some space left on your resume? Great, then you can squeeze in a bit more information that will make your resume more personalized.
Everyone will list their work experience, education and skills. But few can boast the same interests, volunteering experience or other hidden talents as you do!
Languages
Fluent in Chinese? Was raised bilingual? Awesome! That means you can bring more value to the employer, especially if you are applying to an international company. Briefly add the language you speak and your level of fluency.
Pro tip: If you took two years of French in K12 and never practiced it after, better skip mentioning your proficiency to avoid any faux pas.
Hobbies & Interests
Every employer has a unique work culture. Some like hiring creative and playful candidates; others are looking for exceptional team players. Your hobbies like sports, arts or other unusual activities can show employers that you are a “fit” to the current team.
Volunteering Experience
Same here – an increasing number of companies make “giving back” as their company mission and want to hire employees who share their aspirations. Today nearly 1 in 4 companies in the US are giving employees paid time off to volunteer. Showing that you are a socially responsible citizen and have a deep care for certain causes can be another bonding point between you and the prospective employer.
Industry Awards & Accolades
Unless you have bragged about some top recognitions received earlier in your achievements’ section, do list them in a separate section at the bottom of your resume. These can include both internal company praise (e.g., top sales manager of Q4) and industry-wide awards e.g., #7 among Top 20 Social Media Marketers in 2018 according to Forbes.
And you are done, congrats! There’s just one more thing you can do to increase your chances of landing an interview…
Write a Compelling Cover Letter
Yes, cover letters are not optional.
Rarely if ever a resume alone will do the trick of landing you a job. In fact, most employers will not even bother opening a resume, filed without a complementing cover letter.
Check our quick guide to writing killer cover letters and browse professional cover letter examples created for different industries.
Conclusions
Writing a resume seems like a daunting task for most of us. But it shouldn’t be that way! Remember, you just need to follow a simple framework:
Write a professional header section with your name, professional title, and contact information.
Craft a resume objective or resume summary statement to catch the reader’s attention.
Create a keyword-rich work history, highlighting your main tasks, skills and achievements.
List your education.
Wrap it up with additional personal tidbits.
Be consistent with your style, fonts, colors and formatting throughout your resume.
Spell/grammar check your document before filling it. Ask a friend to proofread it if you like.
Customize your application to every job posting by highlighting different skills, duties and achievements.
And if you are struggling to make all your information look presentable enough and attractive, browse our free resume templates.
We are sure you will find the design you love among the 100+ templates listed. Once you make your pick, just download the template, open it in MS Word and start adding your personal details using the tips mentioned above!Kirk Cousins and the Redskins will begin their playoff run Sunday at home against the Packers. (Tom Pennington/Getty Images)
The Redskins’ path to Super Bowl 50 isn’t impossible.
On Sunday, Washington begins its playoff run at home against the Packers — its best possible opponent. Green Bay ended the regular season with two straight losses and went 4-6 down the stretch after starting the year 6-0.
If they beat the Packers (10-6) on wild-card weekend, the fourth-seeded Redskins (9-7) would then travel to No. 1 Carolina or No. 2 Arizona in the divisional round.
Win that game and get a little help from the sixth-seeded Seahawks (Seattle would have to beat the Vikings and Panthers on the road), and the NFC title would be decided at FedEx Field. And the Redskins have never lost an NFC championship game at home.
Things could fall the Redskins’ way just as they did in 1987, when Washington won the Super Bowl as a No. 3 seed.
In that playoff run, the Redskins upset the second-seeded Bears thanks to a Darrell Green punt return touchdown. Then, No. 5 Minnesota crushed No. 1 San Francisco, making Washington the host for the NFC championship game — which the Redskins won 17-10. Washington then went on to beat the Broncos 42-10 in Super Bowl XXII.
According to Vegas, Washington is the NFC’s biggest long shot to reach the Super Bowl, but underdogs have done it before. Since 2005, only three No. 1 seeds have won Super Bowls, while four teams seeded Nos. 4, 5 or 6 have won it all. In 2011, the Giants were just 9-7 and won a lousy NFC East to earn the No. 4 seed. (Sound familiar?) Then, they went on to win the Super Bowl.
But is this really that type of magical season for the Redskins? It certainly didn’t feel so Dec. 7, when Washington lost to Dallas to fall to 5-7. The Redskins had alternated wins and losses for seven weeks with no sense of momentum. Yet, the following four consecutive wins — three on the road after losing their first five away from home — have made the Redskins among the hottest teams in the playoffs.
Washington still hasn’t gained respect nationally, as pundits downgrade its chances by claiming that the NFC East was a mediocre division and that Washington hasn’t beaten a team with a winning record this season.
Now, the NFC playoffs beckon with titans in Carolina (15-1), Arizona (13-3) and Minnesota (11-5). And two-time defending conference champion Seattle (10-6) might be the top contender.
This is the best Washington has played since 2012, when it closed the regular season with seven consecutive victories. That year’s playoff run — just like the Redskins’ previous two postseason appearances — ended with a loss to Seattle. Facing the Seahawks in the playoffs for the fourth time in 11 years would certainly be an attractive NFC title game.
Should Washington reach the Super Bowl on Feb. 7 in Santa Clara, Calif., whom might it face? Look for Kansas City to emerge from the wide-open AFC field. With New England’s recent collapse, anyone has a chance.
And that’s what the Redskins are finally getting — a chance to dream big.
Read more columns from Rick Snider:
For Redskins, being underdogs in the playoffs might not be so bad
Reasons to believe the Redskins will win the NFC East
Jay Gruden shows growth in his second season as Redskins coach
For Redskins, DeSean Jackson is worth the headaches
Redskins’ target areas for their playoff pushMeet the Cannybot: a smart toy robot designed to keep your kids entertained. It can be programmed and controlled using a smartphone. You can assemble these robots like LEGO and drive them like a slot car. Cannybots can reach a straight line speed of up to 4ft/sec. You can upgrade the motors to achieve higher speeds.
Cannybots can detect black lines using their optical sensors and follow them. They can also detect color patterns using their “third eye.” The robot uses Bluetooth connect to your smart devices. The Navigation Module uses a gyro sensor, compass, and accelerometer to determine direction and distance traveled. Did we mention that Cannybots can be customized using 3D printed shells? More information is available on Kickstarter.
*Our articles may contain aff links. Please read our disclaimer on how we fund this site.In these digital days, film is making a comeback, and it’s taking multiple forms. From Fujifilm’s Instax lineup (Fuji Instax Mini and Wide), to Impossible Project’s offering for Polaroid cameras, to Kodak shaking off bankruptcy by cleverly branching off and creating Kodak Alaris, to Lomography starting with a cheap Russian camera and creating a booming business serving today’s photographers looking for something different.
Film influences today’s cameras one way or another. Nikon’s design for the Nikon DF came from their 35mm FM series cameras, the entire design for the Olympus Pen mirrorless series from their 35mm rangefinder cameras, and even the Fuji X series camera line is entirely funded by profits procured from Fuji’s Instax film sales profits.
But restarting an entire company in the days of digital is not for the faint of heart. Tech Void had a chance to ask Dave Bias, the head of the American branch of FILM Ferrania, a few questions about the company and their intentions on moving forward with film in the digital age.
Tech Void: For those who don’t know, what is FILM Ferrania?
Dave Bias: FILM Ferrania will manufacture and sell color still and motion picture film stocks in a variety of formats and emulsions, and to provide confidence and stability to photographers of all kinds who continue to choose film as their preferred capture medium.
Tech Void: Are there places that still develop film?
Dave: There are still thousands of labs around the world. There isn’t one in every strip mall parking lot, like there used to be – but the labs that have survived the drop in the market have emerged strong. The best offer web-based ordering and retrieval of scans, and generally make the process for most photographers much easier. We have already collected information about hundreds of labs that process color reversal film, simply by asking our community to submit their favorite lab. The map needs to be updated, but it’s a great starting point already.
There are also a growing number of people who are processing at home – even color films. Between YouTube and websites like Make and Instructables, it’s easier than ever to learn how to process film reliably, and with very inexpensive equipment.
Tech Void: FILM Ferrania had a successful Kickstarter to help purchase and save vital buildings and equipment from the original Ferrania factory. The campaign mentioned rebuilding the campus, will FILM Ferrania be implementing green technology with the rebuild?
Dave: There has long been a public perception that film manufacturing is “dirty” in terms of carbon usage, emissions, and/or hazardous waste. This is simply outdated information. The most harmful materials were banned long ago, and many advances have been made in terms of waste reduction and other efficiencies.
With FILM Ferrania specifically, we occupy less than 5% of the original campus footprint and we will produce in relatively small quantities with a small staff. We are using reclaimed equipment that was destined for scrap yards and employing the local community. The majority of our raw material sources are nearby and will not travel far.
These are small things that further shrink our environmental footprint, but we are already addressing major issues regarding our energy consumption. (One of) the major parts are a steam generator and a modern climate control system. The net result is that our need for “grid” power is minimized. With a goal of complete self-containment, it is likely that we will employ other technologies to “cut the cord” entirely.
Tech Void: One of the Impossible Project’s main reasons for making and marketing Polaroid film was that there were millions of Polaroid cameras out there that still worked but had no film. Could this be said for FILM Ferrania as well?
Dave: Of course this is true for ANY film manufacturer. Impossible has about 30 years worth of Polaroid cameras to put in use – and that’s millions of cameras. But folks have been making gear for the “regular” stuff for 170 years, give or take.
And there are plenty of folks making new cameras. Lomography, of course. Leica still makes film cameras, and in fact introduced a new one at Photokina in 2014. Cosina makes Voigtlander and “starter” SLRs for other brands. There’s a new Super 8 camera on the market from Logmar, and two new 4×5 cameras were |
hacker figured out that when money was moving from one entity to another, they could siphon off ethereum collected from the sale of the tokens. The hacker managed to steal 3.6 million ethereum (at the time valued around $72 million), the price of ethereum dropped from $20 to about $13, and DAO offerings came to an abrupt end.
But then more people saw potential in these offerings. The DAO Maker offering had raised $100 million, and entrepreneurs saw potential there. After all, DAO’s (and ICOs as they became known), could raise private money for a project relatively easily without sharing equity and with little friction from any government organization. The tokens purchased could be immediately marketable, and the price would fluctuate as the value of the underlying asset grew.
Any project could be funded by a DAO offering, and any startup could raise their money by simply initiating their own currency. In fact, it wouldn’t be limited to startups. Anyone could set up an ICO. Imagine the societal change and the frictionless market, the wealth and the jobs that could be created if everyone could raise their own money and have their labor valued through a fresh currency.
As of this writing, Draper Associates has funded three ICOs. Bancor has the potential to transform marketplaces for projects and startups. Tezos has the potential to change how we govern ourselves globally, and Credo can be the vehicle we all use to put a value on email attention.
The Bitcoin/Blockchain/ICO technology is transformative. The changes that we will all encounter are only limited by people’s imaginations. We humans have the opportunity to progress far beyond what any of us have ever imagined. By decentralizing economic power, these tokens can open the economic world up to anyone anywhere with an idea and the willingness to put in the work to spread their idea and their token to the world.
And, as a Startup Hero, you will do everything in your power to pursue progress and change, so you can look at bitcoin as one of the current vehicles available to you to drive progress and change, move society forward, and drive your industry now that you have an awareness of these breakthroughs.
A note on the potential of Bitcoin
Bitcoin could be as important to our world as credit cards or paper money. When money velocity is increased due to reduced friction in the economy, a society becomes wealthier. Bitcoin reduces a significant amount of friction in the economy. People no longer have to pay a “trusted third party” or a bank to make a transaction occur. With all the fraud and hacking of the banks, bitcoin may accelerate as a currency even faster than it would have without these external threats.
Almost anything you now use your bank for, you can use bitcoin for. The immediate applications are sending money overseas, paying for products and services, making micropayments to people who need to be paid for their services (e.g. residuals for actors or cameramen), Overseas employee wages, payments by the unbanked, etc.
Longer term, any contract will be better served by being fixed on the blockchain. The blockchain allows any contract that revolves around an event (like a company sale, a dividend, a royalty distribution, a death, the outcome of a game, etc.) where cash or stock or something of value needs to be distributed or paid out, can be agreed to, executed and disbursed without a lawyer or an accountant, since the trusted third party is all of society, not a series of written documents, a regulated accounting firm and a bricks and mortar bank.
Bitcoin’s blockchain is technology that is open and transparent, distributed, frictionless and secure. This technology may be at least as transformative as the internet has been. While the Internet transformed music, communications, information, entertainment and transportation, bitcoin and its blockchain may allow governments to be virtual, banks to be unnecessary, ownership to be ironclad, insurance to be frictionless, and people to know who owns what.
ICOs have the potential to open up new highways of human creativity. Imagine services that bank the unbanked, insure the uninsurable, and give liquidity to markets that until now were illiquid. ICOs may be as big a breakthrough for economic progress as interest was for lenders or stock was for investors. I can imagine societal transformations that were only dreamt of before decentralized autonomous tokens. I expect to see a renaissance of breakthroughs in everything from finance to healthcare, from data to distribution, and from infrastructure to government.
Quexercises on Progress and ChangeThe population of Pakistan threatens to cross 190 million by July 2012, and women stand to make up roughly 47% of that number. The whole country is in a vulnerable situation, held hostage between its western allies waging war on its turf, and trigger-happy extremists who demand the foreign invaders leave them alone. But while they attempt a three-person tango, there are more pressing problems on the ground. According to the United Nations Development Programme, 22.6% of the population lives below the international poverty line, lation lives below the international poverty line, on less than $1.25 PPP per day. These may have been the conditions in Pakistan since before 2001, but there has been no chance of improvement since then.
Security of person, equality in dignity and a few other "inalienable" rights that the UN declared all humans should have irrespective of sex are for the privileged few in Pakistan; and even then, mostly for men. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan recently published its annual report, State of Human Rights in 2011. Let's just take a quick look at how women fared in the country.
About 120,000 pregnant women were left without adequate nourishment and sanitary conditions after the devastating floods in 2010. About 8.2 million women are reportedly employed as unregistered domestic help, without the cover of even the flimsiest of labour laws. There were 943 women (93 minors) reportedly killed over family honour – often for wanting to marry someone of their own choice – with many of these crimes perpetrated by their brothers, fathers, husbands or relatives of their husbands.
There were 38 documented cases of acid attacks on women, 47 were set on fire and nine suffered disfiguring amputation as punishment. There were 396 rape and murders reported. None of these figures account for the thousands of women who were strangled into silence by the horrors that follow an admission, or whom the police were unwilling to help, brushing it off as "a family matter". Worse yet, also missing from the figures were the silent majority who were raised to accept the physical or psychological abuse, as part of the compromise women make to be the dutiful wives and daughters who glue society together.
It's the underprivileged, illiterate women struggling to make ends meet who are the brave ones; they step into a man's world every day, at risk of being sexually harassed on their daily travels, in overcrowded buses or at work. Anything that allows these women to provide for the many children they are forced to have, or to save to educate their little boys and girls, they will do. They work 12 hour days as undocumented domestic help, often working for Cinderella's stepmother; think less Disney and more Brothers Grimm. For rural women, it's the fields, where they can be trapped in bonded labour or work for a pittance and some produce.
A landmark domestic violence bill, introduced in 2009 to protect women and children, is facing serious opposition in its passage through parliament from those who argue that it promotes western values and has been backed by western funding. According to a former senator, passing this bill on a divided vote in parliament will potentially disrupt another delicate balance: reaching political consensus on the restoration of the Nato supply lines through Pakistan – another strike on non-participants by the war against terror.
Somewhat surprisingly for outsiders looking in, these struggling women belong to the same country where a woman was twice voted prime minister and currently the youngest member of the cabinet of Pakistan is the female foreign minister – a position roughly parallel to secretary of state for the US. The argument that religious extremes have oppressed Pakistani women isn't a neat preface to these hair-raising horrors.
Pakistan's relationship with its women is rooted in a patriarchal feudal system feeding the country since before it was born. It's an archaic system that has produced the men who run the country, negotiate domestic and foreign policy and penned sexist laws that made it easier for women to slide through the cracks. A lack of accessible education doesn't help either. It's not just one problem. It's living in a system that hasn't been built to accommodate the second sex. It's the buzz words surrounding Pakistan: war, terrorism, extremism, 9/11. They drown out the plight of the millions who truly need a voice.
• This article was commissioned following a suggestion made in a You Tell Us thread. If there's a subject you'd like to see covered by Comment is free, please visit the You Tell Us pagePersonal Details
Male
6’3”
230 lbs
Butterfly
A-B level hockey
Usage time: 6 Skates
Price: Demo set
Retail: $600
Break Angle: CCM/Reebok 600
Tee: Double fang tee
Webbing: Standard nylon
Weight: 1116 grams, 2.46 lbs
Glove History: Warrior Messiah M3 Catcher, Smith 6000 Retro Catcher, Reebok Larceny Pro, Simmons 997, CCM EFlex Pro Return Practice Palm, Vaughn 5500, Bauer Reactor 6000 Bryzgalov Pro Return Practice Palm, CCM Eflex 3
Review Category Overview:
Initial Impressions Do they feel high quality? Are they light or heavy? Does anything stand out?
Fit Do the glove fit true to size? Is their adjustabilty with straps?
Comfort How the materials feel? Are there any hard points that create discomfort?
Weight Looking at the actual weight and balance of the glove
Break Angle What it is labelled as? How it compares to competitors? Scored based on my preference?
Thumb Angle How is the rake of the thumb angle? Does the thumb cause rebounds or push pucks into the pocket? Does the thumb close snuggly with the break angle?
Closing Ability Is there any interference in the palm when closing the glove? How easy is the glove to close out of the box? Does the glove break in easy?
Seal on the Ice How does the glove seal on the ice and hold onto pucks?
Duability Early signs of wear Materials or padding breaking down Worrisome design or places to keep an eye on
Protection Looking at the protective levels Not including built in knee pads
Peformance Is there any issues when playing? Does the balance help stop and catch pucks? Is it easy to cover pucks?
Intangibles Adding features when ordering Noteable customer service Bonus straps or accessories
This glove was part of a demo set I got from a local store. It is a bone stock retail glove.
Initial Thoughts: Besides the Speed Skin the CCM Eflex 3 catching glove feels fairly similar to the previous iterations of this glove line. The glove did go through some make up changes that according to CCM were done through feedback given by Carey Price. You can feel a slight difference between the CCM Eflex 2 and this CCM Eflex 3 glove. But if you liked the previous CCM 600 break gloves I feel the transition to the Eflex 3 will be an easy one. Just like the rest of the Eflex 3 line the catching glove feels very no-frills with no unique features or tech besides the Speed Skin. It also feels pretty thin in regards to a pro level glove.
Fit: There are 2 velcro straps that go across the fingers and the back of the hand.
Then there is an adjustable nylon strap that can be pulled through backhand cover so you can adjust it on the ice. CCM still includes the pinky and thumb loops on the Eflex 3 catching glove, which is a huge bonus for me. I like the tight feeling of the thumb and pinky loops and like to tighten them during the game.
For me the more traditional style of finger construction in the CCM Eflex 3 is better fitting for me compared to the more bare style in gloves like Bauer 1X, Brians GN3tik and Passau. The sure grip liner was comfortable and does a good job of being textured enough to keep my hand from sliding around. It is grippier than nash and holds my hand in tighter. With 3 adjustable straps and pinkie and thumb loops the CCM Eflex 3 can be adjusted to fit my hand nicely. 10/10
Comfort: The CCM Eflex 3 glove feels decent on your hands, but the updated internals do feel a bit squared off and less rounded making the glove feel less comfortable than the Eflex 1 I had before. I am curious if a thicker palm (pro or practice) would change how the break feels in your hands. The sure grip is comfortable and better for grip than nash but is less comfortable. The backhand straps had nice padding on the backhand straps where they don’t create pressure points. Again there is nothing special about the CCM Eflex 3 in terms of materials to make this glove extremely comfortable. 7/10
Weight: This is the first catching glove I have ever weight, and since I don’t have the weight of other modern models it is hard to compare it strictly with number values. I can say that the CCM Eflex 3 doesn’t feel exceptionally lightweight or heavy, just like the pads the catching glove feels like a more classic piece of equipment. The glove felt well balanced and felt lighter than my Bauer Reactor 6000 Pro Return. The weight of the CCM Eflex 3 glove helped with an active catching glove without feeling exceptionally light weight. 7/10
Break Angle: The CCM 600 break is simply put my favourite glove to date, and I try to match this break with gloves I look to purchase. It feels to me like a more refined Vaughn 5500 break and CCM did update the internals of this glove and slightly adjust the break on the CCM Eflex 3 600. Personally I prefer the older break angle of the CCM 600 break that was on my Eflex glove. While this break angle wasn’t bad or awkward, it just wasn’t as comfortable as the older models to me. 8.5/10
Thumb Angle: The thumb slopes into the pocket at an aggressive angle, it is far from a pancake design and should help angle pucks into the pocket.
Closing Ability: This CCM Eflex 3 catching glove features a game ready palm, so it should close very easily right off the shelf, which it does fairly well. The glove still requires some break in to make sure the fingertips and thumb close tightly and the glove snaps shut. But the glove was easy to close without having much use. 9/10
Seal on the Ice: Again since I didn’t get a chance to use this glove in a game, I cannot really comment on this besides showing the glove laying flat on a table.
Durability: I used this glove even less than I used the pads, so I can’t really comment on durability of the CCM Eflex 3 catching glove. I can say there was some material splitting on the tee of the glove and the famous CCM heel of the palm wear was also visible on this glove. While these issues were not huge, it does make me worry if the new material on the tee (the tee is made up of a different material than Speed Skin) and Speed Skin can actually hold up with constant rubbing.
Protection: Protection in my catching gloves is a very important feature for me, I need my hands for my career and breaking them playing hockey is simply not an option. I also want to be confident I won’t feel pain when playing, and less protective gloves can make me hesitate reaching out for a hard slapshot. This should be evident in my glove history with the practice palms, so using a game ready retail glove was something I was curious to try. It seems that every release manufacturers will advertise more protection in the palm while still being able to close easily, CCM is no different with the Eflex 3 catching glove by advertising D3O foam in the palm. After using this glove once I can confidently say the D3O foam and game ready padding is not adequate enough for decent level adult players. The only time I did use the glove was against okay shooters, and after I got them to shoot as hard as possible into my glove while ensuring the puck hit straight on the palm I knew I couldn’t use this glove in one of my league games with players who can really shoot the puck. Simply put I wouldn’t trust this glove to protect my hand from injury in my higher level of adult league and unless you are under 14 years old, I wouldn’t recommend this glove in its stock retail form with a game ready palm. The CCM Eflex 3 catching glove isn’t protective enough for any decent level of shooters who are above 12 years old. 3/10
Performance: Since the game ready palm is very flimsy and soft on the CCM Eflex 3 catching with it was considerably easier than with my practice palm glove. But because I didn’t get a chance to use it in an actual game I don’t feel comfortable rating the CCM Eflex 3 catching gloves performance.
Intangibles: Just like the pads, the CCM Eflex 3 catching glove is a pretty bare bones and the Speed Skin isn’t really benefitial on the glove compared to the pads. The velcro attachment on the outside of the glove was done well to ensure the hard portion of velcro will not snag and rub against your chest proector and jersey on the inside of the glove. I appreciate how CCM does allow you to order the glove in the with many different options including wrist strap material (leather or webbing), palm size (intermediate or regular), palm protective level (game ready, pro, or practice), cuff and thumb options (600 one piece, 600 two piece, 590 one piece, 580 one piece), and glove tee options (double straight tee, single straight tee, single straight tee + 1 inch, single offset tee, single offset tee + 1 inch). This amount of customization is nice to see compared to Bauer and should be applauded. 9/10
Conclusion: It is clear to me CCM is aiming for the instant satisfaction of a glove that is broken in off the shelf with the game ready palm. But because of this I do not believe the CCM Eflex 3 catching glove is suitable to any decent level players over the age of 12. I wouldn’t trust the CCM Eflex catching glove with protecting my hand in my higher level adult. The wear signs aren’t very promising so far, but the protection is the biggest issue. If I were to order this glove I’d order it with at least a pro palm, but as it stands as a retail product with a game ready palm I simply cannot recommend the CCM Eflex 3 catching glove. 4/10
While I also hate to promote my other things, it has become evident to me it is important to get a viewer base that will help me continue doing reviews like this (I can’t afford to always buy new equipment!).
So please check out my twitter @mattsave1 and follow me there (I post a lot of contests so I make it easier to win free stuff!) as well as my Instagram@hockeyreviewsca and subscribe to me on YouTube
AdvertisementsI woke up this weekend to the extremely welcome news that the State of Connecticut has legalized gay marriage, joining Massachusetts and California as the only three U.S. states with full marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples. Although seven other states have civil unions or domestic partnership laws, as did Connecticut before this ruling, the state supreme court held that this was not enough.
I used to believe that civil unions were an acceptable compromise, but I don’t believe that anymore. The Connecticut ruling cited the same argument that persuaded me: drawing a legal distinction between civil unions and marriage is the same reasoning as the “separate but equal” argument that was once used to justify racial segregation. The concept of marriage has existed for millennia, but the concept of civil unions has not. By barring gay couples from the former, the state is advancing an unsubtle claim that they are somehow different, not worthy of the same recognition as straight couples. This is the same attitude and reasoning that perpetuates discrimination in the first place. With its enlightened ruling, the Connecticut Supreme Court has recognized the obvious truth that the partnerships of gay couples are no different from the partnerships of straight couples, and deserve nothing less when it comes to legal rights. Way to go, Connecticut!
The religious right must be aware that the tide is turning against them on this issue. Polls have found increasing tolerance and support for gay marriage, which ensures that rulings like these are just the leading edge of many more to come. It’s very plausible that America will have full marriage equality, at least in law, within a generation. Anti-gay bigots may be able to slow the tide of change, but they cannot stop it.
That said, one such effort is underway in California. Bigots of the religious right have successfully placed a measure, Proposition 8, on the ballot this fall. If it passes, this measure would overturn that state’s supreme court decision and make gay marriage illegal – an astonishing blast of raw hatred that would tear apart the thousands of marriages already obtained by gay couples in the state. For the sake of marriage equality, and for the rights of all Americans, not just gay Americans, to direct their lives free from religious tyranny, this measure must be defeated.
Although most polls have found that Californians are opposed to Prop 8 by a slim majority, recent polling has detected a worrying uptick in support. Much of this can be blamed on the Mormon church, whose members are pouring millions of dollars into the state to outlaw gay marriage. If their efforts help pass Prop 8, it wouldn’t be the first time the Mormons have successfully impeded moral progress. From Under the Banner of Heaven:
Over the years, the Mormon leadership has made numerous pronouncements about the “dangers” of the feminist movement and has excommunicated several outspoken feminists. But perhaps the greatest rift between Mormon general authorities and advocates for women’s rights occurred when the LDS Church actively and very effectively mobilized Mormons to vote as a bloc against ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment… Most political analysts believe that had the LDS Church not taken such an aggressive position against the ERA, it would have been easily ratified by the required thirty-eight states, and would now be part of the U.S. Constitution. (p.25)
Of course, more traditional Christians have joined the Mormons in their campaign of hate. A suitable example can be found at the Evangelical Outpost, which cites a video by the right-wing Family Research Council encouraging its members to vote for Proposition 8. The video purports to be documentation of the grave harm done in Massachusetts by the legalization of gay marriage. I was curious, since I’ve heard many religious right polemics against gay marriage, but never an explanation of what bad effects they fear would result if it were to be legalized.
The video features a Christian couple in Massachusetts who were upset that their elementary-school-age son was taught about gays and gay marriage. I watched the whole thing, waiting for them to explain how this would lead to greater harm, but there was no follow-up. In their eyes, that was the harm: that their son was merely made aware of the existence of gay couples. Evidently, they want to preserve their right to keep their children ignorant of ways of life other than their own. How dare the public schools teach our kids tolerance, was their message, when we want to teach them to fear and hate! Were there people who raised the same complaint after interracial marriage was legalized, that teaching about the existence of such a thing interferes with their parental right to teach their children racism?
Bigots like the Mormon leadership and the Family Research Council hide their hatred behind a smiling mask or dress it up with hollow slogans about “family values”. But disguise it however they will, they cannot conceal its fundamental ugliness. What they want is not the freedom to lead their own lives as they see fit, but the power to reach into the lives of others to oppress, tyrannize, and enforce their own narrow and archaic views.
Gay and lesbian couples are human beings and deserve the same rights as anyone else: the right to live in peace, to raise families, to pledge their devotion and spend their lives with the people they love. They deserve those rights, and it is up to us to protect them. If we win the vote in California – if marriage equality is affirmed not just by the courts, but by popular acclaim – this will be a crushing blow to the anti-gay bigots and will delegitimize their cause as no other development could. This November, much is at stake. Will you join in the fight to liberate human freedom from the prejudices of the past?0 of 9
Charlie Riedel/Associated Press
It’s easy to forget sometimes, what with all the turmoil the coaching staff has gone through, but the San Francisco 49ers are a very talented team.
ESPN’s Jeff Saturday called them the best team that didn’t make the Super Bowl, while Pro Football Focus said that even the injury-plagued 2014 49ers were only six above-average players away from making the game.
That doesn’t include NaVorro Bowman or players who missed half the season, like Patrick Willis or Aldon Smith. Just based on talent, the 49ers should be considered contenders going forward.
They are not, of course, as good as either of the two Super Bowl teams. Both the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots boast more talented rosters than the 49ers, and both performed better in 2014 than the 49ers.
There are no underdogs in this year’s Super Bowl—it’s a matchup between the two best teams of the year, and it looks to be a doozy.
However, just because they are better teams doesn’t mean that they are perfect. If they were allowed to raid the 49ers roster for reinforcements leading up to Sunday’s game, each team would come away with several players who would be upgrades to the starting lineups.
I combed through the rosters for all three teams to highlight areas where the 49ers have a leg up on the two Super Bowl squads entering the big game. Consider it a bit of a morale boost after a highly uninspiring coaching search.
A couple ground rules: These had to be players who could realistically play in the Super Bowl. That is, both Bowman and Willis would be upgrades to almost any team in the NFL normally, but due to injuries, neither would precisely be in shape to take the field on Sunday.
I also tried to stick to each team’s specific philosophy. That is to say, while Bruce Miller is one of the best fullbacks in the game, neither of these teams really uses a fullback all that often, instead opting for three-receiver sets in Seattle and two tight end sets in New England as the base offenses.
Thus, Miller wouldn’t be a significant upgrade for either team without a shift in offensive strategy.
With no further ado: the Super Bowl-caliber players on San Francisco’s 2014 roster.It doesn't take much to get the Eminem rumor mill churning, and the rapper did just that on Tuesday (Mar. 30) with a mysterious post on his Twitter account. "Some big news is coming. Soon." read the simple message.
Eminem's tweet has re-ignited speculation about "Relapse 2," the follow-up to the Detroit MC's comeback album "Relapse" and one of the most anticipated releases of 2010. Initially slated for release by the end of 2009, "Relapse 2" was postponed after Eminem's studio sessions led to a shift in creative direction.
"I got back in with [Dr.] Dre and then a few more producers, including Just Blaze, and went in a completely different direction which made me start from scratch," Eminem explained at the time. "The new tracks started to sound very different than the tracks I originally intended to be on 'Relapse 2,' but I still want the other stuff to be heard." "Relapse: Refill," a reissue with bonus material, was subsequently released in December. Together with "Relapse," it has sold 1,891,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Video: Lil Wayne & Eminem 'Drop the World'
In an interview with AOL's the BoomBox two weeks ago, Just Blaze indicated that "Relapse 2" was near completion, saying, "I'm out in Detroit and we're wrapping that ['Relapse 2'] up now." Other leaked tidbits about the album came last year courtesy of Em's friend and producer the Alchemist, who told AllHipHop.com that the album sounds like "the most psychotic s---s I've ever heard," and DJ Whoo Kid, a member of Eminem's D-12 crew, who told MTV that "the crazy, lyrical, maniacal Eminem is back. Maniac!"Updated at 11:30 p.m. EST, Dec. 13, 2007
A large triple bombing killed or wounded scores of people in the southern city of Amarah. Meanwhile a smaller blast in Baghdad left over a dozen casualties there. Overall, 59 Iraqis were killed and 177 more were wounded in the latest violence. No Coalition deaths were reported.
At least 28 people were killed and another 150 were wounded during a triple car bombing in Amarah. Although small arms attacks against civilians have been increasing in recent weeks throughout Maysan province, the news of a triple bombing in Amarah stunned Iraq this morning. The area had been relatively peaceful since the British handed over control to Iraqi forces in April. British forces promise that an expected handover of neighboring Basra province will go on schedule this Sunday despite the bombing. The casualty figures were downgraded on Thursday from 41 killed; confusion following the blasts were the cause of misinformation.
In Baghdad, a booby-trapped car in the al-Ghadeer neighborhood left five dead and 13 injured. In Doura, gunmen injured a policeman. Three employees were wounded during an armed attack in al-Tobchi. Mortas in al-Ganat injured three more people. Also, five dumped bodies were recovered.
A roadside bomb killed one person and wounded two others in Kirkuk.
Two Sunni tribal council members were found dead in Latifiya.
In Saidiya, gunmen killed a headmaster and teacher at a school. The children had already finished the school for the day when the attack occurred.
U.S. forces killed 14 suspects and detained 12 others during operations in northern and central Iraq. Iraqi forces killed one suspect and arrested six more in Baghdad; two Iraqi officers were killed and five more were wounded during security operations.
Compiled by Margaret Griffis
Read more by Margaret GriffisYou’ve probably seen it—the nasty brown-stained teeth when your dog smiles, pants or yawns.
Perhaps this isn’t the topic of conversation you’d bring up at the dinner table, but it’s one that pet parents shouldn’t avoid. Tartar buildup on your dog’s teeth can lead to serious health problems. It doesn’t take long to form and it gets right to work. It’s your job, as a pet owner, to take care of your dog’s dental health, which means taking care of tartar before it becomes a problem.
The Problem with Tartar
Who would think that tartar could be such a problem? But the thing with tartar is it doesn’t start out that way. In fact, it starts its journey on your dog’s teeth as plaque, which begins to form hours after a dog eats. As plaque combines with the salts found in dog saliva, it builds up and hardens, which is when it turns into tartar. And tartar is like a welcoming sign to dental problems and gum disease—opening the door to pain, illness and a host of expensive medical bills.
Why You Need To Worry
Tartar on our teeth poses the same problems as it does in a dog’s mouth. Nasty bacteria start to grow, and it’s only a matter of time before it wreaks havoc. Dental problems, such as gingivitis, periodontal disease, abscesses or lost teeth, are causalities of tartar’s reign of terror. Not only that, but it can lead to some seriously rank dog breath!
But teeth aren’t the only thing you have to worry about. As tartar builds up along the gum line, it pushes the gums away from the teeth. This exposes the roots of the teeth, which are no longer covered by enamel. Because the roots are no longer protected, it leaves them open to sensitivities, causing your dog pain and discomfort.
Tartar also likes to explore—after hanging out in your pooch’s mouth, it’ll explore your dog’s body. Bacteria hitch a ride in the bloodstream and make its way to organs such as the heart, liver and kidneys. And you know that the outcome will never be good in a situation like this!
What You Can Do About Tartar
Don’t let tartar get the upper hand in your dog’s mouth. There are things you can do to get rid of it or minimize its presence, many of which you can do at home:
Brush your dog’s teeth on a daily or weekly basis.
Give your dog dental treats and toys to chew on.
Get the real deal—real, raw bones help scrape off soft plaque deposits on dog teeth.
Vets offer professional cleaning and scaling for your dog’s teeth. Costs will depend on the severity of plaque and tartar buildup, so try one of the above methods to keep it at bay.
While you’re brushing your dog’s teeth, keep an eye out for the warning signs of gum disease. These include bad breath, a brownish crust of tartar around the gum line, red and swollen gums, and pain (flinching) or bleeding when you touch his gums or mouth.
Besides practicing dog dental care at home, have your vet perform a dental check during your annual visit. It’s usually done free of charge, and your vet will be able to assess and recommend if any additional care needs to be taken to stop the buildup of tartar.About This Game
Features:
Outwit and defeat a criminal brain!
Explore lush environments on your quest for the truth
A thrilling story that will lead you through sewers, a mental hospital, and into a bizarre alternative world.
Devious puzzles, clever mini games and highly detailed hidden object scenes
Bonus Chapter – Destroy the crime syndicate that masterminded the plan
Track down a missing scientist as you explore the place where reality meets illusion.Over many years, Private investigator Alex Hunter had worked on dozens of cases involving murder, theft, bribery and fraud; and nothing fazed him. Until, a young lady came to his house asking him to help find her father, the renowned scientist, Professor Patterson. The professor had vanished from his house, without a trace, over a month ago. The police were called in but they were unable to find any clues. Coincidentally, neighbors reported having bizarre visions and suddenly finding themselves in strange places. Hunter took the case, thinking it would be a piece of cake…Take on the role of Alex Hunter and investigate this mysterious disappearance. When you discover that the Professor’s experiments delved into the secret workings of the brain and mind control, the case takes a whole new twist. It’s up to you to follow the trail of clues and find out who has taken Professor Patterson, and intends to use his knowledge for evil purposes. Find the place where reality meets illusion! You will need to go head to head against a demented mind; a mind armed with the power to control yours!SALT LAKE CITY — An overwhelming majority of Utah's young adults ages 17-24 are ineligible for military service because they are overweight, have a criminal history or can't pass the test, according to a new report.
The Council for America hosted a panel discussion Tuesday at the state Capitol to detail why so many young adults in the state are not "citizen ready," or readily equipped to take on the challenges of adult life.
A citizen readiness index shows Utah is among the more than three-fourths of states in the country that earned a C grade or worse based on the number of young adults who missed the mark.
"The ambivalence we sometimes see out there needs to change," said Utah Gov. Gary Hebert, who gave closing remarks at the event.
Council for America is made up of 9,000 members that include law enforcement leaders, retired admirals and generals, business leaders, pastors and prominent coaches and athletes.
Their report shows:
• About 72 percent of 17- to 24-year-olds in Utah cannot qualify for military service due to problems with obesity, education, drug abuse or crime — on par with national numbers
• Among 16- to 24-year-olds in Utah, 11 percent are not employed and not in school
• Twelve out of every 100 17- to 24-year-olds in Utah have been arrested
The council, along with panelists, emphasized the need to strengthen families and provide young parents with the tools and support they need to help their child grow into a productive and happy member of society. They also pointed to the need to provide quality, early childhood education at the outset so children are on a path toward learning.
"Families make a difference," said Lane Beattie, president and CEO of the Salt Lake Chamber. "You change one of these children you change generations."
The panel and council pushed for continued funding for the Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting program, which provides home-based services for at-risk parents.
In 2015, federal grants fueled 4,900 home visits to more than 550 Utah families in 10 counties.
Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown said his officers see the heartbreaking circumstances of children caught up in abuse, neglect or domestic violence among their parents on a daily basis.
He recalled as one young boy was taken to a shelter for temporary housing, the single-most worrisome thing to the child was not if there were food or toys available, but if the doors had locks.
"He said, 'I don't want to get dead tonight,'" Brown recounted.
Retired Brigadier General Larry V. Lunt said young adults are increasingly becoming ineligible for military service because they don't meet basic standards.
"It's unbelievable to me that we have that percentage of young people who can't get into the military because they lack" basic education skills, Lunt said.
"The military has always been the great (socio-economic) equalizer," he said, turning a blind eye to a young adult's status in life.
"The drill sergeant doesn't care how much your dad makes," he said.
The panelists stressed that more needs to be done with early childhood education to prepare children for success in school.
Brown said society, either way, will help at-risk children get a footing in their early years or spend dollars years down the road to cope with the consequences of a young adult who is unprepared and ill-equipped for daily life.The Advanced Warefare Center, AWC |
IGIN" you get detailed depictions of what happened before all that. You get an increased sense of the characters' personalities and humanity. Even the concept of Newtypes, which has a special weight just from watching the anime, somehow feels closer to you here, like it has a human touch to it. That's how I felt about it.We didn't have any sorts of talks like that before the fact. After the recording, I thought it would have been good if there had been. I maintained the feelings I had when I got the audition, and I was allowed to perform freely. During the recording, Mr. Yasuhiko and Director Imanishi may have given some direction through the sound director Mr. (Sadayoshi) Fujino, but they didn't speak to me directly.In the first episode, Artesia is a little girl, so I thought I should make her really emotionally direct. I thought her happiness, sadness, and anger should be sincere, so I think I was able to perform her with a clear mind. Actually, I didn't get any particular direction while I was performing.In that respect, Sayla in episode two was more difficult. As I thought about the world view of the project, looking at the visuals of this person who had grown up through hard experiences, and considering her personality as well, I felt she should be more adult than her actual age of ten years old. When I first performed, I was too conscious of that. And maybe because of that, I played her too adult. But then the director Mr. Fujino said, "She's still young," and told me to be careful that I didn't play her too grown up.I wasn't very conscious of her development process. She's in a situation where she is forced to grow due to her environment and the course of events. So I wasn't really changing on my own. Instead, I felt like I was changing due to everyone else's performances and my interactions with them, or maybe being influenced by that. You get the sense that Casval is getting sharper and sharper as he gets older, but Artesia not changing is something I thought was part of the conscience of the story. Casval has the ability to sense the perceptions and emotions of adults, and contrary to that, Artesia's own feelings and feelings towards her mother are more precious to her. So the two of them are close, but their hearts are moving further and further apart. That's the sense I had.Maybe the wavering in Sayla's own mind. Even when she addresses Casval in the dialogue, she doesn't always refer to him in one way. She calls him "Brother" or "Édouard", and in their final parting scene, she calls him "Casval." I was careful about the way I expressed those parts. In the dialogue, Artesia says, "I'm Sayla Mass," and, to match her environment, strives to change from Artesia to Sayla. Only when she is with her brother Casval is she called Artesia, and in those moments she is Artesia, his only family member, the one person he lets into his heart. I was conscious of that relationship with Casval.As the subtitle "Artesia's Sorrow" suggests, Artesia has many farewells. Her mother dies, her cat Lucifer dies, and she parts ways with her brother. But among these, the death of Lucifer particularly stays in your mind. Artesia has suffered through a lot, and it's like Lucifer was always by her side to share those feelings. When Lucifer looks up at Artesia's face as if to say "What's the matter?" you really get that feeling. I think from Artesia's point of view, she took that cat with her all over the place, experiencing many kinds of gravity. Those changes are punishing for a little cat's body, and because the pet is the closest thing to her, it is easily influenced by its master. There's a line, "Lucifer made a funny noise just now. He's gotten older, too." Knowing what would happen later, it made me want to cry. For Artesia, Lucifer's death is almost the same as the death of her father actually happening before her eyes. I think it's a situation where she truly experiences the end of a life again. It's a turning point. It left a deep impression on me.I was always doing my lines while he stood in front of the mic next to me, so I didn't have time to be nervous. But, I did feel some joy and tension at being next to Mr. Ikeda playing Édouard. Artesia is always being protected by Casval and being drawn along by him, and is always following behind him. But for me, that's how I feel about Mr. Ikeda too. He has protected me in some ways, and taken me by the hand and said, "Come on, Megu-chan." He's been a wonderful mentor who I am always following behind. So I wonder if maybe my feelings towards Mr. Ikeda are similar to Artesia's feelings towards Casval.If you're talking about nervousness, the meeting between Édouard, played by Mr. Ikeda, and Char, played by Mr. (Toshihiko) Seki, had my heart racing. The way they paused at that moment was tense, and during the actual recording, I was in between the two of them, and I felt an intensity I never had before. It was like being stuck between two Chars. I thought I'd never have such an experience again.I think the first time we met was around when I was in high school, before I'd started working. I met Mr. Ikeda right at the age that Sayla was during the One Year War. At a talk event, Mr. Ikeda looked back on that time and said, "I'd already met Artesia back then." So it feels like destiny that we got to work together like this. He sat beside me during the post-recording and I was able to record my work with both energy and peace-of-mind.Well, about the main theme song. The main theme for episode 1, "Blue-Eyed Casval," is a song about Artesia's thoughts. When you think of those lyrics and watch episode 2, you completely understand them. With episode 2, "Artesia's Sorrow," the main theme is about Casval and his thoughts as the Red Comet. The main theme songs point towards the next story. The episode 1 theme song connects to Artesia's story in episode 2, and I feel the episode 2 theme song will definitely connect to the story of Casval becoming Char in episode 3. In that sense, you feel the overall story, including the theme songs, is one that's drawing closer to the characters. I feel certain that when you see episode 3, the meaning of the chorus which talks about "wearing eternal red" will become clear.Also, the dialogue in episode 1 where Casval is going berserk in the Guntank Early Type and I say, "Stop, Casval!" and "Those poor people" – those lines connect to episode 2. As well as Sayla's lines when she stops Édouard going berserk at Texas Colony, there's a scene where Mirai uses the words "Poor things" to refer to Édouard and Sayla, in a different kind of situation. You feel the deep karma in the intersection of those lines when you watch episodes 1 and 2 together, so I really hope after watching episode 2, people will go back and watch episode 1 again.To participate in a major work like "THE ORIGIN," I rewatched "MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM," and I too deeply felt something like fate or destiny. I hope lots of people will watch "THE ORIGIN," and that destiny and fate will connect multiple generations through the work, so I thank you for your continual support.Some doctors are prescribing stimulants like Adderall, medicines created to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, to low-income kids who are doing badly in school, a new New York Times article says.
Michael Anderson, the doctor that Alan Schwarz interviewed for the article, says these stimulant medications help kids stay focused, decrease their acting up in class, and improve their grades. The article says:
"I don't have a whole lot of choice," said Dr. Anderson, a pediatrician for many poor families in Cherokee County, north of Atlanta. "We've decided as a society that it's too expensive to modify the kid's environment. So we have to modify the kid."
Dr. Anderson is one of the more outspoken proponents of an idea that is gaining interest among some physicians. They are prescribing stimulants to struggling students in schools starved of extra money — not to treat A.D.H.D., necessarily, but to boost their academic performance.
Some people are definitely worried by this trend to chemically modify childhood. These drugs are Schedule II Controlled Substances, which means they have high potential to be abused and they may lead to severe psychological or physical dependence. Their long-term effects (especially when started during early childhood) aren't well understood, either.
Anderson does make sure to rule out other diagnoses before starting a trial of these stimulants, Schwarz notes.
"These children are still in the developmental phase, and we still don't know how these drugs biologically affect the developing brain," William Graf told The New York Times. "There's an obligation for parents, doctors and teachers to respect the authenticity issue, and I'm not sure that's always happening."
An earlier version of this post referred to Anderson's prescriptions of these drugs as indiscriminate, but on review that choice of words was too harsh and the wording was changed to reflect that.Today’s the big day – BMW will reveal its Z4 concept at the Pebble Beach Concourse d’Elegance, but you don’t have to wait until the official premiere to see it. Here are the first fully revealing images of the study, leaked by Bimmerfile and brought to our attention by Autoblog.nl.
Let’s start with the good news – it looks simply amazing! The car gives us a different take on BMW’s evolutionary design, but features sharper, more dynamic, and sculptured lines with super aggressive front end, and nearly perfect proportions (why not longer hood and front overhang?). What we like especially are the sleek headlights and the massive air intakes in the sporty front bumper. Those 20-inch two-tone, five twin-spoke wheels are a perfect match for the muscular fenders. The rear end is dominated by wide vertical taillights and an attractive diffuser.
The interior is pretty as well. It retains the basic layout of BMW’s current production models, but features minimalistic design. Interestingly, it’s a two-tone cabin – the driver’s seat is covered in black Alcantara, as well as half of the dashboard, while the passenger seat is finished in exterior-matching orange color.
The center console is home of a big tablet-like display and the climate controls are located just below it – in typical BMW fashion. The instrument cluster appears to be fully digital and another small display is mounted on the steering wheel – probably displaying information about speed, lap times, etc.
We have some bad news, as well. This is still a study and probably some of the coolest design features won’t be seen in the production model. Speaking of which, we expect to see the final production version of the roadster in the first half of 2018, most likely in Geneva.
Sales should start shortly after with prices remaining close to the price range of the current model. A lineup of 2.0- and 3.0-liter turbocharged units will be available, offered with either a six-speed manual gearbox or an eight-speed automatic.
Source: Bimmerlife via Autoblog.nlHere at ShiftingLanes we love Hot Hatchbacks. As we’ve stated before, no other car combines fun, practicality and fun like Hot Hatches. And Ford (who’s rather on fire lately with their performance cars, GT350, GT) has just revealed the newest and potentially hottest of them all. 6 Speed Manual, All Wheel Drive and, according to Ford “well in excess of 315 Horsepower,” Ladies and Gentlemen, meet the brand new 2016 Ford Focus RS.
The New RS is powered by the same 2.3 turbocharged 4 banger as the new Mustang. Yes, a turbo 4 from a Mustang, and its good, really good. The RS will have slightly bigger turbo, intercooler and unique exhaust system. Ford is being coy with the performance figures but promise power well north of 315. We’ve heard rumors of around 350. Think 0-60 in the mid to low 4’s and a top speed around 155. Stay tuned for the official figures. The absolute best feature of the engine in the RS is the transmission. There is only one option, and if you’ve been paying attention you’ll know what that option is. Yes sir, the RS will come with a 6 speed manual, only. If you don’t know how to drive a manual you are incomplete as a human person. Seriously, go learn right now.
All of this tremendousness is attached to All Wheel Drive. Oh yes, unlike its predecessors the RS will send power to all 4 wheels. Good bye torque steer, hello 2 electronically controlled clutch packs and torque vectoring. The RS AWD system is capable of sending up to 70% of its power to the rear axle. Front to back, side to side allow the RS to be chucked around and based on the teaser video it can get quite sideways.
Ever since I’ve been legally able to drive, Ford has owned the market on small car handling. It all started with the original focus and I see no reason why it shouldn’t continue with the RS. Bushings, springs and anti-roll bars are similar to those found in the Focus ST. Though considerably stiffened for their work in the RS. Also featured, 2 stage dampers and retuned electric steering. The RS will sit on Michelin Pilot Super Sport or Pilot Sport Cups for the track enthusiast. Either way you go Michelin has designed the tires specifically for the RS. All told the RS will grip, grip and grip some more. Ford is expecting more than 1.0g on the skid pad. Unless you poke the car with a stick, then it will drift. For that reason alone, expect this car to vault straight to the top of the ShiftingLanes.com Hot Hatch list.
The exterior is properly loud, flared wheel arches, ginormous wing, huge grill, big wheels are all present and correct. Ford even says the bodywork creates real downforce. As for the interior, think RS badges, Recaro Seats etc.
So the Focus RS back and better than ever. And if Ford’s history is any indication only Europeans will get the opportunity to enjoy it. Sure they shipped some over for the motoring press to drive. But even before the ink was dry on the review, the cars were back on their way to Euroland. Well, the best news about this entire thing is the new RS is USA bound. Oh yes, for the first time the Focus RS will be coming stateside. Beware STI and Golf R owners. The RS is coming and it’s coming for blood.
Now sit back and enjoy the RS in the hands of Ken Block doing what Ken Block does.Monuments to Vladimir Lenin can be found in most Russian cities, but Siberia’s Krasnoyarsk may now have the most unusual. Unlike the original, the pixelated Lenin won’t live forever, as it’s made of cardboard.
The cardboard Lenin statue looks like it has come right out of the world of popular computer game Minecraft. It was unveiled in Russia’s Krasnoyarsk as part of an art project at a local state museum on Thursday. Incidentally, it is situated in Karl Marx street.
The pixelated Lenin stands in his iconic pose with left arm outstretched. The statue is placed atop one of the platforms near a local museum center, which was itself named after the revolutionary leader until the collapse of Soviet Union in 1991.
The creator of the ‘Minecraft’ Lenin, Aleksandr Zakirov, told Russian media that the Bolshevik leader’s pixel image was designed by artist Ivan Tuzov. Zakirov added that their work is meant to honor Lenin’s “visual image” as it had become a kind of “brand” long ago.
“Monuments to Lenin have recently been demolished only, but I have erected one,” Zakirov said. He added that his creation will last only one month, as it is made of cardboard and will soon get soaked in the snowy city.
READ MORE: Revolutionary corpse: Why and how Russia still preserves Lenin in its heart
Not everyone is happy with such an image of the leader of the October 1917 Russian revolution, which marked its centennial in early November. The leader of Krasnoyarsk’s Communist Party denounced the idea and called it “a mockery.” Speaking to Govorit Moskva radio station he vowed to demolish the monument.London: Sir Paul McCartney has hit out at some pop stars who don’t play live at their gigs.
The 69-year-old former The Beatles member accused some contemporaries of using tapes rather than their instruments on stage at concerts.
The musician stopped short of naming the fakers, however.
According to McCartney, his long-time friend and engineer Paul Pablo Boothroyd revealed that some artists rely on tapes for the majority of their shows.
“To me the concert experience is at the heart of what music is about. You come to a show and you are in the room so it is the real thing,” the Daily Express quoted him as saying.
“I have been to concerts where I think, ‘Oh, I really am in the room with Tony Bennett and it is like he is in my living room’. That is a great part of the experience.
“I then think, ‘Wait a minute, people must think that about me.
“When we make mistakes playing live, we always now turn it and say, ‘Tell you what – this proves we are live.
“Then we tell the stories about artists, not named, that our crew know who aren’t performing live. Our sound guy Pablo used to be on some tours and at one point in the show a little red light would go on and he’d be live, and he would play it out for 30 seconds and the light would go off, and the tape would go on again.
“We are glad at the end five of us take a bow and there is nobody hidden under the stage either which I hear some naughty people do… sorry, I won’t say names,” he added.
Pablo has worked with bands including ACDC, Eurythmics and Marillion, but the ‘Yesterday’ hitmaker refused to divulge the offenders.
Cheryl Cole was famously accused of miming during her live performances on ‘The X Factor’ while Elton John criticised Madonna for lip-synching during her 2004 tour.
ANITextMate 2.0 Alpha
The excitement for a new version has been tremendous and today we’re finally able to repay the much appreciated loyalty and moral support from the community by releasing the first public alpha: TextMate 2.0 alpha.
It’s important to stress though that being an alpha release; it is not complete. It has reached a point where it may suit some early adopters and provide some relief to those who have been questioning TextMate’s future. For the time being, the alpha builds are only for people who already have a TextMate license and an Intel Mac.
Being a complete rewrite there are too many changes to sum up but here is an overview of notable changes since TextMate 1.5.10.
There are also many things that didn’t make it to this alpha, far too many to mention all of them, but a few deserves to be mentioned as they are likely to come up a lot in the coming days:
Split views: Yes, I actually had this on the alpha milestone, I’m not overly excited about this feature myself, but I know it’s a very common request, so eventually it should find its way into the application.
Full screen mode: This is mainly because we are hesitant to go Lion-only so we are holding back with “lionizing” TextMate till we feel confident we can fully drop backwards compatibility.
Performance: Overall performance is fine, but there are still edge-cases that we haven’t looked into, for example the long lines issue which also exists in 1.x or opening files that exhaust TextMate’s memory space.
Bundle editor: While a proof-of-concept bundle editor is included, it is provisional, has some flaws, and not how we envision the final bundle editor to be.
Settings: Not everything in the Preferences window has an effect at the moment and several menu settings are not sticky, some even revert when switching tabs. Those can be set via.tm_properties — more about this in an upcoming post.
General TextMate 2Spread the love
80% whistleblower retaliation claims ignored in biased, ‘Trojan horse’ system
The number of whistleblowers being retaliated against is increasing every year as former federal workers warn it’s almost impossible to raise grievances through official avenues within the government, a new report reveals.
RT.com
Among the employees and contractors working for the United States military and the American intelligence community, more than 8,700 have filed claims since 2001 in which they allege having faced reprisal for raising objections about supposed instances of waste, fraud or abuse,McClatchyreported on Tuesday.
According to the report, an analysis of whistleblower retaliation claims made with the Pentagon suggests the number of workers who say they suffered for speaking out has been “increasing virtually every year” since September 11, 2001.
Despite insistence from President Barack Obama with regards to expanded whistleblower protections enacted by his administration, Marisa Taylor wrote for McClatchy, “his changes didn’t go far enough to address the gaping holes in an ineffective and unwieldy bureaucracy for those who claim retaliation.”
What Obama did do, is signed an executive order before Edward Snowden revelations leaked to the public, that technically offered a whistleblower protection. “So there were other avenues available for somebody whose conscience was stirred and thought that they needed to question government actions,” Obama said after the Snowden leaks in June 2013.
The Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 that was amended in 2011 is aimed to protect whistleblowers who report government agencies misconduct. Violations of the Act occur if Feds take, or threaten to take, retaliatory measures against an employee because of disclosure of information by that person. Whistleblowers are entitled to file complaints providing evidences of the violation.
“Only someone with a martyr complex would submit themselves to this system,” Tom Devine, legal director of the Government Accountability Project, told McClatchy. “We advise intelligence whistleblowers to stay away from established channels to defend against retaliation. In our experience they’ve been a Trojan horse, a trap that ends up sucking the whistleblower into a long-term process that predictably ends up with the whistleblower as the target.”
According to this week’s report, evidence exists within the Pentagon and intelligence community at large to suggest whistleblowers face an abundance of obstacles if and when they raise their voice against allegedly unjust policy.
McClatchy data shows that less than 20 percent of the claims since 9/11 have been investigated, with only 4 percent considered substantiated. The rest of the claims were dismissed after a preliminary analysis prior to any investigation.
Employees often can’t prove they were retaliated against with their employers insisting the reprimand measures – including dismissal from work, blocked career advancement or suspended or revoked security clearances – were taken due to performance-related reasons and not in retaliation for whistleblowing.
“There’s a view that these whistleblower reprisal cases are all these big, huge programmatic issues, when in reality many of them are about things like performance and promotions,” James A. Protin, counsel to the NSA inspector general, told McClatchy.
Yet even investigation of those retaliation claims considered substantiated was usually been delayed. McClatchy’s inquiry found that bureaucracy at the Pentagon sometimes plays a crucial role at determining the fate of the inquiries.
According to five federal officials at the Pentagon inspector general’s office, the inquiry stipulates, “its own investigators accused the office of improperly dismissing, watering down or stalling conclusions in retaliation inquiries.”
The cases that especially prone to being turned against the whistleblowers are those that are “controversial, complicated or involve high-level officials,” the federal officials said.
Sometimes managers and lawyers routinely reversed or edited findings and conclusions, like in the case of an Army intelligence officer, Mike Helms who was retaliated against in 2004 for highlighting the inadequate care for military civilians wounded in combat.
In other cases, the Feds “cherry-pick the evidence they deem as ‘relevant,” one official told the inquiry, commenting on the impeded investigation into allegations by a staff judge advocate in Quantico. In the complaint Va. Maj. James Weirick accused the US Marine Corps of meddling with the prosecution of four scout snipers who were recorded urinating on dead Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.
Furthermore, as a general trend, those officials who investigate the claims have allegedly suffered retaliation against themselves.
“It’s not surprising there are so few substantiated reprisal cases at the Pentagon,” said Sen. Charles Grassley. “There is an inherent bias against whistleblowers in the inspector general’s office.”
Republished with permission from Russia TodayUX Design Top Ten Articles in August
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This list includes UX, Psychology, User Research related articles. For those who looking for Top 10 Mobile Design, Style Guide, UI Design, Web Design, etc… Visit the publication.It’s not a great term, the “reproducibility crisis”.
Most don’t think we are actually in a crisis, but I thought that by now practically everyone in various scientific fields had heard of it. In the last few years the reproducibility issue has been covered several times by Nature News, by major newspapers such as the New York Times, and by countless websites, often with truly crisis-level headlines. I first blogged about it in 2012, and it wasn’t new then.
The heart of the issue is that large-scale replication attempts usually fail to reproduce the findings of the original studies. Or at least, they fail to yield the statistically significant finding that the original study did, suggesting either that the original study did not have much statistical power and the original authors got lucky, or it’s a spurious result, or the effect of interest is not very robust to the methodological variation associated with replication attempts. Across preclinical cancer research, economics, and experimental psychology, the results have been similarly depressing. As an editor I’ve been involved in two attempts to replicate individual studies, and both yielded null results (one on ego depletion, and one on how grammatical aspect affects judgments about a criminal).
There are certainly people (Harvard professors, in fact) who still say that “the reproducibility of psychological science is quite high and, in fact, statistically indistinguishable from 100%”. But if you had asked me how many psychology academics believe that it is a significant problem I would have said at least half. Experimental psychology in particular has seen a raft of large-scale replication attempts and very public failures to replicate. Before the Reproducibility Project that attempted to replicate 100 studies, there was Many Labs 1. Now, Many Labs 2 has finished data collection and Many Labs 3 is in process. The conversations around replications have reached near-meme levels of rhetoric. If people in any area should have heard of the reproducibility crisis by now, it’s psychology researchers.
I find out about a lot of replication attempts on twitter, with reproducibility news showing up on my feed on a near-daily basis. I was wondering whether the reproducibility crisis is much of a thing to your average psychology academic. Note: your average psychology academic is not on twitter.
In a seemingly self-defeating effort, I set up a poll on twitter of people not on twitter:
Psychology academics: Ask a colleague who’s not on twitter whether they’ve heard of the “reproducibility crisis” — Alex Holcombe (@ceptional) April 7, 2016
I was expecting about five responses. Maybe ten. But I got fifty-eight!
Let’s acknowledge that this is an unscientific sample with a lot of selection bias. Who knows how these 58 people got their datum? (I say “datum”, not data, because you can only vote once per twitter account).
We have 26% of people who have never heard of the reproducibility crisis, 40% who are skeptical that it’s a problem, and only 34% who think it’s a major problem.
It could be that people saw this as an entertaining opportunity to troll me. I doubt that and suspect that people actually had a real-world collegial interaction as a result of this tweet. They may have avoided colleagues who they’d previously spoken to about reproducibility. And they may have skipped the nose-to-the-grindstone types, continuing on to a colleague with an open office door. That would be pretty good, but it’s also possible they went straight to the prof they know doesn’t keep up with the times.
With biases in mind, let’s consider the numbers. We’ve got 66%, 38 people, who have either never heard of the crisis or are skeptical that it’s a problem. The 95% confidence interval on that figure (adjusted Wald method) runs from 79% down to 55%. That’s a sobering lower limit.
These people are out there, in significant numbers. We ought to keep this in mind when communicating with people about the latest replication failure or the latest call for publishing reform, be it greater disclosure in methods sections or for preregistration. Many people will continue to see these things as burdensome solutions for a problem that may not exist. Myself, I like to think of preregistration as forcing people to keep their grubby little p-hacking hands from contaminating what could otherwise be a truth-revealing beautiful bit of science.
The positive side is that a very large number of people have become convinced of the value of preregistration in a very short span of time. Already a new experimental psychology journal that publishes only preregistered studies has been created, and at many journals, a new preregistered article type has popped up. Put in perspective, progress has indeed been quite rapid. Consider the molasses-like slog of the open access movement. It took decades of proselytising, explainers, and news for everyone to have a rough idea of what open access is. And still today you find people assuming that the only existing or viable route is author-pays (even though there are thousands of open-access journals that charge authors nothing). Open access is a complex issue, and so are reproducibility issues. It should take a long time to get very far with either.
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Published: 17 October 2014
You will be hard pressed to find a bike rider who thinks bike rider registration and license plates are fantastic ideas. Tabloid newspapers and shock-jocks, however, bring up the topic with each anti-bike-rider story or rant. It’s a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist, but there are a lot of supporters who share the view that bike rider registration and licenses means that cyclists are finally accountable and are paying for their right to use the roads. The fact is that everyone will be worse off with registration and/or licensing, including the vehement anti-cyclists.
In New South Wales, following several fatal and serious accidents involving cyclists, the Minister for Roads and Transport, Duncan Gay, announced his solution, “I am increasingly persuaded that we need to look at a license for cyclists.”
Mr. Gay also promoted the banning of cyclists from certain (unspecified) roads. He noted, “It’s not going to worry the ones that are doing the right thing, but the bad ones that are running lights, crossing over, being aggressive, they’re a large part of the statistic”.
I’m not sure what statistics Mr. Gay is referring to, since he hasn’t produced any statistics. But what I do know from my requests to the ministerial office for information is that, under instruction from Duncan Gay, the Department for Roads and Transport is now spending tax payer money to investigate the licensing and registration of bike riders. It’s been done before, in Australia and in other countries, and it’s been abandoned everywhere it’s been tried. So, before we get as indignant about this as the shock-jocks and band-wagoneers are about cyclists, let’s have a look at five good reasons why bike licensing is stupid.
1. Bike licensing will cost everyone more money, including motorists
The reason bike/rider licensing, for the purpose of rider identification, has been abandoned everywhere it’s been tried is the cost. The administration burden for implementing and managing a bike rider licensing system will cost more than any revenue generated by it. Unless it’s a purely “user-pays” system, the cost will be passed on to tax payers. If it is a genuine user pays system, the cost of registration would be more than the price of many bikes. Any sort of cost-benefit analysis rules out bike registration purely on economic grounds.
2. Bike licensing will not make cyclists more accountable
The ‘accountability’ argument presented by Duncan Gay is flawed in many ways, reasons which came to mind include:
a) Police will generally not act upon reports of cyclists breaking the law, even if they can be identified. Many bike riders have experienced this when reporting offences, such as near misses or abuse, by motorists. Unless there is a collision, police generally don’t take action. Even with video footage, the police may call the offender and give them a warning, but very rarely will any reports from the public be actioned.
b) ‘Cyclist-at-fault’ collisions are few and far between; it is has not been documented that ‘hit and run’ incidents caused by bike riders is a problem. The reverse is in fact true, ‘hit-and-run’ occurrences for ‘motorist-at-fault’ accidents is unfortunately not uncommon. In discussing shock-jock demands for registration, The Age newspaper wrote, “Victoria Police defended its record of catching errant cyclists, saying it was not aware of issues regarding identification of cyclists who commit road offences.”
c) Licensing doesn’t stop motorists from breaking the law, why would it stop cyclists? Speed and red-light cameras have caught motorists to the tune of $90 million and $70 million dollars respectively in NSW in a year. If these motorists speed and/or don’t stop when there are well sign-posted cameras about, what are motorists doing when there aren’t cameras about? Revenue raised by cameras has increased, which means that motorists are only accountable in a financial sense… and only sometimes.
3. Bike licensing will not reduce accidents or deaths
NSW Greens MP Dr Mehreen Faruqi responded to Duncan Gay’s claim that licensing will ‘magically’ increase the safety of bike riders, “There’s no evidence that bike licensing schemes help in reducing accidents and tragic deaths. In fact, in places like Los Angeles and Switzerland they have been abolished a short time after being introduced.” A piece of paper or a metal plate attached to your bike is indeed a poor defense against danger.
4. Bike licensing will reduce the number of bike riders
I suspect that the real intention of all of this bike licensing talk is to reduce the numbers of cyclists. From a simple economic point of view, this makes no sense. The Federal Government calculated in the 2013 Walking, Riding and Access to Public Transport Report that each cycling trip saves the economy $21.
While the numbers show that cycling contributes towards the nation in terms of reduced health care, vehicle emissions, road wear, small business, as well as other social and cultural benefits, it also benefits motorists. Every cyclist is one less car on the road and one less parking spot occupied. Motor vehicles cause traffic and congestion, not bikes. We need more bikes, not less.
Forcing additional licensing and registration for cyclists, when 90% of legal-age riders already carry a drivers license, is an additional hurdle which will turn some away from the bike; cycling will be less convenient and attractive. Further, it won’t just be the current crop of cyclists who feel the strain; licensing will create a bureaucratic mess when it comes to children. Will they have to pay to ride up and down the footpath? A generation of current cyclists, and all generations of future cyclists, will be affected in one fell swoop.
5. Bike licensing does not solve the problems
Politicians and sensationalist media who are against cycling will reap popularity points if licensing or registration is introduced, but it will be a pyrrhic victory. Bike licensing will not actually solve the problems, because the real problems are not being addressed. The real problems are with road user education and awareness, and intelligent transport infrastructure.
Road users, motorists and cyclists, need more awareness of other road users and of their responsibilities on the road. We’re already heading down that pathway with cyclist and motorist education campaigns, and laws such as the minimum safe passing distance law, which is being trialed in Queensland. These initiatives don’t stop bad things from happening, but they do reinforce necessary awareness. German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer has said that “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” In Australia we’re moving toward acceptance.
Changing attitudes towards cyclists is changing the societal software, the hardware that this requires is intelligent transport infrastructure. This is infrastructure that still accommodates the car, but also makes transport alternatives convenient and integrates them. It means that effective transport solutions that reduce congestion, such as public transport, cycling, and walking are fostered and become viable.
The spending required for cycling infrastructure (and for alternative transport) is a drop in the ocean compared with spending on new roads and road maintenance. Elevating the importance of cycling will result is real and long term positive effects for all road users.
Improving transport for everyone
One of the core arguments used by motorists who are intolerant of bike riders is that cyclists slow them down. This is primarily psychological, since motorists are rarely delayed in their total trip time by bike riders. However there are roads which require smarter infrastructure to allow safe passage for bike riders and eliminate the impediment to flowing traffic, and this is where the local, state and federal governments each need to step up |
evidence of something akin to a split personality. Says Tucker, “The desert locust has two phases. In one phase, it’s reclusive and solitary, going out of its way to avoid coming into contact with another of its kind and migrating only at night. But the locust also has this sort of alter ego where it undergoes explosive population growth, changes color and shape, and becomes more tolerant of others, more social, or gregarious.” So what causes harmless desert locusts to break all the bounds of normal social restraint and form a swarming, marauding mob? In a word: water. That most precious of desert resources, rainfall can transform a barren desert landscape with a blush of ephemeral green vegetation. It also moistens the sandy soils where the desert locust lays its eggs. The moisture initiates the hatching of the eggs and causes vegetation to grow. The newly grown vegetation increases the food supply and provides shelter for the newly hatched “hoppers,” as the young, wingless insects are called. At roughly weekly intervals, depending on temperature, the hoppers molt, finally achieving adult, winged status after five cycles. The default state of the desert locust is to be solitary—to have a strong aversion to others of its kind. But when rains spur egg development and vegetation, the population of locusts grows rapidly. Given enough vegetation and a big enough area, the locusts might be expected to spread out. But when vegetation is distributed on the landscape in such a way that the locusts have to congregate in order to feed or if conditions are so good in a particular area that great numbers of locusts are hatched, the locusts abandon their solitary instincts.The mural, in the gay village near the corner of Church and Wood Sts., is meant to celebrate the history, diversity and strength of Toronto’s LGBTQ community, according to a police news release.
But the protesters claim the media event, like the Toronto police chief’s public apology this week for the 1981 bathhouse raids, was a publicity stunt.
They are “PR tools used to mask the reality of police relations amongst the queer and trans community: black people, indigenous people, sex workers et cetera,” said Black Lives Matter co-founder Rodney Diverlus, 26, after disrupting the unveiling.
The reverend and gay rights activist, Brent Hawkes, tried to mediate between Black Lives Matter and the police, to no avail, according to the queer activist and journalist, Andrea Houston, who live tweeted the encounter.Speaking on the steps of the High Court to dozens of journalists, Mr Assange said: "It's great to feel the fresh air of London again."
He went on to thank "all the people around the world who had faith" in him, his lawyers for putting up a "brave and ultimately successful fight", members of the press and the British justice system.
"If justice is not always an outcome, at least it is not dead yet," he added.
Mr Assange had spent the past eight nights in prison. He told the press he had been kept in solitary confinement in the depths of a Victorian prison.
During my time in solitary confinement in the bottom of a Victorian prison I had time to reflect on the conditions of those people around the world also in solitary confinement, also on remand, in conditions that are more difficult than those faced by me.
"Those people also need your attention and support.
"And with that I hope to continue my work and continue to protest my innocence in this matter and to reveal, as we get it, which we have not yet, the evidence from these allegations."
He will now stay at a manor home on the Norfolk-Suffolk border owned by Vaughan Smith, journalist and owner of the Frontline Club in London.
The 10 bedroom East Anglia property is set in 600 acres of land.
Mr Smith said: "It has advantages. I think that the judges have seen that there are some problems in terms of the shortage of police stations, but at the same time, it does offer a place where Julian might have some peace and some security.
Assange, who appeared in the dock in a jacket and open-necked shirt, has received death threats and has spent the past week in solitary confinement.
The case against him in Sweden centres on his relations with two women in Stockholm while he was visiting the city in August.
The allegations include the rape and molestation of one woman and the molestation and unlawful coercion of another.
But his supporters claim the criminal inquiry and extradition request is unfair and politically motivated.
Outside court, Assange said his legal team would be revealing evidence relating to the allegations "as we get it, which we have not yet".
Assange made powerful enemies around the world as his website published 250,000 sensitive United States diplomatic cables.
His supporters regard him as one of the most important campaigners for freedom of information and human rights.
The extent of the high-profile support for Assange was revealed by those who agreed to provide bail sureties.
His supporters have helped to put up bail totalling £240,000 (€283,000, $374,000). Mr Assange will also have to wear a security tag.
Mr Stephens said they came from Australian journalist Phillip Knightley, publisher Felix Dennis, Sir John Sulston, Lord Matthew Evans and Prof Patricia David.
Two substitute sureties on stand-by are lawyer Geoff Shears and the Marchioness of Worcester.President Trump’s deputy chief of staff, Katie Walsh, is leaving the White House to work with outside groups tasked with promoting his agenda.
"Katie Walsh has accepted a position with an outside organization,” a White House official said. “She has been a tremendous asset to the president and we are confident she will be so in her new role as well.”
The move comes after a rough week for Trump, capped by the failure of the House GOP healthcare plan last Friday.
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Trump allies inside and outside the White House were frustrated by the level of involvement from political non-profits, such as the pro-Trump America First Policies, in touting the measure.
Walsh is close to Trump’s chief of staff, Reince Priebus, who has been blamed by some Trump supporters for the president’s early stumbles. She served as Priebus’ chief of staff when he led the Republican National Committee.
Walsh’s move is the latest staff shakeup at the White House, which is still struggling to find its footing.
Trump fired Michael Flynn as national security adviser in February after it was revealed his misled senior officials about his talks with Russia’s U.S. ambassador.
"Yes->Katie asked to provide badly needed air cover for the President's agenda, per Reince/Bannon/Jared! Will work with @AmericaFirstPol," tweeted veteran GOP operative Mike Shields.
Walsh's role is changing after Rick Gates was forced to leave his leadership position at America First Policies over his longstanding ties to Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign chairman who is under scrutiny over his ties to Russia.NEW DELHI: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi said demonetisation had destroyed millions of jobs while PM Narendra Modi was harnessing people's anger over unemployment towards communal hatred, leading the opposition's criticism of notebandi on its first anniversary.In an op-ed article in Financial Times, titled "Modi's reforms have robbed India of its economic prowess", Rahul said Modi's "arbitrary" act had killed millions of livelihoods by destroying the informal labour sector and wiping out small and medium businesses. He said notebandi had shaved off 2 per cent from the GDP. Rahul extended his criticism of Modi to GST that he called was "modern day licence raj".Rahul said, "Modi has damaged India by converting anger created by joblessness and lack of economic opportunity into communal hatred. He has chosen to hide behind a shallow, hate-filled political narrative. Anger might have brought Modi to power but it will never create jobs or fix India's institutions."In the article, he has also spoken about China's growth as a global manufacturing hub and the country's absence of democracy — a theme he expounded upon during his recent US lectures.Congress held nationwide demonstrations themed "desh bhugat raha hai (country is suffering)", with Rahul attending the protest in Gujarat's textile town of Surat. Youth Congress too held a protest at the Jantar Mantar in the capital.Addressing a press conference, Congress spokespersons said notebandi cost the Indian economy Rs 3 lakh crore while the organised sector lost 15 lakh jobs and the unorganised sector lost 3.72 crore jobs. They accused the Centre of not probing the "scams linked to BJP " during notebandi. Insinuating that information about currency ban had been leaked to friendly entities, one of the spokespersons Randeep Surjewala said millions of crores were suddenly deposited in the banks in September 2016 but the government has not investigated the account holders.Questioning BJP's claim that notebandi had wiped out corruption, Rahul wrote, "12 months on, the only thing he (Modi) has wiped out is confidence in our once booming economy".Congress alleged a "BJP hand" in the CBI announcing the arrest of a school student in Pradhyumn murder case on Wednesday, saying the timing was planned to "sabotage" the media coverage of nationwide protests against demonetisation. "Unfortunately, this government is only centered around event management... The misuse of Compromised Bureau of Investigation as a BJP puppet will never hide the truth," AICC spokesman Randeep Surjewala said. He doubted the CBI's announcement, saying even the parents of the murdered child had raised questions about the arrest made by the agency.Have you ever noticed a strange little worm-like speck drifting aimlessly about in your field of vision? These annoying little squiggly lines, or “cobwebs,” are called floaters and are experienced by around 70% of people. So what are they?
Floaters are actually shadows cast by objects suspended in the clear, gel-like substance that makes up the majority of the eye’s interior. This substance is called vitreous humor and helps to maintain the eye’s round shape. After passing through the lens, focused light has to pass through the vitreous humor in order to reach the retina at the back of the eye. It’s mostly composed of water but also contains proteins and various other substances.
Floaters are normally merely proteins of the vitreous gel that have clumped together. These stringy clusters of proteins block light and therefore cast a shadow on the retina. These floaters usually appear as transparent circles or tadpoles and stay permanently in your eye.
Sometimes, small hemorrhages in the eye can cause floaters as red blood cells enter the vitreous. This can occur if the gel pulls on blood vessels located in the retina. These floaters might take on a smoky appearance and disappear as the blood is absorbed.
Lastly, floaters can be caused by shrinkage of the vitreous gel that occurs naturally as we age. As the vitreous pulls away from the retina, bits of debris can enter the gel and become floaters. These usually look like cobwebs.
Floaters are particularly pronounced if you gaze at something particularly bright, such as a piece of white paper or a blue sky. You’ll notice that they move as your eyes move and appear to zoom across your eye as you try to look at them directly.
Floaters are usually just an annoyance that people get used to, but sometimes they can hamper vision and therefore require surgery. This procedure involves removing the vitreous and replacing it with a saline liquid.ACCC warns Infinity electrical cables could become dangerous within two years
Updated
The consumer watchdog says safety issues with Infinity electrical cables could arise as early as 2016, with a fresh round of recalls to begin today.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's chairman, Rod Sims, has told a Senate Economics committee estimates hearing that about 4,000 kilometres of Infinity and Olsent-branded Infinity electrical cables had failed ageing tests.
The problem is that the PVC protection around the cables that is supposed to provide insulation is expected to become prematurely brittle.
A new round of recalls is being announced today, under which suppliers will be required to fix the faulty cables.
Infinity cables were supplied in all states and territories, except the Northern Territory.
It is estimated that around 40,000 households and businesses may have been affected.
The cable was imported from China.
"We have have arrangements in place with all of the major suppliers to remediate that cable at no cost to the households and there's been another announcement today about the states proposals to remediate there as well," Mr Sims told the estimates hearing.
"The key issue to highlight is to raise awareness to people to check that if you had electrical cable between about 2010 and 2013, to check that it wasn't Infinity or Olsen cable."
Further recalls announced
State and territory safety regulators have announced additional recalls of Infinity cables.
The recalls cover two more suppliers in the ACT, and four more suppliers in Victoria.
"While the majority of this cable was supplied through the electrical retailers and wholesalers covered by the national recall on August 27, some cable was supplied in small quantities by a number of smaller suppliers," Mr Sims said.
"State and ACT safety agencies have now been in contact with those suppliers and have announced further recalls today."
The ACCC said that homes and businesses that have had electrical wiring work carried out during the relevant periods need to contact the responsible builder, electrical contractor or appliance installer to confirm whether Infinity cable was used.
If Infinity cable was used, the ACCC says the supplier will arrange for an inspection of wiring, free of charge to the consumer.
Under the recall, any Infinity cable installed in accessible areas or near heat sources must be removed and replaced.
More information can be found at www.accc.gov.au and www.recalls.gov.au.
Do you know more? Email investigations@abc.net.au
Topics: consumer-protection, electronics, manufacturing, australia
First posted3rd June, 2015 by Amy Hopkins
Jack Daniel’s producer Brown-Forman has made its first move into the fast-growing Irish whiskey sector with the acquisition of Slane Castle Irish Whiskey.
Having purchased all shares in the company, the US drinks group will now invest US$50 million in building a new Irish whiskey distillery on the historic Slane Castle Estate in County Meath, Ireland.
Plans were first submitted by Slane Castle Irish Whiskey to build a new distillery and malting plant on the grounds in 2013. The Castle and its grounds have been owned by the Conyngham family since 1701.
“Irish whiskey has been one of the fastest growing segments in the global whisky category over the last few years,” said Lawson Whiting, executive vice president and chief brands & strategy officer for Brown-Forman.
“We’re excited to be partnering with the Conyngham family as we build the new Slane Irish Whiskey Distillery and introduce new Irish whiskeys to the world.”
The work is expected to be complete by late 2016, while the distillery will launch new Irish whiskey brands by the spring of 2017 using third party-sourced liquid.
Whiting added that Brown-Forman will position the new brands in the premium and super-premium spirits segments, introducing a range of blended, pot still and single grain variants.
When plans for Slane Castle Irish Whiskey Distillery were first announced, the company said it would become the first in Ireland to grow, malt and distill its own barley.
The firm originally bottled its own Irish whiskey brand using liquid produced at the Cooley Distillery, until new owner Beam cut off third party production in 2012.
“Our family has been part of the Slane community for many generations and we are pleased to join forces with Brown-Forman to bring our special part of Ireland to the world,” said Alex Conyngham, managing director of Slane Castle Irish Whisky.
“Our commitment to caring for our land, cultivating barley, and our family legacy are consistent with Brown-Forman’s long-term approach to whiskey making, and we believe that this aligned approach will bring great success.”
Henry Conyngham, 8th Marquess Conyngham, added that his family will play a “key part” in creating a brand building model.
“We know that Brown-Forman is the perfect partner to take these new Irish whiskeys to the US and other markets across the globe,” he said.
Brown-Forman revealed only this week that it intended to increase its investment in Bourbon production, spending US$45m on building a new distillery and visitors’ centre for its Old Forester Bourbon brand – US$15m more than originally pledged.Foreign Films in Focus
Egypt's best foreign-language film submission caused the director to come under fire from all sides in a country where two recent revolutions and the dramatic rise and fall of the Muslim Brotherhood have cut deep divisions through society.
Director Amr Salama had a hunch that Sheikh Jackson might stoke a fire or two in his native Egypt. Not that it would ever stop him (his previous films have dealt with AIDS and sectarian strife), but in dealing with the somewhat sensitive subject of hard-line Islam, he managed to — at least initially — draw criticism from both sides in a country where two recent revolutions and the dramatic rise and fall of the Muslim Brotherhood have plowed deep divisions through society.
"People are so polarized when it comes to Islamists in the Middle East," says Salama. "Both sides just condemn and judge the other."
Sheikh Jackson, which bowed in Toronto and will see an early 2018 release in the U.S. (following an awards-qualifying run starting Nov. 4) via Cleopatra Entertainment, centers on an ultra-conservative Islamic preacher and former Michael Jackson fan who suffers a crisis of faith and identity after the King of Pop's 2009 death. The emotional, character-driven drama isn't as far-fetched as it may sound. Salama himself was a serious Jackson obsessive at school (where his nickname was "Jackson" and he had long hair) before becoming "extremely religious" in college, banishing the arts — including music — from his life. After a year and a half, Salama says he "started shifting the other way," adding that there are many other Egyptians of his generation who had their own periods deeply entrenched in Islam. The experience, coupled with him being born and raised in Saudi Arabia — "the world champion of orthodox Islam" — gave Salama the confidence he could "live in both islands."
But in his portrayal of the film's central character — a man with white robes and a beard and someone Salama says is usually shown on Arab film and TV as a terrorist — the director came under fire from the country's liberals.
"After I wrote the first couple of drafts of the script, many told me I was being too sympathetic with the Islamists," he says. " 'You can't humanize these people' — I literally heard that a couple of times. One said, 'Listen, this film is just you trying to make us love those guys more, and this is risky.' "
At the other end of the spectrum, Salama says he was also told the film was insulting to Islam.
Sheikh Jackson's central character, Sheikh Khaled Hani (played by Ahmad Alfishawy) is from the Salafist movement, an ultra-conservative and puritanical strain of Islam. "A Salafist is just a guy who believes we should go back to the foundations of Muhammad," he says. "But actually, these orthodox Muslims were less aggressive than the liberals when it came to this film."
Thankfully, with Sheikh Jackson having moved from script to screen (it was released across Egypt on Oct. 4, topping the local box office), people have been able to see the film as Salama intended, and the criticisms have disappeared. "I haven't gotten any comments anymore, either from outside Egypt, inside Egypt, from liberals, from anybody," he says. "Even if they don't like the film artistically, they don't have a problem with me humanizing the character, because they understand that I'm not sympathizing with the ideology as much as I'm sympathizing with the journey of one man."
This story first appeared in a November standalone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.MRC Pres. Brent Bozell
On Tuesday, Media Research Center (MRC) President Brent Bozell slammed the networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) for ignoring a horrific form of violent torture of females making its way into the United States.
The Big Three networks have refused to cover the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) charges announced last Thursday against Dr. Jumana Nagarwala for performing female genital mutilation (FGM) on girls between the ages of 6 and 8.
Bozell, joined by Act for America Chairman Brigitte Gabriel, issued a statement condemning the media’s hypocrisy for claiming to support feminism while ignoring “an extremely brutal practice of violence against women”:
“The media’s moral compass is hopelessly broken. We have the first case of the brutal practice of FGM in the United States, and the networks are AWOL. You would think an extremely brutal practice of violence against women would make TV headlines here at home, but you would be wrong. “Where is the outrage? The hypocrisy is staggering. The networks, which have for years championed the causes of left-wing feminists and women's rights, are conspicuously silent on this case and their silence is deafening. This is real exploitation of young girls and the usual suspects who ought to care have little to say about this form of torture making its way to America.”
If the networks won’t tell the American people about cases of FGM, then they are complicit in this violent, physical abuse of women, Bozell and Gabriel warn:Destroyed archaeological sites could be digitally restored with the help of photographs taken by tourists. Dr. Andrew Wilson, Senior Lecturer at the University of Bradford told Radio Sputnik how he came up with this project.
“Heritage is potentially damaged, destroyed or under threat from a variety of different means. Obviously there is that collateral damage in terms of conflict; there are those archaic images that resonate in terms of cultural vandalism but there are also far more mundane things like neglect and natural disasters,” Dr. Andrew Wilson, Senior Lecturer and co-director Bradford Visualization and leader of the project, told Radio Sputnik.
Wilson said that it is really about calling out to the public and asking them what they think should be preserved.
“At this stage it is a call to the public to get interested in out digital project,” Wilson said.
Talking about the ambitious project he spoke about how currently there is an enormous amount of digital documentation and 3D visualization that is used in anything like new architect designs, to new buildings and interiors.
Wilson said that within archaeology there is a lot of interest in physically touching, moving and manipulating an understanding from everything like artifacts to all the way up to monuments and landscapes.
“This technology is allowing taking heritage to people in a way that we have not managed to do in the past.”
He further spoke about how with this project it will be possible to create a “historic environment record” and in developing counties it will eventually be able to provide contextual information to sites and monuments, allowing them to be put back into the setting in which they were originally found.
Under their ambitious project, thousands of photographs will be used to reconstruct the sites in 3D. Using computer software, researchers and other visitors will be able to take a virtual tour around the reconstructed buildings.
Notably, the project’s findings could be used to restore devastated sites like the ancient Aramaic city of Palmyra in Syria and the medieval walled city of Dubrovnik in Croatia.Close video Nunes muddies Trump probe with abrupt claim of new evidence Rachel Maddow explains a confusing pair of press conferences by House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes, in which Nunes asserted some new evidence in the investigation into whether the Donald Trump campaign coordinated with Russia in the 2016… share tweet email save Embed
In other words, Trump was “vindicated” to the extent that the president got literally every detail wrong.
I mention all of this because it’s emblematic of a leader who continues to struggle, in alarming ways, to separate fact from fiction. If you haven’t read Trump’s
He started by arguing that Hillary Clinton’s emails were on Anthony Weiner’s laptop, the Democratic primary race was “rigged against Bernie Sanders,” and that he was “totally right” about Brexit. All three of these claims are plainly and demonstrably wrong.
Trump went on to say his conspiracy theory about Barack Obama conducting illegal surveillance of him has merit because, “I have articles saying it happened.” He does not actually have articles saying it happened.
This exchange soon followed: Donald Trump told reporters yesterday he felt “somewhat” vindicated about his wiretap conspiracy theory following the bizarre press conferences yesterday from House Intelligence Committee Chairman David Nunes (R-Calif.). The president then turned to Twitter to promote messages saying how right he was.This was an odd reaction. There’s more to this story than the specific details in the president’s tweets, but the fact remains that when he was making the case for his conspiracy theory, Trump said he was personally targeted, and Nunes said the opposite. He said the surveillance was illegal, and Nunes said the opposite. He said Obama was personally involved, and Nunes said the opposite. He said the surveillance was before the election, and Nunes said the opposite. He said this was all part of a campaign-related scheme, and Nunes said the opposite.In other words, Trump was “vindicated” to the extent that the president got literally every detail wrong.I mention all of this because it’s emblematic of a leader who continues to struggle, in alarming ways, to separate fact from fiction. If you haven’t read Trump’s newly published interview with Time magazine’s Michael Scherer, it’s well worth your time. The questions about the president’s awareness of reality and appreciation of objective truths are only going to grow louder as a result of some of his more ridiculous comments.He started by arguing that Hillary Clinton’s emails were on Anthony Weiner’s laptop, the Democratic primary race was “rigged against Bernie Sanders,” and that he was “totally right” about Brexit. All three of these claims are plainly and demonstrably wrong.Trump went on to say his conspiracy theory about Barack Obama conducting illegal surveillance of him has merit because, “I have articles saying it happened.” He does not actually have articles saying it happened.This exchange soon followed:
TIME: One of my ideas here is that throughout the campaign and now as president, you have used disputed statements, this is one of them that is disputed, the claim that three million undocumented people voted in the election…
TRUMP: Well I think I will be proved right about that too.
TIME: The claim that Muslims celebrated on 9-11 in New Jersey…
TRUMP: Well if you look at the reporter, he wrote the story in the Washington Post.Please enable Javascript to watch this video
NEW YORK — A decision by Mayor Bill de Blasio that some believe is him once again putting politics ahead of the city has many questioning his sudden trip to Germany.
"This goes to the core of who the mayor is. We are looking for a leader who has the right type of judgement at all times especially in these types of situations," says Mike Paul, a crisis communications specialist.
This week, the city has had to endure an uptick in challenges with the city's transit system, the swearing in of a new NYPD class of recruits and of course the cold-blooded assassination of an NYPD officer, Miosotis Familia, mother of three.
This said, the mayor opted to bolt from the city on Thursday for Hamburg and the G20 conference of world leaders.
"We're talking about political judgement here," says Paul who has handled crisis communications in political as well as corporate circles.
Paul went on to highlight that all of this playing out in an election year, "It's a reelection contest going on right now for this sitting mayor and he knows that people have a problem not only with his optics but with his judgement on other things."
However, in the mayor's own backyard along 11th Street in Park Slope, the opinion of his German junket was mixed. His former neighbor Ed Levy offered the following assessment.
"I think that it is very important that someone unlike Donald Trump represents the United States over in Germany."
While another neighborhood resident Sal Mano offered a different perspective, "I think he should walk up and down 7th Avenue and take a look at what is going on up here in Park Slope where he is from and take care of the business at hand here."
Sal Lifrieri, a former Director of Security and Intelligence Operations under Mayor Rudy Giuliani, shared with PIX11 News in front of City Hall, his shock at the mayor making it known to the world that his son, Dante, was spending his summer in Germany for an internship.
The reason for the dismay? Usually children are view as high risk potential targets and it is for this reason they routinely kept out of the limelight.
Lifrieri's take? "This definitely poses a greater risk and I'm sure that the advice that the NYPD intelligence division would have been to not make that announcement to the public."Share
These are bold claims, and as the great cosmologist and astrophysicist Carl Sagan once said, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” With that in mind, we thought it’d be helpful to break down what we know about the enigmatic EmDrive, and whether it is, in fact, the key to mankind exploring the stars.
So without further ado, here’s absolutely everything you need to know about the world’s most puzzling propulsion device.
This article is periodically updated in response to news and developments regarding the EM Drive and the theories surrounding it.
A new, leaked NASA paper points to potentially working EmDrive
A leaked NASA paper obtained by the International Business Times via a post by a user on the NASA Spaceflight forums. The post was originally deleted by the forum’s moderators, however, the document has since been posted and remains currently viewable here. The paper is ostensibly the same that was discussed earlier in the year (reported below). The information in the paper clearly points to a working version of the EmDrive, and while it’s yet to be published, it is still set to run in the Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ scientific journal, AIAA Journal of Propulsion and Power.
As discussed below, this is a massive step forward for the EmDrive and for those who believe in the theoretical technology. If the paper on NASA’s findings does in fact pass muster and see the light of day — which seems very likely — it’ll be a boon for further research and development of the EmDrive tech. This would open the door for continued study and tests, and may finally put humans on the road to fast, lightweight space travel.
An EmDrive paper has finally been accepted by peer review
Originally, this article pointed out that previous studies and papers on the EmDrive have either not been submitted, or passed peer review. Those days are in the past, however, given a NASA Eagleworks’ paper on the EmDrive test which has reportedly passed the peer review process and will soon be published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ AIAA Journal of Propulsion and Power.
This is an important step for the EmDrive as it adds legitimacy to the technology and the tests done thus far, opening the door for other groups to replicate the tests. This will also allow other groups to devote more resources to uncovering why and how it works, and how to iterate on the drive to make it a viable form of propulsion. So, while a single peer-reviewed paper isn’t going to suddenly equip the human race with interplanetary travel, it’s the first step toward eventually realizing that possible future.
What is the EmDrive?
Simply put, the EmDrive is a conundrum. First designed in 2001 by aerospace engineer Roger Shawyer, the technology can be summed up as a propellantless propulsion system, meaning the engine doesn’t use fuel to cause a reaction. Removing the need for fuel makes a craft substantially lighter, and therefore easier to move (and cheaper to make, theoretically). In addition, the hypothetical drive is able to reach extremely high speeds — we’re talking potentially getting humans to the outer reaches of the solar system in a matter of months.
We’re talking potentially getting humans to the outer reaches of the solar system in a matter of months.
The issue is, the entire concept of a reactionless drive is inconsistent with Newton’s conservation of momentum, which states that within a closed system, linear and angular momentum remain constant regardless of any changes that take place within said system. More plainly: Unless an outside force is applied, an object will not move.
Reactionless drives are named as such because they lack the “reaction” defined in Newton’s third law: “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” But this goes against our current fundamental understanding of physics: An action (propulsion of a craft) taking place without a reaction (ignition of fuel and expulsion of mass) should be impossible. For such a thing to occur, it would mean an as-yet-undefined phenomenon is taking place — or our understanding of physics is completely wrong.
How does the EmDrive “work?”
Setting aside the potentially physics-breaking improbabilities of the technology, let’s break down in simple terms how the proposed drive operates. The EmDrive is what is called an RF resonant cavity thruster, and is one of several hypothetical machines that use this model. These designs work by having a magnetron push microwaves into a closed truncated cone, then push against the short end of the cone, and propel the craft forward.
This is in contrast to the form of propulsion current spacecraft use, which burn large quantities of fuel to expel a massive amount of energy and mass to rocket the craft into the air. An often-used metaphor for the inefficacy of this is to compare the particles pushing against the enclosure and producing thrust to the act of sitting in a car and pushing a steering wheel to move the car forward.
While tests have been done on experimental versions of the drive — with low energy inputs resulting in a few micronewtons of thrust (about as much force as the weight of a penny) — The first peer-reviewed paper has only been recently accepted, and none of the findings from other tests have ever been published in a peer-reviewed journal. It’s possible some positive thrust results may have been caused by interference or an unaccounted error with test equipment. The fact that NASA Eagleworks’ paper has been reportedly accepted by peer review and will be published in AIAA Journal of Propulsion and Power does add quite a bit of legitimacy to these claims, however.
Although there’s been much skepticism regarding the EmDrive prior to the Eagleworks paper, it’s important to note that there’s been a number of people who have tested the drive and reported achieving thrust.
In 2001, Shawyer was given a £45,000 grant from the British government to test the EmDrive. His test reportedly achieved 0.016 Newtons of force and required 850 watts of power, but no peer review of the tests verified this. It’s worth noting, however, that this number was low enough that it was potentially an experimental error.
In 2008, Yang Juan and a team of Chinese researches at the Northwestern Polytechnical University allegedly verified the theory behind RF resonant cavity thrusters, and subsequently built their own version in 2010, testing the drive multiple times from 2012 to 2014. Tests results were purportedly positive, achieving up yo 750 mN (millinewtons) of thrust, and requiring 2,500 watts of power.
In 2014, NASA researchers, tested their own version of an EmDrive, including in a hard vacuum. Once again, the group reported thrust (about 1/1,000 of Shawyer’s claims), and once again, the data was never published through peer-reviewed sources. Other NASA groups are skeptical of researchers’ claims, but in their paper, it is clearly stated that these findings neither confirm nor refute the drive, instead calling for further tests.
In 2015, that same NASA group tested a version of chemical engineer Guido Fetta’s Cannae Drive (née Q Drive), and reported positive net thrust. Similarly, a research group at Dresden University of Technology also tested the drive, again reporting thrust, both predicted and unexpected.
Yet another test by a NASA research group, Eagleworks, in late 2015 seemingly confirmed the validity of the EmDrive. The test corrected errors that had occurred in the previous tests, and surprisingly, the drive achieved thrust. However, the group has not yet submitted their findings for peer review. It’s possible that other unforeseen errors in the experiment may have cause thrust (the most likely of which is that the vacuum was compromised, causing heat to expand air within it testing environment and move the drive). Whether the findings are ultimately published or not, more tests need to be done. That’s exactly what Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory intend to do. For EmDrive believers, there seems to be some hope.
In mid-2016, a new theory was put forth by physicist Michael McCulloch, a researcher from Plymouth University in the United Kingdom, which may offer an explanation of the thrust observed in tests. McCulloch’s theory deals with inertia and something called the Unruh effect — a concept predicted by relativity, which makes the universe appear hotter the more you accelerate, with the heat observed relative to the acceleration.
McCulloch’s new theory deals with the unconfirmed concept of Unruh radiation, which infers that particles form out of the vacuum of space as a direct result from the observed heating of the universe due to acceleration. This theoretical concept largely fits into our current understanding of the universe and predicts the results of inertia we currently observe, albeit with one notable exception: small accelerations on the scale of about what has been observed while testing the EM Drive.
This acceleration comes as a result of the Unruh radiation particles, whose wavelengths increase as acceleration decreases. Unruh particles at different wavelengths would have to fit at either end of the EM Drive’s cone, and as they bounce around inside the cone, their inertia would change as well, which would ultimately result in thrust.
McCulloch’s theory is, admittedly, a bit difficult to parlay into succinct layman’s terms. If you’re curious and want to delve into further reading on the theory, you can read McCulloch’s entire paper discussing his theory here. The point here is that, should the Unruh Effect and Unruh Radiation be confirmed, it offers an entirely plausible explanation for the EM Drive’s seemingly heretofore impossible thrust observations. This will require further research and experimentation, and gives the propulsion system even more momentum for testing.
Implications of a working EmDrive
It’s easy to see how many in the scientific community are wary of EmDrive and RF resonant cavity thrusts altogether. But on the other hand, the wealth of studies raises a few questions: Why is there such a interest in the technology, and why do so many people wish to test it? What exactly are the claims being made about the drive that make it such an attractive idea? While everything from atmospheric temperature-controlling satellites, to safer and more efficient |
RC: · None tracking CAP: · None Equitable Growth: · None *Saturday Feb 28: Eryn returns (back in comms around 1 pm; back in DC 8 pm)* Personal: · Mattie Bekink: 10 am @ Brandywine HRC: · None tracking CAP: · None Equitable Growth: · None *Other Unscheduled for Feb 23 - 28* Personal: · *Mike Berman* (Eryn reached out re: Tues, Thurs, or Fri; advised him to email you if she can’t land a time before leaving) Mike’s Contacts: mberman@dubersteingroup.com; Home: (202) 342-9553 · *Harold Ickes* (Eryn reached out re: Tues, Thurs, or Fri; advised him to email you if she can’t land a time before leaving. Harold’s Contacts: hickes@ickesenright.com; Cell: (202) 997-1893) · Follow Up Call with *Scott Nathan* (Eryn has not reached out—please do so at scott.nathan@gmail.com) · Follow Up Call with *Chris Kirchhoff* on Winnefeld Memo: Chris is out of the country will not be back in comms until Mon 2/23. He can be reached at Cell: 202-321-4883; office: 202-456-9293; Christopher_M_Kirchhoff@nsc.eop.gov HRC: · Dinner follow-up meeting with *Lee Saunders *(Eryn reached out re: Tues, Thurs, or Fri; advised him to email you if she can’t land a time before leaving) Saunders Contact: lsaunders@afscme.org; Asst Renee: RBarnes@afscme.org; (202) 429-1266 CAP: · Meeting with *Pete Ogden* (Eryn reached out—he’s at pogden@americanprogress.org) *Next Week Preview: Feb 23 – 28* Personal: · Mon Mar 2, 8 am: Breakfast with Jim Cicconi @ Sofitel · Tues Mar 3, 11 am: Tech CEOs @ Hay Adams (Bruce Melman) HRC: · Weds Mar 4: Weekly Earned Media Call · Thurs Mar 5: NYC— o 10-11 am: Gender Research w/Sheryl Sandberg o 11 am – 2 pm: Main Meeting CAP: · None Equitable Growth: · None *OTHER MARCH UPCOMING:* - GULC Spring Break: No class March 9th - San Fran Trip with Heather: Mon Mar 9 – Tues Mar 10 - Accepted Invitation: NRDC Board Keynote from Rhea Suh Weds Mar 11, Dinner timeframe Santa Monica, CA - Run with Stephanie Tatar (Not set—she is visiting March 10 – 14; stephanietatar@gmail.com) - Mike Boots’ LCV Farewell Party – March 13th TBD *Post Transition Catch-up List:* *Alphabetical Order, for those who did not specify dates* - Madeleine Albright - Nancy Bowen (nhbowen@gmail.com) - Mayor Alvin Brown (wants to catch up before election in March. Will travel to DC) - Put off: Tim Drake (Former GULC ’14 student: t.w.drakex@gmail.com ) - Stan Greenberg - Susan Kleinberg - Gara LaMarche - Dan Lubetzky (KIND healthy snacks, via Erskine; asst: Avery Feldman AFeldman@kindsnacks.com) - Charles Harned – WHO / NEC Knox Intern (during March) - *CAP Catch up requests:* o Tony Carrk o Michael Werz & Christine Parthemore – Food Security War Game briefing in February *HRC Related:* - *Dennis Mehiel* (via Manatos) - *Ruth Goldway *(via Mary’s Book Club) Cell: 202-251-4167; Gmail: ruthgoldway@gmail.com - *R. Scott Pastrick* (Would like to be helpful with HRC) - *Glen Fukushima* *Transition / Organization Requests:* - *Moniz* – SEAB (Still need to turn down? - *NEW: Dave Chen*—likely asking you to rejoin board of EQ CAP *PERSONAL/MEDICAL:* -Exit Appt. with *Dan Baumstark *(Scheduled for Weds Feb 25 at 1:30 pm) -Pending: *Dr. Stearn* for March (Not yet scheduled) -Next *Dr. Iadarola* Visit: Thurs 4/16 at 9 am *DATE SPECIFIC:* *NEW: TBD: Dr. Funabashi in DC* Dr Funabashi via Jake Sullivan – More information to follow via email (Note from Eryn: Literally, I just got looped into an email chain that mentioned he’s coming to town, but nothing more) *Accepted: Invitation: Daschle Staff Reunion* Thurs Mar 19, 6-10 pm Guarisco Art Gallery (next to the Ritz Carlton entrance) 1150 22nd Street NW, Washington, DC *Accepted: White House Correspondents’ Dinner * *When: *Sat April 25 Accepted Invitation: WSJ Laura Meckler & Jerry Seib *Unofficial Invitation: Democracy Alliance 10th Anniversary Conference* Via: Gara LaMarche (glamarche@democracyalliance.org) When: Apr 12 – 15 Where: San Francisco Conflicts: Cherry Blossom 10 Miler Apr 12 *NEW: Unofficial Invitation via Tony Podesta: Carnegie Endowment Event* When: Apr 13 – 14 Where: Washington DC Conflicts: DA, potentially, but nothing hard yet Topic: US/India strategic relationship Keynote, Fireside, or Panel Formal letter to come, if you’re interested – Tony says David Kisnet would help with your speech if you want. *Invitation: EQ-Cap Investors Forum* Via: Dave Chen When: Tues June 23 Where: San Francisco Style: Panel with TBD on topic of climate & carbon. *DATE UNSPECIFIC:* *Annual White House Fellows talk with Judge Leon* *POC: *Jenn Paolino *POST-TRANSITION MEDIA:* · *NEW: Connie Bruck (New Yorker)* Profile on Sen. Feinstein Deadline: Mid-March Gist: “The piece is one of those endless, 10,000-word New Yorker profiles. So I'm interested in any experiences with Senator Feinstein that John has had, going back to his Clinton years and, of course, his last year with President Obama. He could speak on the record or on background, as he prefers.” *Awaiting their next outreach* · Mara Liasson (re: HRC) · Julie Pace *CAP Flags/FYIs/Scheduling requests:* - *NEW: Amb Hans Dahlgren* Dates: March 12 - 14 Topic: His visit is partly connected to the planned visit of Prime Minister Lofven later in March. - *Ashraf Ghani* Visit to Washington *March 2nd/3rd*: Pending: Melanne Verveer Answer – *Note: She will reply to your gmail* - *NEW: CAP Women’s Empowerment Event (via Molly Elgin-Cossart)* *Panel Request *(either as introer or as panelist) Aiming to host an event at CAP that connects post-2015 with the Beijing +20 celebrations, with a focus on the areas that were left out of the MDGs, especially economic empowerment and freedom from violence/peace and security. *Date:* Thursday March 5th, most likely in the morning - *China Trip March 29th – April 3rd*: *They may ask you to join.* According to Vikram’s team: “We’ve conducted a series of videocalls and the joint dialogue with CUSEF this year is U.S. – China vis-a-vis Middle East, some interesting conversations happening – Energy consumption/oil markets; joint collaboration on Egypt and Extremism in the Middle East; New Silk Road initiatives, etc.” *Current Manifest*: Neera, Tom Donilon (need to reconfirm, but on board), Brian Katulis, Rudy, Vikram, Dorothy Dwoskin from Microsoft, Melanie Hart *Calendar Conflicts:* None yet – if you go, Eryn should cancel Dr. Iadarola Option 1 (Thurs Apr 2) - *CAP Food Security War Game Nov 5-8* (Two weeks before COP Paris) *Via Michael Werz *in your gmail - *Global Infrastructure Initiative* Nov 18-20 San Francisco They’ve only sent a save the date but would like you to be a panelist. Conference Theme: Explore the disruptive new delivery models resulting from innovation and technology in infrastructureSorry I’ve been away from writing the last 2 weeks. There has been a whole lot going on in my life. The podcast has been a big focus, but I’ve also been adjusting to my SSRI’s being screwed with. I was supposed to ween myself off of them, which I did - but the withdrawal symptoms were horrible and I had to go back on them. That’s another story entirely, but onto my topic at the moment…
What is wrong with people?
I just don’t get it. I came across that review and several similar ones when I started playing around with appetite supressants. Turns out the Hydroxycut Gummies do work pretty well if you use them as directed. That is, you chew 2 of them about a half hour before you eat, and drink plenty of water.
I’m not entirely sure what I was expecting when I went to look at the reviews, but something in my head sorta snapped when I see someone write “I still had to do the work!”
I’ve always viewed an appetite suppressant as helping to take the edge of off restricting calories, not an end-all solution. This mentality that you can just take X or Y and not put in the work doesn’t compute, and I think it’s because I’ve already crossed the threshold of making the needed changes in my lifestyle to sustain my health. I’m just using this sort of thing to help the process along.
Part of becoming an adult was dealing with the difficult realization that just about everything in life worth doing is hard work. It’s not going to come easy. Just leaves me scratching my head as to how one goes through life expecting anything else. If magical pill-popping solutions worked, we wouldn’t have an obesity epidemic to begin with.
Discuss this post on reddit.A British Airways flight packed with holidaymakers on their way from Gatwick to Crete had to make an emergency landing after the smell of “cannabis” filled the plane.
Flight BA2552 had to return to Gatwick after around an hour-and-a-half because of the pungent stench.
@British_Airways flight to heraklion turned back after nasty smell. Disappointed holidaymakers, chance to excel with rapid turnaround? — Simon Skinner (@firstlight40) July 21, 2016
After a diversion over Paris, the plane was sent back to London where the 174 travellers on board had an hour-long wait for a replacement flight on Thursday morning, The Sun reported.
Fire crews were also sent on board to investigate the overpowering odour.
Hundreds of other travellers stuck in Crete by the ensuing disruption faced delays of up to six hours.
A British Airways spokeswoman said no evidence of cannabis or anybody smoking cannabis was found on board.
She added: “Our pilot returned the aircraft to Gatwick as a precaution following reports of an unidentified strong smell in the cabin.In an explosive interview with WKQI-FM's (95.5) "Mojo in the Morning" show today, Eminem's ex-wife Kim Mathers flipped the tables on Em and cleaned out her closet live on the air for all to hear."I can't stand him. He's an absolutely horrible person, and he gets worse every day," Mathers said. "I vomit in my mouth whenever I'm around him or I hear his name. There's nothing left in me for him. Nothing at all."She categorized sex with her twice ex-husband as "bad," and said "he's not very well endowed." She added, "If you're going to have sex with Marshall, make sure you have a little blue pill, because otherwise it does not work."Mathers said Em text-messaged her on Thursday when he heard she was going to appear on the "Mojo in the Morning" show and blasted her for going on the air.The two were first married in 1999 and divorced several years later. They remarried in January 2006 at Rochester's Meadow Brook Hall, and Em filed for divorce in April of last year.A call to Eminem's Interscope Records publicist was not immediately returned.Reporter Glenn Greenwald's partner was detained at London's Heathrow airport for nine hours. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu, File)
Glenn Greenwald's partner detained at Heathrow airport for nine hours. The Guardian reports UK authorities used a terrorism investigation law to detain journalist Glenn Greenwald's partner in Long's Heathrow airport: "The 28-year-old was held for nine hours, the maximum the law allows before officers must release or formally arrest the individual. According to official figures, most examinations under Dschedule 7 – over 97 percent – last less than an hour, and only one in 2,000 people detained are kept for more than six hours."
Wikileaks just released a massive 'insurance' file that no one can open. Business Insider reports: "The group, which has been assisting ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden after he leaked top-secret documents to the media, posted links for about 400 gigabytes of files on their Facebook page Saturday, and asked their fans to download and mirror them elsewhere [...] You can download the files via torrent but since they are encrypted — and [since] Wikileaks has not yet provided the key — you won't be able to open them."
Did the NSA director mislead hackers about NSA compliance problems? NSA Director Gen. Keith B. Alexander told a room full of hackers " at the Black Hat conference in July that Congressional review "found no one at NSA had ever gone outside the boundaries" of the law. But the internal audit reported by The Post last week contradicted the claim that there were no compliance problems at the Agency, and it appears that said audit never made it into the hands of Congress.
Germany recognizes Bitcoin as a “private money,” subject to capital gains tax. Ars Technica reports, "In response to a query by a member of parliament, the German Finance Ministry has declared (Google Translate) that it accepts bitcoins as a “unit of account.” The Ministry added that bitcoins are a sort of “private money” and that mining bitcoins constitutes “private money creation.” It also said it is subject to capital gains taxes, but taxpayers are exempt from that taxes on bitcoins if holding them for more than a year.
Why drone makers have declared war on the word drone. Our own Brian Fung explains the furor over terminology in the drone industry: " The drone industry — sorry, the unmanned aerial systems industry — is in the midst of a massive rebranding campaign. For most Americans today, the word “drone” conjures images of lethal spy planes raining missiles down on targets in foreign theaters of war. But that perception doesn’t bode well for a burgeoning set of drone companies looking to shake up the civil aviation sector."Please enable Javascript to watch this video
OKLAHOMA CITY - “Misogynistic,” “sexist,” “deeply prejudicial” and “irresponsible” are labels given to some of the bills set to be heard by the 2017 legislature.
“They have the power right now to put an end to this. They can say that they will not entertain, not give an audience to any piece of bigoted, discriminatory or prejudicial legislation,” said Ryan Kiesel with ACLU of Oklahoma.
ACLU Oklahoma and other civil rights activists are specifically calling on lawmakers to drop their proposals.
They said those proposals are an attack on women and their right to have an abortion.
“I think, anytime that you take away a woman's autonomy and say that she is incapable of making the most basic and fundamental decisions about herself and her reproductive health and her reproductive freedom, that's misogynistic,” Kiesel said.
One of those bills comes from Senator Joseph Silk.
He wants doctors who perform abortions to be charged with first-degree murder.
“Just like if you killed a 1-year-old child, it’s murder. It’s first-degree murder. It should be the same as unborn child, as well,” he said.
Despite many past failed attempts to restrict abortion, Silk said it's up to lawmakers to continue trying.
“We're talking about the same Supreme Court that once ruled that slavery was okay, and they were wrong then. They're wrong again," Silk said. "And, so, it's the lawmaker's job to push the issue and make them overturn that."
Pro-choice supporters we spoke with said Silk's abortion bill is too harsh.
“I think it's very extreme. I think it should be the mother's choice. It's her body. I'm very pro-choice,” said Landis Byerly.
Even pro-life supporters are saying the bill might be pushing it.
“It's kind of a hard stance, but I am for pro-life. I believe life begins at conception. But, I'm also for women's rights, too,” said Kevin Freels.
And, the ACLU argues, in many cases, the proposals get signed into law and then head straight to the Supreme Court.
The high court rules the measures unconstitutional and taxpayers are left holding the bill.A year after it screened a film that Inuit panned as a proliferation of negative stereotypes, a Montreal film festival has issued an apology.
In a news release issued Thursday, organizers of the Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM) apologized "for having presented a film with a colonial perspective that perpetuates racist stereotypes."
The film in question, of the North, is a 74-minute collage film about modern day life in Northern Canada, was screened at the festival last November.
A group of musicians says the mid-festival apology follows pressure they put on RIDM through a boycott and jointly signed letter Nov. 16.
One of the musicians scheduled to perform at an RIDM event Thursday night, Meghan Sivani-Merrigan, decided instead to perform at another event in solidarity with marginalized groups that "deal with systemic racism everyday."
The original version of director Dominic Gagnon's film was made up of publicly available clips drawn from the Internet, mixing images of snow, Ski-Doos and hunting with clips of Inuit appearing drunk, crashing ATVs and vomiting.
Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq took the festival to task for showing the film, which she called "painful and racist."
She also said her music was used in the film without her consent. It was later taken out.
Sivani-Merrigan suggests that RIDM is "trying to up their programming" by including people of mixed backgrounds. She wants the film festival to be more transparent about why it apologized — which she says is because she and the other musicians pressured organizers.
Musicians read their letter to RIDM on-stage at an event Thursday. From left to right: Helen Hayward-Cube, Meghan Sivani-Merrigan, Isabella Rose-Weetaluktuk. (courtesy Meghan Sivani-Merrigan)
Further condemnation
The festival organized a panel discussion last week entitled "Indigenous Videographers Shoot Back," and invited Mohawk, Ojibwa, Abenaki and Inuit filmmakers, journalists and academics.
The speakers unanimously condemned the film and the festival for screening it, prompting organizers to apologize.
Charlotte Selb, who was the festival's programming director at the time and who stood behind the decision to screen the film, added her name to the apology.
Organizers say they will "take steps to improve its consideration of problematic points of view during the festival's curation."
Earlier this year, the film's distributor apologized to the Inuit community.The Tennessee Titans are not backing down from Donald Trump or anyone who wants to criticize them for protesting during the national anthem.
With some fans threatening to boycott games, Titans tight end Delanie Walker has a suggestion: If you don't want to show up, don't.
Related: Titans' Matthews to kneel for anthem until 'the president apologizes'
Walker said Wednesday that fans have "freedom of choice," and that most who are upset don't understand what the protests are about.
"First off, I’m going to say this: We’re not disrespecting the military, the men and women that serve in the Army. That’s not what it’s all about," Walker told Jason Wolf of The Tennessean. "If you look at most of the guys in here - I've been in the USO. I support the troops. This is not about that. It's about equal rights, and that’s all everyone is trying to show, is that we all care about each other.
"And the fans that don’t want to come to the game? I mean, OK. Bye. I mean, if you feel that’s something, we’re disrespecting you, don’t come to the game. You don’t have to. No one’s telling you to come to the game. It’s your freedom of choice to do that."
Walker took to Twitter after Wolf's article was published to back up what he said earlier in the day.
Y’all mad?? — Delanie walker (@delaniewalker82) September 27, 2017
This is why I love real TENNESSEE TITANS fans — Delanie walker (@delaniewalker82) September 28, 2017
The Titans did not take the field last Sunday for the anthem, staying in the locker room instead before walking out onto the turf with their arms linked. The team has not announced its plans regarding the anthem this coming weekend.KENDRAPRA, ODISHA: A 15-year-old Dalit boy was allegedly tortured in custody in front of his father in Odisha's Kendrapara district earlier this week leading to the ordering of a departmental inquiry into the incident.
Official sources today said State Human Rights Commission has also sought a detailed report on the incident following the outrage among the people and demands for punishment of the concerned police officer.
Fifteen-year-old Ranjan Jena of Rajagada village, a standard nine student of a government high school, was summoned to Rajnagar police station for allegedly playing on the road with his friends on Monday.
He was allegedly made to do sit-ups and then beaten up in front of his father and other villagers inside the police station by a police officer.
The boy was later hospitalised.
His father Gopinath said the boy was 'beaten black and blue' inside the police station. "My son is physically and mentally hurt."
Local police, however, said the boy was a perpetual mischief monger and to discipline him he was asked to do the sit-ups.
Kendrapara superintendent of police Sarthak Sadangi said allegations regarding police excesses were being looked into and disciplinary proceedings would be initiated against the accused official in the event of the inquiry finding him guilty.So far, 2016 is turning out to be a year of significant change in East Bay journalism. On March 1, the Bay Area News Group announced that, effective April 5, the Oakland Tribune will become a weekly paper, and the daily newspapers, the Contra Costa Times and the Tribune, will be rebranded as the East Bay Times. In addition, on April 1, longtime San Francisco Chronicle East Bay columnist Chip Johnson will be leaving the paper; he said he plans to move back home to Ohio. And finally, I'm leaving the Express on March 24 after eleven and a half years as a staff writer and editor. This is my final column for the paper.
I've been a fan and reader of the Express since I moved to Berkeley in 1979. And I've had a great ride at the paper since I was hired as a reporter in August 2004. When I arrived, after having worked as a staff writer at the Oakland Tribune for six years, the Express was still owned by the alt-weekly newspaper chain, New Times, which later became known as Village Voice Media (VVM). It's common in the newspaper business to demonize corporate media, but I liked working for New Times and VVM. Yes, the company was large and, at times, a bit impersonal, but it was dedicated to investigative journalism and invested heavily in it. Plus, it took a hands-off approach to the Express. Never once did corporate managers attempt to steer our news coverage or tell me or my fellow reporters to lay off controversial stories.
In fact, my first cover story at the Express was one that the Tribune declined to publish, apparently out of fear of angering the owner of an Oakland icon: Fentons Creamery on Piedmont Avenue. My piece, "Fire & Ice Cream" (9/22/04), revealed the dark and disturbing story behind the 2001 blaze that gutted Fentons. Then-Express editor Stephen Buel had recruited me to come work at the paper a few months earlier and was ecstatic that I arrived with a cover story in hand. I have never regretted my choice to join the Express.
I'm very proud of the paper's staff today, but back in the early and mid Aughts, the Express was much larger and was stacked with outstanding journalists. My fellow reporters included Chris Thompson, the best long-form writer I've ever worked with; Will Harper, a viciously funny columnist and terrific workmate; Justin Berton, a master of the long-form narrative who taught me how to craft a cover story; and Kara Platoni, a great reporter and colleague who now teaches at the UC Berkeley School of Journalism. Our managing editor at the time was Michael Mechanic (now at Mother Jones magazine), and the editorial staff included food editor Jonathan Kauffman (now of the Chronicle); music editor Rob Harvilla; and staffers Kelly Vance (still the Express film critic), Eric K. Arnold, Stefanie Kalem, Nora Sohnen, Vicky Walker, Mark Gartland, and Justin Page.
One of the stories that I'm proudest of from this period was an in-depth piece on Chris Gafford, an innocent man who was wrongly accused of being the East Bay sniper (see "At Large," 1/12/05). And, of course, I spent much of the Aughts investigating the shady deals of then-State Senator Don Perata, who lived in Oakland and was one of the most powerful politicians in California.
A two-part series of investigative features that I wrote on Perata in 2007 (see "Living Large" 5/23/07) were among the first cover stories printed by the Express after it went independent. In May 2007, a group of investors, including Buel, Hal Brody, and Jay Youngdahl (who is now the majority owner of the paper and its president), purchased the Express from VVM. (I should note that working for an independent Express was even more fun than under VVM.) Over the next few years, some of my favorite pieces included "The Buses from Hell" (01/23/08), an in-depth series on AC Transit, and the environmental stories "You're Not an Environmentalist If You're Also a NIMBY" (7/1/09) and "Sierra Water Grab" (4/29/09). And then, of course, when Perata ran for mayor of Oakland, I penned the polemic, "25 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Vote for Don Perata" (10/13/10). It worked.
In December 2010, I became co-editor of the Express with Kathleen Richards, the best all-around journalist I've ever worked with (she's now an editor at the Stranger). Over the next few years, I got to work with and edit two of the finest writers I've ever known: Rachel Swan (who is now at the Chronicle) and Ellen Cushing (now at BuzzFeed). I also got to edit super reporter Sam Levin (now at the Guardian US).
During this period, I also was fortunate to become the voice of the Express through my weekly column Seven Days. And although it may be immodest, I think there's an argument to be made that the Express became the voice of Oakland and other East Bay cities. In 2012, 76 percent of the candidates and measures that we endorsed won, and in 2014, that number rose to 83 percent. No other publication came anywhere close to our record.
After Jay Youngdahl promoted me to editor of the paper in June 2014, I was fortunate to hire, edit, and work with an extremely talented and hard-working staff, including Levin, arts and culture editor Sarah Burke (who is becoming managing editor of the Express on March 25), music editors Sam Lefebvre and Nastia Voynovskaya, food editor Luke Tsai, photo editor Bert Johnson, investigative reporter Darwin BondGraham, and managing editor April Kilcrease (who is also leaving the Express on March 24). Some of my favorite stories from the past two years included Levin's "Racial Profiling Via Nextdoor.com" (10/7/15); Burke's "Will Oakland Lose Its Artistic Soul?" (2/7/16); Tsai's "Shell-Shocked" (1/14/15); and BondGraham's "Oakland's Toxic Failure" (11/11/15).
As co-editor and editor, I also got to work with some fantastic freelance journalists, including David Bacon, Alastair Bland, Momo Chang, David Downs, John Geluardi, Joaquin Palomino (now at the Chronicle), Will Parrish, Steven Tavares, Jean Tepperman, and Ali Winston (now at Reveal).
Other Express editorial staffers and freelancers that I was lucky to work with over the years include (in no particular order) Nate Seltenrich, John Birdsall, Lauren Gard, Anneli Rufus, Eliza Strickland, Stephen Loewinsohn, Azeen Ghorayshi, Lenika Cruz, Cassie McFadden, Will Butler, Madeleine Key, Linnea Due, John C. Osborn, Michelle Ellson, Erin Baldassari, Julian Mark, Kibby Kleiman, Zaineb Mohammed, Rin Kelly, and J. Douglas Allen-Taylor.
I also want to give a shout-out to some of the fabulous non-editorial staffers at the Express over the years, including Jody Colley, Ben Grambergu (who is leaving on March 25), Marie Ortega Haslam, Nick Wong, Justin Harris, Caitlin Albritton, Roxanne Pasibe, Bri Beaudoin, Israel Brown, and ex-staffers Brian Kelly, Annika Dukes, Jennifer Lindsay, Sonia Rude, Brent Ringwood, Terry Furry, and Kasper Koczab. (Apologies if I forgot anyone.)
If you've gotten this far, thanks for indulging my trip down memory lane. As I said, I've had a great ride at the Express. But it's time for me to embark on a new adventure. I'm not leaving East Bay journalism; I love Oakland and the rest of the East Bay far too much for that. To find out where I land next, follow me on Twitter at @RobertGammon.
The Express will announce the appointment of the paper's new editor in the weeks ahead.
Thanks, and thanks for reading.This is Niche Spotlight. In this column, we regularly introduce new games to our fans, so please leave feedback and let us know if there’s a game you want us to cover!
Indie developer Erik Vinclav is working on a new real-time strategy game that is sure to tickle the fancy of many old grognards such as myself. Titled simply Loria, the new RTS is built in the vein of the classics we saw during the heyday of the genre, in 2D with glorious sprites.
Inspired by the likes of Warcraft, Starcraft, Dune, and even Red Alert, the goal with Loria is to bring the best concepts from RTS classics and build them within a modern user-experience. This includes smooth controls, challenging AI, nice but reminiscent visuals, and lots of replayability.
Featured above, you can view a new trailer for the game. Loria will also reportedly bring with it RPG elements, like having quest driven missions, hero units, veteran units, and a focus on decision making that will change up how the story unfolds.
Here are the game’s planned features thus far:
2 Playable races (Humans, Chaos), each with a single-player campaign
, each with a single-player campaign Strong story-telling
Multiple environments (Summer, Winter, Dungeon, Chaos)
Hero leveling system
Quest oriented missions
Improved AI
Enhanced user controls
Loria has already been greenlit on Steam, and is currently seeking funds on Indiegogo to complete its development.
Right now there’s also a pretty meaty playable demo, which you can download here. Vinclav is planning on releasing the game for PC, Mac, and Linux sometime in January of next year.
If you’re a developer and want your game showcased on Niche Spotlight, please contact us!From a purely statistical viewpoint the first 18 games of Pavel Buchnevich's 20-year old KHL season have been very impressive. With six goals and 13 points to lead his Severstal team in scoring, Buchnevich is not that far short of early numbers posted by Evgeny Kuznetsov and Vladimir Tarasenko at the same age. It cannot be understated that they were on better teams, too.
But when you dig deeper and actually look at what Buchnevich has done on the ice so far this season, his start becomes even more tantalizing.
I've said all along that I felt his decision to stay in Russia this year was the correct one. Buchnevich looks confident, comfortable, and he is enjoying the consistency of big minutes and tough match-ups on a nightly basis. He thrives under pressure and has rewarded coaching staff for a big push this season.
His team-mates have certainly appreciated the effort too.
After seven games this season Buchnevich had just two points to his name, but it is important to give context to those numbers. Buchnevich was the best player on the ice through most of those games and his line consistently created chances, but a combination of near-misses, great saves and post hits kept him off the scoreboard. He just needed the dam to break.
And it did. Buchnevich netted a dazzling, highlight-reel goal against Metallurg Novokuznetsk in the first of back-to-back multi-point efforts. He managed to pick the top corner while falling over after being tripped up on the play, and then took a whack off the post for his troubles. His assist against Avtomobilist just 48 hours later was perhaps even better and he kicked on to post a four-game scoring streak through mid-September.
His assist against Avtomobilist is a great example of what Buchnevich is about when not in possession of the puck. He hassles and hurries opposing defenseman constantly and drives much of Severstal's offense through forced turnovers and takeaways behind the net and in the corners. He's tough to shift on the puck and hard to shake off it.
Something I feel has been key for Buchnevich is the consistency of skating alongside Severstal's experienced alternate captain Yuri Trubachyov. The pair have spent most of the last 18 months as line-mates with a revolving door of ever-changing options at left-wing. Trubachyov is a positive influence and will often be the first guy in to a celebratory scrum after a big Buchnevich play.
Save for a blank on September 22nd at Spartak, Buchnevich would go on to post at least a point in eight of his next nine games. His three game-winning goals this season already surpass his total for last year and there definitely seems to be less reluctance to pass the puck than we have seen from him in the past.
His habit of looking to force a pass has always been a frustrating one for someone with such a good shot, but Buchnevich is shooting the puck more often this year and scoring in a number of different ways. His one-timer on the power play against Avangard gave Buchnevich a first marker on the man advantage for over two years at KHL level; an indicator of Severstal's criminal misuse of him on the PP rather than anything else.
That shot placement, right?
Something that has not changed is Buchnevich's relentless pursuit of every puck battle. One thing that he stressed was important when deciding to stay in Russia this season was his need to get stronger as he did not feel he was adequately built for NHL competition at this stage. And he does look stronger. Much stronger.
Buchnevich has married that combination of body strength and puck skill better than I've seen from him at any point in the past. He goes in to a 50/50 battle and rarely comes out empty-handed. He puts a shift in defensively too, and though there are a couple of instances where he has been culpable for a goal against this year, his game has improved considerably inside his own blue line.
Severstal head coach Vaclav Sykora has entrusted the Buchnevich line with seeing out the final minute on a number of occasions already this season, be it while chasing a goal or holding a slim lead. That's an element of trust on the part of coaching staff that we had not always seen before and he has absolutely earned it.
It might not be ideal to see Buchnevich languished on a struggling roster, but people tend to forget that he is a Cherepovets kid born and bred. His game has developed entirely under the Severstal banner and he cares deeply for his hometown club. I'd like to see him get a realistic crack at KHL playoff success just as much as the next person, but I do feel he is in the right spot at the moment.
And hopefully he's on Broadway sooner than later.
Thoughts?LYLE, WASH. -- Standing on the cockeyed deck of Barge 202 gives you a full appreciation of the term "derelict vessel." Rust covers every inch. Metal flakes crunch underfoot. Huge slices of steel have vanished from the sides perilously close to the waterline, lost to an aborted scrap job.
As wind surfers dart by, big Columbia River breakers pound the ragged barge, splashing water into holds that are supposed to be dry.
In recent weeks, David Harris has grown familiar with this partially floating heap. Out of work as a construction contractor, he saw it listing near the Washington shore, grabbed his two-man canoe and 5-gallon bucket, climbed aboard and started bailing.
He's moved a barbecue, a mattress and an electric pump on board, living for days on |
of shoes are $20. Accessories are 40 percent off. Further markdowns will be taken Jan. 2, Quiles said.
For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here:Abstract In an attempt to improve behavioral memory, we devised a strategy to amplify the signal-to-noise ratio of the cAMP pathway, which plays a central role in hippocampal synaptic plasticity and behavioral memory. Multiple high-frequency trains of electrical stimulation induce long-lasting long-term potentiation, a form of synaptic strengthening in hippocampus that is greater in both magnitude and persistence than the short-lasting long-term potentiation generated by a single tetanic train. Studies using pharmacological inhibitors and genetic manipulations have shown that this difference in response depends on the activity of cAMP-dependent protein kinase A. Genetic studies have also indicated that protein kinase A and one of its target transcription factors, cAMP response element binding protein, are important in memory in vivo. These findings suggested that amplification of signals through the cAMP pathway might lower the threshold for generating long-lasting long-term potentiation and increase behavioral memory. We therefore examined the biochemical, physiological, and behavioral effects in mice of partial inhibition of a hippocampal cAMP phosphodiesterase. Concentrations of a type IV-specific phosphodiesterase inhibitor, rolipram, which had no significant effect on basal cAMP concentration, increased the cAMP response of hippocampal slices to stimulation with forskolin and induced persistent long-term potentiation in CA1 after a single tetanic train. In both young and aged mice, rolipram treatment before training increased long- but not short-term retention in freezing to context, a hippocampus-dependent memory task.
The second messenger, cAMP, and cAMP-dependent protein kinase A (PKA) have been implicated in short- and long-lasting synaptic plasticity in Aplysia and in short- and long-lasting behavioral learning in Aplysia and Drosophila (1, 2). Recently, convergent pharmacological and genetic evidence has also implicated the cAMP system in short-lasting long-term potentiation (LTP) at the mossy fiber–CA3 synapse of rodent hippocampus (3–6), and, strikingly, in the stronger longer-lasting intermediate and late phases of long-lasting LTP (L-LTP) that follow three to four trains of tetanic stimulation in all three hippocampal pathways: the perforant, the mossy fiber, and the Schaeffer collateral (CA3–CA1) (3, 7–14). LTP is a well studied example of synaptic plasticity in mammals, thought to be a candidate cellular mechanism for mediating some forms of explicit hippocampus-dependent memory (15, 16). L-LTP has been of particular interest in regard to this behavioral correlation, because it is much more persistent than the short-lasting long-term potentiation that follows a single tetanic train (7, 8, 9). L-LTP persists as long as it has been observed, up to 29 hr in vitro, and depends at later time points not only on PKA activity but also on transcription and translation (3, 6, 8, 9), much like behavioral long-term memory.
The dependence of L-LTP, in hippocampal slices and behavioral memory, on PKA activity suggests that increasing cAMP signaling might increase behavioral memory by raising the probability that long-lasting synaptic plasticity would occur after synaptic stimulation. However, administration of cAMP analogs such as Sp-cAMPS alone can cause long-lasting potentiation in rats that occludes subsequent electrical induction of L-LTP (11), suggesting that simply elevating cAMP throughout the hippocampus or brain might occlude rather than enhance synapse-specific strengthening. To avoid the possibility of such occlusion, we used low levels of phosphodiesterase (PDE) inhibition to maintain basal cAMP concentrations within the physiological range while selectively amplifying transient cAMP increases at active synapses.
Cyclic nucleotide PDEs are a large family of enzymes composed of at least 14 transcription units, many with alternately spliced isoforms (17). The PDEs have been grouped into seven families based on their regulation and substrate specificity, two of which, type IV and type VII, have cAMP as their nearly exclusive substrate. PDE inhibitors potentially can increase signaling through the cAMP system by inhibiting cAMP breakdown. Nonspecific PDE inhibitors, such as caffeine, have long been known to improve some behavioral performance in experimental animals (18, 19), although this appears to be caused by their antagonism of adenosine receptors or to their effects on intracellular Ca2+ stores. More recently, high doses of both nonspecific PDE inhibitors (papaverine, isobutylmethylxanthine) and type IV PDE-specific inhibitors (rolipram and Ro20–1724) have been found to improve memory in passive avoidance tasks in rodents when administered immediately, but not hours, after training (20, 21). These effects were postulated to be caused by increases in cAMP concentration in the brain, but neither their synaptic nor their biochemical basis was investigated.
MATERIALS AND METHODS Biochemistry. In each experiment, both hippocampi from a single C57\Bl6 mouse, male or female of 8–12 weeks of age, were dissected rapidly in iced oxygenated artificial cerebrospinal fluid (ACSF) consisting of (in mM): 124 NaCl/4.4 KCl/2.0 CaCl 2 /2.0 MgSO 4 /25 NaHCO 3 /1.0 Na 2 HPO 4 /10 glucose, sliced into 350-μm transverse sections on a tissue chopper, gradually warmed to 36.5°C in ACSF bubbled with 95% O 2 and 5% CO 2 and allowed to rest, submerged, for at least 1 hr. Slices were then transferred to oxygenated ACSF containing the indicated rolipram concentrations [in ACSF plus 0.1% dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO)] for 30 min. Duplicate samples then were incubated in 5 μM forskolin (at a final concentration of 0.11% DMSO) or in 0.11% DMSO for 15 min. Eight experiments were performed, and duplicate individual slices were assayed for each data point. cAMP concentrations were determined by RIA (DuPont/NEN) according to the manufacturer’s instructions. After a logarithmic transformation, the data were analyzed by ANOVA followed by a Neuman–Keul multiple comparisons test. Physiology. Hippocampi from 8- to 12-week-old male C57\Bl6 mice were dissected rapidly in iced oxygenated ACSF, sliced into 400-μm transverse sections on a tissue chopper and allowed to rest in an interface chamber for at least 1.5 hr at a flow of about 1 ml per min. A bipolar nickel stimulating electrode and a glass recording electrode were placed in the stratum radiatum of area CA1 to record field excitatory postsynaptic potential (fEPSP). An input–output curve was used to set the baseline fEPSP at 35–40% of maximal slope, and half an hour of baseline data was gathered to assure stability of the preparation. In different slices interleaved in one series, rolipram or vehicle was added (in final concentration of 0.1% DMSO) to perfusate slices after 30 min and was perfused for 1 hr. When LTP was generated, the stimulus, 100 Hz × 1 s, was given at the midpoint of the PDE inhibitor infusion or just before its addition. The experimenters were blind to the contents of the solutions. The data were analyzed by Student’s unpaired t test. Behavior. Rolipram is absorbed fully and rapidly after oral administration in several species, including rat and human, although there is wide variability in first-pass metabolism (22). Based on studies of rolipram pharmacokinetics after oral and i.v. administration in rat and other species (22), we chose s.c. administration to avoid first-pass metabolism and calculated that a dose of 0.1 μmol/kg rolipram would yield a concentration between 0.06 μM and 0.2 μM in brain 30 min after treatment, based on a half-life of 1–3 hr and the observation that cerebrospinal fluid concentration was twice that in serum. Nociception. One-half hour before testing, 12- to 16-week-old male C57/Bl6 mice were injected by a blinded investigator with 0.1 μmol/kg rolipram in 10% Cremophor (BASF Bioresearch, Cambridge, MA)/PBS or with vehicle alone. Each mouse was placed in a chamber with a floor of metal bars and subjected to 1 s shocks of gradually increasing amperage (0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, and 0.7 mA) at 1 min intershock intervals. Mice were scored for their first visible response to the shock (flinch), their first extreme motor response (run/jump), and their first vocalized distress (scream). Open Field. Starting 20 min after injection with the indicated dose of rolipram or vehicle alone by a blinded investigator, 12-week-old male C57/Bl6 mice were observed for 1 hr in a standard open field using video tracking (San Diego Instruments, San Diego, CA) and scored for path length, rearings, nose pokes, and proportion of time and path length in the center vs. periphery. Mice were returned for a second hour block after 24 hr. Visible Platform Water Maze. Mice were handled for 2 min daily for 7 days before training. On day one of training, mice were injected 30 min before their first trial with either 0.1 μmol/kg rolipram or vehicle alone. On three trials each day, each mouse was placed in the maze and allowed to swim for 1 min to reach a submerged platform marked with a black flag. Once the mouse reached the platform (or was helped there if he did not reach it on his own), he was allowed to rest there for 30 s, and was then held for 30 s while the platform was moved to a new random location, and the mouse started the next trial from a new location in the pool. Failures to reach the platform were scored as 60 s. Freezing to Context. One-half hour before training, 12- to 16-week-old male or female C57\Bl6 mice were injected in their home cages by a blinded investigator with the indicated concentration of rolipram in 10% Cremophor/PBS or with 10% Cremophor/PBS alone. For training, individual mice were placed in the training cage, where they spent 2.5 min exploring the new environment. During the last 30 s of the training period, a tone was sounded, and at the end of the tone, a shock of 0.4 mA × 2 s was delivered to the mouse through the bars of the floor. The mouse was then allowed to remain in the cage for 30 s more while immediate freezing was scored. Individual animals were returned to the training cage for scoring after either 1 or 24 hr. Freezing was scored by a blinded observer over a 5-min period divided into 5-sec intervals. A 5-s block was not scored as “frozen” if the animal moved its head or any limb during the block. The data were analyzed by Student’s unpaired t test.
RESULTS Effects on cAMP Metabolism in Vitro. Because of the high level of expression of type IV PDE in the brain, and because the Drosophila type IV PDE homologue is the locus of the learning mutant dunce (23), we decided to use low concentrations of a type IV-specific PDE inhibitor, rolipram. We found that 45 min after the addition of low concentrations of this competitive inhibitor (0.03 or 0.3 μM), hippocampal slices showed no significant change in basal cAMP concentration (Fig. 1). Significant increases in basal cAMP concentration were observed only at a higher inhibitor concentration (3.0 μM). However, when adenylyl cyclase was stimulated by the addition of 5 μM forskolin to the bath, an effect of even low concentrations of rolipram was uncovered, and the increase in cAMP concentration in hippocampal slices in the presence of forskolin was significantly greater in the presence of 0.3 or 3 μM rolipram than in the presence of vehicle (43.5 ± 14.1 pmol cAMP per mg protein vs. 20.4 ± 8.7 for 0.3 μM rolipram-treated vs. vehicle-treated slices; P < 0.01). Figure 1 Effects of rolipram on cAMP metabolism of hippocampal slices. Low concentrations, 0.03 μM and 0.3 μM rolipram, had no significant effect on basal cAMP concentrations (open bars). However, the increase in cAMP concentration after 15 min of treatment with 5 μM forskolin (hatched bars) was significantly greater with 0.3 μM rolipram than with vehicle (†P < 0.01). At 3.0 μM rolipram, the forskolin-stimulated increases of cAMP were also significantly amplified (†P < 0.003 compared with control), but unstimulated basal cAMP concentrations were also significantly elevated (∗P < 0.001). Effects on LTP. Rolipram (0.1 or 3.0 μM) had no effect on basal synaptic responses to stimulation of the Schaeffer collateral pathway in hippocampal slices (Fig. 2A). However, in the presence of 0.1 μM rolipram, a single train of tetanic stimulation induced increases in the slope of the field EPSP that were significantly larger than in control slices from early time points after the stimulus. fEPSP slopes then remained significantly elevated for at least 3 hr, a characteristic of the L-LTP that follows four tetanic trains in mouse (206 ± 38% vs. 99 ± 9% of baseline slope at 3 hr for 0.1 μM rolipram (n = 5) vs. vehicle (n = 5); P < 0.01). A higher dose of rolipram, 3.0 μM, also yielded LTP that was apparently stronger and longer lasting than controls after one train of stimulation, although not as effectively as 0.1 μM [139 ± 17% vs. 99 ± 9% of baseline slope at 3 hr for 3.0 μM rolipram (n = 6) vs. vehicle; not significant; 139 ± 17% vs. 206 ± 38% for 3.0 μM vs. 0.1 μM; P < 0.03]. Figure 2 Effects of rolipram on synaptic transmission and LTP. Rolipram, 0.1 μM or 3.0 μM, had no significant effect on test fEPSPs generated at the CA3–CA1 synapse of C57\Bl6 hippocampal slices (A). However, when LTP was induced by a single tetanus of 100 Hz × 1 s at the same stimulus intensity in the presence of 0.1 μM or 0.3 μM rolipram, the resultant LTP was both larger and longer-lasting than in the absence of PDE inhibitor. Rolipram (0.1 μM) had no effect on the size or duration of LTP when perfused immediately after the stimulus (B). Frey et al. (11) found that cAMP levels rose only transiently after generation of L-LTP, suggesting that the activation of cyclase was quite short lasting. Our experiments support the observation that cyclase activation is quite transient. To see any effect of rolipram on enhancing LTP, the drug had to be present at the time of tetanus; when rolipram was added immediately after tetanus, fEPSP potentiation returned to baseline with the same time course as in slices treated with a single train (n = 4; Fig. 2B). These results suggested that low concentrations of a specific PDE inhibitor potentiated and lengthened LTP by amplifying a cAMP transient that occurred after tetanic stimulation in slices, without affecting basal cAMP concentrations or synaptic transmission. Behavioral Effects. To test the effect of this manipulation on memory, we examined the effect of low-dose PDE inhibitor on context conditioning, a task that depends on the hippocampus (24, 25, 26). This task tests memory for a complex stimulus by quantifying an aspect of the fear response of an animal to an environment in which it previously received a weak electrical shock. We injected a dose of 0.1 μmol/kg rolipram calculated to produce an estimated concentration between 0.06 and 0.2 μM in brain 30 min after treatment and then trained the mice by exposing them to a novel environment for 2.5 min with a warning tone for the last 30 s before administering a mild footshock (0.4 mA for 2 s). We then measured the percentage of time mice spent freezing, defined as total immobility except for respiratory movements, immediately, 1 hr, or 24 hr after training (in the absence of footshock or other noxious stimulation, mice do not freeze). When tested immediately or 1 hr after training, there was no difference in freezing between rolipram- and vehicle-treated mice (Fig. 3; immediately: 17.0 ± 1.6% vs. 16.5 ± 1.2% for rolipram (n = 21) vs. controls (n = 23); not significant; 1 h: 19.0 ± 2.7% vs. 19.4 ± 2.3% for rolipram vs. controls (n = 12 each); not significant), suggesting that rolipram had no effect on aspects of performance such as perception of the environment, nociception, motor activity, or short-term memory. However, when tested for long-term memory 24 hr after training, rolipram-injected mice froze 62% more than vehicle-injected mice (28.5 ± 2.0% vs. 18.3 ± 2.8% for rolipram (n = 9) vs. controls (n = 11); P < 0.01, Student’s unpaired t test). Consistent with our hypothesis and our biochemical and physiological results, when mice were injected 30 min before training with 3 μmol/kg rolipram (calculated to yield a brain concentration between 2 and 6 μM, in the range that raised basal cAMP concentration in slices), the animals were quite lethargic during training (as previously reported, ref. 27), so that immediate and 1-hr freezing could not be measured and 24-hr retention was not at all enhanced (Fig. 3; 19.1 ± 3.9% vs. 20.0 ± 3.1% for 3 μmol/kg rolipram (n = 8) vs. vehicle (n = 9); not significant). Figure 3 Effects of rolipram on memory. Pretreatment with 0.1 μmol/kg rolipram had no effect on immediate freezing in the training chamber or on freezing to context when mice were returned to the training chamber after 1 hr. However, when mice were tested 24 hr later, rolipram increased freezing significantly over vehicle treatment alone (**P < 0.01). Injection with 3.0 μmol/kg rolipram before treatment had no effect on freezing to context after 24 hr. Pretreatment with 0.1 μmol/kg rolipram increased freezing to context in 18-month-old mice 24 hr after training (*P < 0.05). In studies of memory, drugs frequently are given immediately after the training task to isolate effects that the drug may produce on aspects of performance, such as perception of pain (or other unconditioned stimulus) or of the environment (or other conditioned stimulus) from those on memory consolidation (28). Our physiological effect on LTP requires the presence of a PDE inhibitor during synaptic stimulation, while published memory-enhancing effects of rolipram and Ro20–1724 were observed when the drugs were given immediately after training, although these experiments used about 100-fold higher doses than we did (20, 21). We were able to reproduce this effect when we injected high-dose rolipram (3 μmol/kg) immediately after training, resulting in a 38% increase in freezing after 24 hr (29.8 ± 2.4% vs. 21.6 ± 2.1% for 3 μmol/kg rolipram (n = 16) vs. vehicle (n = 20); P < 0.02). We also observed an increase of freezing when we injected 0.1 μmol/kg rolipram after training (vs. 26.9 ± 5.6% vs. 12.9 ± 3.2% for 0.1 μmol/kg rolipram vs. vehicle (n = 12 each), P < 0.05). Rolipram might be increasing apparent memory by amplifying perception of the training shock or by decreasing the baseline activity of mice 24 hr after treatment. To control further for such nonspecific effects of rolipram, we examined the effects of rolipram on nociception and on open-field behavior as a measure of activity level. There was no significant effect of this low dose of rolipram on nociception 30 min after injection (Fig. 4A). In the open field, this dose of rolipram had no effect on motor activity at 70 or 80 min after the dose or on the next day, when the 1-hr and 24-hr tests of freezing were performed (Fig. 4B), although it decreased activity from 20 to 60 min after the dose. The effect of rolipram also appeared to be specific for hippocampus-dependent learning. Mice treated with rolipram (0.1 μmol/kg) 30 min before their first day of training in cued-platform water maze (29) showed slower learning and required an extra day to match the performance of vehicle-treated animals (Fig. 4C). Thus, performance on this task was, if anything, degraded rather than improved by rolipram. Despite these indications of marginal toxicity from this dose of rolipram, it actually led, in the contextual freezing task, to improved performance. Figure 4 Rolipram effects on hippocampus-independent behaviors. (A) Nociception: Injection of mice with 0.1 μmol/kg rolipram had no effect on nociception measured by average amperage to induce flinching, jumping, or running or crying by footshock. (B) Open field: Injection of mice with 0.1 μmol/kg or 3.0 μmol/kg rolipram affected open-field behavior only on the day of injection. Mice injected with 3.0 μmol/kg essentially lay motionless on the floor of the cage throughout the testing period on day one. Mice injected with 0.1 μmol/kg showed a modest decrease in activity from 20 to 60 min after injection but were identical to vehicle-injected controls by 70 min after injection. After 24 hr, there was no residual effect of either rolipram dose on open-field behavior. (C) Cued water maze: Injection of 0.1 μmol/kg 30 min before the first day of training on the visible platform water maze had no significant effect on first day behavior, but delayed acquisition of the task so that rolipram-treated animals required an extra day to match the behavior of vehicle-treated controls. We also tested rolipram effects on memory in aged mice. Injection of 0.1 μmol/kg rolipram 30 min before training significantly increased freezing to context by aged animals after 24 hr (29 ± 2% vs. 20 ± 3% for vehicle injected (n = 6 each), P < 0.05, Fig. 3).
DISCUSSION We have demonstrated that low doses of a type IV-specific PDE inhibitor can act to potentiate and extend LTP at the CA3–CA1 synapse in response to a stimulus that normally induces LTP lasting less than 1.5 hr. Consistent with earlier genetic experiments, our results support a correlation between L-LTP and long-term memory. Furthermore, the results suggest strongly that cAMP-driven increases in PKA activity are not only necessary for the transition from short-term to long-term processes at both the physiological and behavioral levels, as indicated by previous studies, but also can be sufficient to cause that transition, although we expect that other mechanisms may also be sufficient. Whereas both low and high doses of rolipram facilitated the potentiation and temporal extension of LTP, low doses were more effective, suggesting that some occlusion was active at the higher concentration. Furthermore, only low doses were effective behaviorally in improving 24-hr memory when given before training. The failure of high doses to improve memory appears to be because high doses are behaviorally toxic, inducing lethargy and perhaps alterations in perception of the environment or some other process that prevents learning. Notably, behavioral improvements occur with a dose of rolipram at which cAMP signaling was increased although basal levels were left unchanged. Toxicity appeared at a dose that raised basal cAMP levels in our biochemical experiments. It is possible that toxicity in vivo may be independent of changes in basal cAMP concentrations through effects on targets other than type IV PDE, but rolipram appears to be particularly specific in this regard. Interestingly, effects of rolipram on the size of LTP starting immediately after training (Fig. 2A) were not reflected by increased freezing by animals at 1 hr. We are not sure what accounts for this observation. We speculate that the physiological LTP or LTP-like synaptic modification generated by the training may already saturate the contribution of synaptic strengthening to short-term memory. In vivo, it is clear also that the threshold for long-term memory has been reached in some pathways after this training with no rolipram present, because control animals also freeze at 24 hr, although for less time than rolipram-treated animals. Several other agents have been described as type IV-specific agents. With one of these, Ro20–1724, we generated results in the in vitro biochemical and physiological experiments on cAMP signaling and L-LTP generation similar to those described above for rolipram (data not shown). However, injections of a wide range of doses of Ro20–1724 into living mice before training caused either no change in behavioral memory or lethargy suggestive of toxic effects, along with decreased 24-hr memory (data not shown). Consistent with these observations, Ro20–1724 has been reported to have toxic effects dissociated from its effects on cAMP, although rolipram has not been reported to have such effects (30, 31). It is interesting that administration of both low and high doses of rolipram enhanced memory when administered after training, especially because the low dose had no effect on one-train LTP in vitro when perfused after the tetanus. Two explanations seem possible. One is that the mechanisms underlying LTP have nothing to do with the behavioral effect of rolipram treatment. However, it seems likely that behavioral training involves more than is modeled by a single tetanic train generating LTP in slice. Even when training consists of a single shock as unconditioned stimulus, animals are likely to replay or rehearse salient events in their experience during the process of memory consolidation. Because some 24-hr freezing occurs in the absence of rolipram, it is likely that the training experience in vivo more resembles the model of four tetanic trains spread over 15 min used to generate L-LTP in slice. Thus, even though given after training, rolipram might be present for one or more of the mental rehearsals of the experience. High-dose rolipram, by generally raising cAMP concentration throughout the brain, may enhance memory by a different mechanism when given after training, perhaps by consolidating changes at recently stimulated synapses “tagged” by endogenous signaling mechanisms (32, 33). Our biochemical results indicate that it is possible to increase signaling in the cAMP pathway without significantly affecting basal cAMP concentrations. Targeting the degradative enzyme, in this case PDE, may be particularly fruitful because partial inhibition of degradation may be undetectable at basal levels of substrate, when the degradative enzyme is likely to be present in great excess, and homeostatic mechanisms may compensate for low levels of inhibition (34). Because rolipram is a competitive inhibitor with cAMP for PDE, Michaelis–Menton kinetics suggest that our results are most consistent with a model in which basal adenylyl cyclase activity is reduced to match that of the inhibited PDE [perhaps through phosphorylation by PKA (35, 36)], although retaining its normal potential for activation by forskolin. When signaling increases substrate concentration and stresses the capacity of the degradative enzyme, it uncovers the effect of the inhibitor and amplifies the size of the cAMP signal. Similar targeting of catabolic enzymes for low-level inhibition may be a fruitful means of amplifying other second-messenger signal to noise ratios for experimental and clinical purposes. Our experiments with chronic administration of rolipram to older animals (Mary Elizabeth Bach, M. B., Hyeon Sun, Min Zhuo, Yun-Fei Lu, Robert Shih, Isabelle Mansuy, Robert D. Hawkins and E.R.K., unpublished work) indicate that this treatment may be both efficacious and sufficiently free of toxic side effects to permit its clinical use to ameliorate age-related deficits in human memory.
Acknowledgments We thank H. Wachtel, Kelsey Martin, and Ted Abel for sharing information and for helpful discussions, Daniela Brunner and Risa Fishman for assistance with statistical analysis, Alexander Glassman, George M. Martin, and Kelsey Martin for critical reading of the manuscript, and Harriet Ayers for typing the manuscript. This work was supported by a National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression Young Investigator Award to M.B. and Established Investigator Award to E.R.K., and by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Footnotes
ABBREVIATIONS fEPSP, field excitatory postsynaptic potential ; LTP, long-term potentiation ; L-LTP, long-lasting LTP ; PDE, phosphodiesterase ; PKA, cAMP-dependent protein kinase A ; ACSF, artificial cerebrospinal fluid ; DMSO, dimethyl sulfoxide
Accepted October 13, 1998.KATHMANDU, Nepal — In the quiet courtyard of Dechenling Garden, a Bhutanese restaurant on the fringes of the capital’s bustling backpacker ghetto, Nepal's first openly gay member of parliament sips on a lime soda during a short break in his busy political schedule.
His name is Sunil Babu Pant. A young, maverick politician with dark, wavy hair and a close-trimmed goatee, Pant has already emerged as a leader reminiscent of Harvey Milk in his San Francisco heyday, pushing tiny, conservative Nepal into the forefront of the battle for gay rights.
"Nepal is going through tremendous transformation — politically, socially, economically, legally — so a lot of communities who had no space or voice before have emerged," Pant told GlobalPost.
Thanks, unexpectedly, to a Maoist rebellion and subsequent decade-long civil war, Pant and other activists have already made some big strides — and they're inching closer to making Nepal the first Asian country to legalize gay marriage. But the struggle for the rights of sexual minorities is intensifying here as lawmakers haggle over a new constitution nearly five years after the peace deal that transformed the tiny Himalayan kingdom into a democratic republic in 2007. On one side is a patchwork coalition that supports a more progressive platform, including gay rights, and on the other is a conservative alignment that believes gay marriage would threaten the religious fabric of Nepal's traditional Hindu society.
“A strong attack is going on against Hindu culture, Hindu religion and Hindu society,” said Shankar Pandey, a former legislator and central coordinator of National Religion Awareness Campaign, which urges its followers to adhere to the Hindu way of life. Like many conservatives, Pandey believes that homosexuality is an affront to the country's Hindu heritage.
Strangely, the new social and political space for sexual minorities has sprouted from the seeds of Nepal's attempted Maoist revolution. The Maoists — guerilla fighters who draw their support from the rural poor — were hardly liberals when it came to sexuality. Still, their hard-fought insurgency shook the establishment enough that no one political party has been able to achieve a clear majority in post-war elections, and that has increased the power and influence of small parties and tightly knit constituencies.
But after Nepal's major political parties reached a pivotal agreement to demobilize the former soldiers of the Maoist army Nov. 1 — paving the way for the drafting of a new constitution — it's not yet clear if all of those groups will be able to capitalize on those gains as the period of political turmoil comes to an end.
“It is not liberality, it is just unruliness,” said Pandey. “When there are no rules, no system set, whatever the environment or pressure groups want is what goes.”
In Pandey's view, Pant's entry to the legislature is a perfect example.
The founder of a non-profit advocacy group called the Blue Diamond Society and a gay-oriented travel agency called Pink Mountain Travel & Tours, Pant worked for the rights of gays, lesbians and other sexual minorities at the grassroots level for 11 years before entering electoral politics.
But when rules favoring Nepal's long-established political parties — and the conservative elites of Kathmandu — were suspended for the post-war Constituent Assembly elections, Pant saw a window of opportunity. For the first time, as a concession to the Maoist argument that past elections had not addressed Nepal's ethnic diversity and vast economic inequalities, more than half of the 601 legislators would be chosen through “proportional representation” — which allots seats to parties based on the proportion of votes they receive rather than granting seats only to candidates who win a plurality in their constituencies. Suddenly, there would be a host of new players.
"During the Constituent Assembly election we thought it was a good opportunity to lobby the political parties," Pant said. "We went from party office to party office and said we are a significant population, and if you include our cause in your party manifesto we can vote for your candidates. We took it lightly, just hoping that they would buy that idea."
To Pant's surprise, not only did the Maoist party take him seriously — it led the way in adopting resolutions related to gay rights. Meanwhile, the tiny Communist Party of Nepal-Unified (CPN-U), unrelated to the Maoists, asked him to stand for election himself.
"We had no expectations, no resources, no experience, nothing," he said.
*****
The CPN-U didn't win an assembly seat in the formal election, but the party won enough votes to earn five seats under the rules for proportional representation. And because the party had carefully monitored the districts where it had done well, the tireless work of Pant's team of gay rights activists paid off. The party rewarded him by allotting him a seat in the new assembly.
As it turned out, the CPN-U's most votes came “exactly from those 15 districts where Blue Diamond Society has branches and we did the election campaign," Pant said, explaining his success.
Pant and other activists have already accomplished a great deal for Nepal's sexual minorities —people who identify themselves as gay, lesbian, transgender and intersex (those born with physical characteristics of both genders). With the conservatives' cherished rules in flux, the gay rights lobby succeeded in convincing Nepal's Supreme Court to instruct the new government to repeal age-old laws that made homosexuality a crime in 2007. A year later, the court directed legislators to draft new laws guaranteeing equal rights for sexual minorities and convene a committee to consider the implications of legalizing gay marriage in the new constitution. And this year, the Central Bureau of Statistics officially allowed transgender and intersex citizens to classify themselves as "third gender" for the purposes of the census.
"Previously, people thought [homosexuality] was an unnatural condition," said 25-year-old Durga, a student activist at Tribhuvan University. "But after 2007, people are changing. Now they are able to accept people from the LGBTI community in their villages and even in their families."
But despite progressive court rulings and nascent social transformation, homosexuals and transgenders continue to face discrimination and harassment. Even in Kathmandu, which thanks to higher incomes and the thriving tourist industry is Nepal's most cosmopolitan city, the absence of any real gay scene compels many young men to cruise the local Ratna Park for sexual partners. That leaves them vulnerable to police persecution. And though the police deny the charge, gay activists allege that the authorities have also recently begun "investigating" young men staying together in local hotels, according to Roshan Mahato, the 29-year-old president of the Nepal Sexual and Gender Minorities Student Forum.
“We only take action when these people are seen [engaging in sexual activity] in a public place. If they are doing anything openly,” said Nepal police spokesman Binod Singh. “Otherwise, the police doesn't interfere in their personal activities.”
The threat that this essentially conservative, traditional society will backslide on its reforms remains ever present, especially with a new constitution slated to take shape over the next few months. The issue of demobilizing the Maoist army settled, negotiations will now focus on the structure of a new, federalist government. As a result, loyalties will likely solidify around ethnic and regional identities, perhaps robbing smaller minority groups of the influence they have enjoyed during the interim. It is also unlikely the new system will incorporate as much proportional representation as the interim elections.
Even during the negotiations for the new constitution, some roadblocks have have emerged to the Supreme Court's progressive instructions on equal rights for sexual minorities.
In June, for instance, Nepal burst onto the radar of the world's gay community when an American lesbian couple was married in a Hindu ceremony that Pant's Pink Mountain travel agency helped to organize at a local temple. But that |
stance for the cargo box.
What’s next
Postmaster General Megan Brennan told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in a hearing on Feb. 7 that the agency may use a “bridge strategy” as it has in the past, which means incrementally replacing up to 12,000 vehicles at a time.
As the agency looks for its next truck, it’s already thinking ahead. The USPS is also working with the University of Michigan on an autonomous mail delivery truck, which it hopes to introduce to select rural routes across the country by 2025.
In one possible scenario, a worker could sit behind the wheel sorting mail and doing other tasks as the truck automatically drives the route.
Editor’s note: Trucks.com Managing Editor Carly Schaffner contributed to this report.
An earlier edition of this story named REV Group as the partner of Karsan. In October, Karsan signed a memorandum of understanding naming Morgan Olson as it’s partner. It also listed the date of an U.S. Postal Service truck order with Morgan Olson as 1966. It was 1986.
Read Next: Spy Shots: Mahindra’s U.S. Postal Service Mail Truck Prototype SpottedThe mainstream media has a long history of placing the blame on music when it comes to finding motives behind maniacal acts of violence. So why should this past weekend's massacre in Tuscon, Arizona, be any different?
It isn't, turns out: On Monday, the Washington Post ran a piece raising questions about the lone YouTube video favorited on shooting suspect Jared Loughner's channel -- a video of a flag-burning, set to the 2001 hit single, "Bodies" from Dallas' own Drowning Pool -- despite admitting that "investigators haven't suggested a link between Loughner's violent outburst and 'Bodies.'"
Ugh. Seems it was only a matter of time, really. The piece goes on to be your pretty standard, run-of-the-mill piece with quotes from professors talking about the dangers of placing too much blame on artists for their fans' interpretations of their songs, blah, blah, blah.India has rejected China's offer to mediate and help resolve the Kashmir issue, insisting talks will only take place with Pakistan without the intervention of another nation.
China had said it was willing to play a "constructive role" in improving relations between India and Pakistan, especially after the increased hostility along the Line of Control, a de facto border that divides the disputed Kashmir valley between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.
However, talking to reporters on Thursday, a spokesman for the Ministry of External Affairs turned down China's offer.
"We are ready to talk Kashmir with Pakistan, but no third-party mediation," Gopal Baglay said.
"Our stand is absolutely clear. You are aware that the heart of the matter is cross-border terrorism emanating from a particular country that threatens peace and stability in the country, region, and the world."
OPINION: Resistance is a way of life for Kashmiri youth
China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said India and Pakistan are important South Asian countries but the "situation in Kashmir has attracted the attention of the international community".
The comments came at a time when India and China are disagreeing over the construction of a road in the Doklam area near the Sikkim state of India.
Pakistan's Foreign Office, meanwhile, said the country's government believed in resolving all issues through dialogue.
"The UN chief, the US president, the Chinese leadership and others have offered to play a role in resolving the Kashmir issue," said the Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman Nafees Zakaria.
READ MORE: Outrage over India award for 'human shield' soldier
Kashmir, a Muslim-majority Himalayan region, is administered by India and Pakistan in parts and claimed by both in full.
Pakistan and India have fought three wars since gaining independence from British rule in 1947. Two of those wars have been over Kashmir.
Kashmiri resistance groups have been fighting against Indian rule for independence, or for unification with Pakistan.
More than 70,000 people have reportedly been killed in the conflict since 1989. India maintains more than half a million troops in the disputed region.Buy Photo In an effort to reduce weight and improve fuel economy, automakers have eliminated spare tires from new vehicles. (Photo: Richard Lee, Detroit Free Press)Buy Photo
Nearly a third of new vehicles no longer come with a spare tire as standard equipment, a number likely to increase as automakers seek to reduce weight in cars to improve fuel economy.
“This is a major issue for Michigan motorists who find themselves stranded on the roadside," Susan Hiltz, public affairs director for AAA in Michigan, said Wednesday. "They can no longer rely on their tire inflator kit and require vehicle towing.”
AAA found that 28% of the 2017 model year vehicles sold don't have spares, down from 36% of the 2015 model year vehicles sold.
But it was up significantly from just 5% of 2006 model year vehicles.
Will spare tires eventually disappear altogether, in a similar way features such as cassette tape decks have?
To be prepared, AAA recommends car owners know whether they have a spare before they need it, and regularly check their tire pressure. Many new vehicles, the auto club said, also are equipped with tire-pressure monitoring systems that alert drivers to low pressure.
Some vehicles also now come with standard run-flat tires, which offer 100 miles of range to find a repair shop. These tires cost more and are reinforced so when they lose pressure they can still support the car's weight.
When there is a problem, many customers call for roadside assistance rather than change a tire. An increasing number of younger drivers — about 20% — don't know how to change a flat tire, according to an earlier AAA study.
The drivers who do know how to change a tire tend to be men — about 97% — in contrast to 68% of women.
Now, instead of spare tires, some automakers are now including tire-inflator kits that can plug small leaks. But the kits do not work as a temporary fix if the tire blows out or the damage is to the sidewall. They expire after 4 to 8 years.
Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or fwitsil@freepress.com.
AAA tips for flat tires
• Check whether the car comes with a spare when you buy or lease a car
• Inspect tires regularly, including the spare, for proper inflation.
• If there is no spare, understand how to operat the tire-inflator kit.
• Check expiration dates on tire inflator kits, which last abuot 4-8 years.
Read or Share this story: http://on.freep.com/2x6a3sCThe French newspaper Le Figaro published an interview from ex-Real Madrid captain Raúl González in which he stated that he didn't believe Barcelona could turn around the four goal deficit they faced in their Champions League second leg against PSG. This comes on the back of the honesty from current Madrid captain, and hero of the moment, Sergio Ramos, saying that he would sleep better if Barça don't make it to the quarter finals.
But Raúl was proved wrong as Barcelona, on an almost unbelievable night in the Camp Nou, managed to score three goals in seven minutes at the death to knock out PSG and head into the quarter-final draw.
Full screen Sergi Roberto celebrates Barcelona's winner Laurence Griffiths (Getty Images)
Raúl: It's Madrid, not Barça, with the comeback gene
Raúl had said he believed that the blaugranas didn't have the comeback gene in their DNA in the same way as Los Blancos:
"It's very difficult," he said with regards to Barcelona turning the tie on its head, "If there is a club that could achieve it then it would be Real Madrid. It is their speciality."
Goal-feasts easier in LaLiga
The Madrid legend is currently working in an ambassadorial role for LaLiga and he went on to explain that getting the type of result that they need tonight in the Champions League is harder than in the Spanish top flight.
Full screen Raúl knew a thing or two about winning the Champions League with Real Madrid. DESMOND BOYLAN (DIARIO AS)
"If PSG play like they did in the first leg, Barça aren't going to score four or five goals, in the same way that they have in LaLiga. Barça have to have a very good game and PSG a bad one."
In the end Raúl was proved wrong and Barcelona have a memorable night to remember for a very long time.
Real Madrid vs Real Betis live stream | LaLigaSignup to receive a daily roundup of the top LGBT+ news stories from around the world
A travel company in Greece has launched a new TV ad campaign that appears to draw upon antiquated homophobic stereotypes of gay men being lecherous and predatory.
In the AirFasttickets video, which has been published on YouTube, a male hitchhiker is picked up by a gay male truck driver who is portrayed as menacing.
As the truck driver makes suggestive glances at the hitchhiker, the hitchhiker looks increasingly uncomfortable.
AirFasttickets suggests in avoiding similar situations, customers should book with them.
The company, founded in 2009 by Nikolaos Koklonis, says on its website that it arranges travel for almost 5 million people worldwide each year.
It has offices in Greece, Germany, the US and the UK.
In November of last year, Greek writer and researcher Fragkiska Megaloudi commented in the Huffington Post on how homophobia had risen considerably in Greece, since the start of its debt crisis in 2010.
Last November in central Athens, anti-gay protesters and members of Greek neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn succeeded in forcing a theatre company into closing its production of Corpus Christi, which portrays Jesus Christ as a gay man.
In the same month a decision by Greek state television to censor a gay kiss scene in the British drama Downton Abbey, sparked fears by the left-wing political party Syriza, that it could be down to the influence of Golden Dawn.
Golden Dawn, known for its homophobic and racist anti-immigrant stance, has been on the political ascendancy since Greece’s 2012 elections.WASHINGTON — Conservative Republicans in the House are impeding legislative progress in Congress, and Republican Rep. Tom Cole is fed up.
"They think they've been elected to the House of Commons, where all power is concentrated in one chamber," said Cole, an ally of House Speaker John Boehner, who has often found himself at odds with the most conservative members of the conference. "The speaker is not the prime minister," and, Cole added, "just being able to get something through the House doesn't mean much."
In an interview with BuzzFeed, Cole recalled the drama preceding a fiscal cliff deal, when House Republicans scuttled Boehner's own "Plan B" before it could come to a vote, an outcome widely interpreted as a sign of House leadership's lack of control over the conference.
"You can't get people who won't vote for Boehner's 'Plan B,' and then wonder why they end up with the fiscal cliff deal they do," Cole said.
Shortly thereafter, a few of those same members decided to oppose Boehner in his reelection for speaker — and, in Cole's assessment, "play(ed) fast and loose with the speaker election on television."
"I don't have a lot of sympathy for that behavior," Cole added. "It's like amateur night at the Bijou."
Cole doesn't think this bloc of members will necessarily have an incentive to change this behavior in the short term, which could deepen the legislative puzzle facing House leaders. But he is hopeful that they will evolve and become more amenable to compromise with time.
"This is a pretty new conference," Cole said. "Over time I think they'll get better."What if I told you that in 1000 years, we will look like petty cavemen in our current physical and mental state compared to future humans? T...
http://humansarefree.com/2014/04/human-bodies-and-consciousness-are.html?m=0
What if I told you that in 1000 years, we will look like petty cavemen in our current physical and mental state compared to future humans? There is an overwhelming amount of scientific evidence that proves that not only are our physical bodies evolving at an accelerated rate, our consciousness is as well.
The study specifically looked for DNA sequence variation known as SNPs which are mutations at a single point on a chromosome. As indicated in Health and Medicine Week, “The researchers identify recent genetic change by finding long blocks of DNA base pairs that are connected.
“Because human DNA is constantly being reshuffled through recombination, a long, uninterrupted segment of LD is usually evidence of positive selection. Linkage disequilibrium decays quickly as recombination occurs across many generations, so finding these uninterrupted segments is strong evidence of recent adaptation, Hawks says” (4).
They add that “To the extent that new adaptive alleles continued to reflect demographic growth, the Neolithic and later periods would have experienced a rate of adaptive evolution >100 times higher than characterized most of human evolution”(5).
John Hawks' boldest of claims was recorded on the University of Wisconsin-Madison website, where Hawks says: “We are more different genetically from people living 5,000 years ago than they were different from Neanderthals.”(8)
Anthropologist and geneticist Dr. Henry Harpending from the University of Utah also participated in conducting this study, and told National Geographic that “If humans had always evolved at this rate, the difference between modern humans and chimps should be 160 times greater than it really is.”(9)
As Flynn states in one of his original papers “The international data fall into the same pattern as the American data. Gains are about 18 IQ points per generation (30 years) on Ravens, somewhere between 9 and 18 points on Wechsler and Stanford–Binet tests, about 9 points on purely verbal tests, small or nil on Wechsler subtests such as arithmetic, information, and vocabulary”(12).
We are indeed in the evolutionary fast lane, and perhaps we are witnessing the prophecies of apotheosis in action. Our consciousness and bodies are evolving at a rate never seen before in the history of the earth.We can look around the world and see the signs of dramatic spiritual evolution as we continue to actualize our fullest potential. There is an awakening happening right now, and December 21st 2012 really did mark the dawn of a new age of enlightenment. But as this global awakening is happening, our physical vehicles and intelligence levels are also evolving as we step into the light of this new age.In 2007, Dr. John Hawks, professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, published an article in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) titled “Recent acceleration of human adaptive evolution”.This article showed that positive selection within human beings has occurred at a rate 100 times higher than any other time in human history, and that this massive acceleration within evolution has happened particularly within the last 5000 years(3).The researchers concluded that as the population of human beings continues to increase, the acceleration effect of evolution has also increased because of the amount of room there is for new mutations to occur and be passed throughout the population. According to the original journal article publication, approximately 1800 genes, or 7% of our entire genetic system, have experience recent positive selection.With the cultivation of agriculture, the constant changes and experimentation in diet (such as the adaptive tolerances to lactose in milk), the exposure to diseases (such as the introduction of the CCR5 gene to make people resistant to AIDS), and the massive spike in human population within the last 10,000 years, nature has been presented with the optimal breeding grounds for positive selection and new adaptive mutations in the introduction of a massive gene pool and constantly changing environments.(6)For example, in only the past few millennia, Europeans have experienced rapid changes in the gene for a protein that transfers potassium ions in and out of taste buds and nerve cells, as well as changes in genes associated with Alzheimer's disease and even cancer.(7)In other words, if you take a human being from 3000 BC such as an ancient Egyptian, you will find that they are more similar to Neanderthals in terms of their genetics than they are to us.There is a vast body of empirical evidence that suggests that human beings have recently been the subjects of accelerated natural selection within genetic information.There is also evidence that this recent acceleration in evolution is not only biologically physical, but is also mental in terms of intelligence. J.R. Flynn, professor of political science at the University of Otago in New Zealand, discovered that IQ scores across the globe have went up 3 points on average per decade for each decade for as long as IQ test scores have been recorded (which has been since 1910 in the United States).This means that someone that scored in the top 10% on the IQ test 100 years ago would now been in the weakest 5%. These increases have been occurring at a steady rate amongst both male and female genders and have been empirically verified in over 20 countries(10) (see Figure 1).The average IQ score has always been set to 100, so if a person passes the IQ test with a score of 130, they are among the higher end of performers, and a score of 80 would deviate far from the average raw score. What is striking is that IQ scores have had to be continuously made more difficult over the last century to keep the mean score at 100.Flynn discovered that the greatest differences were found in culturally reduced tests and fluid intelligence. Fluid intelligence is the ability to think rationality, abstractly, and find solutions to novel problems independent of acquired knowledge.He makes adamant the fact that these are not learned-content gains through more information being accessible to people, as this would only reflect crystallized intelligence regarding the application of learned knowledge (11).And furthermore, other environmental factors such as more education and better economic situations are impoverished when trying to adequately explain the gaps in some of the cases, such as the increase in IQ scores by a total of 20 points in 30 years by the Dutch.The Ravens test measures reasoning abilities using abstract objects independent of language, writing, and reading. This means that these test increases are not a result of people having more access to knowledge and information, but shows that on the contrary, the most significant results were indicated in testings that involve pure problem-solving intelligence, such as identifying non-verbal patterns and relationships.(13)Environmental impacts that can explain these increases in IQ scores have yet to be identified, and are still being speculated upon.These are some of the most important discoveries in psychology, which Flynn calls “a cultural renaissance too great to be overlooked”(14).Contrary to some of the scientific consensus, human evolution is undergoing dramatic increase in terms of genetics and intelligence. We now have scientific proof that evolution is not merely a matter of cultural ingenuity and social conditionings.Nor is it exclusively reserved for physiological adaptation, but is in fact a concrete measurable phenomenon in human psychology that happening within our species right now.Evolution can now be spoken of in something that is currently in a state of progression towards complexity, as we have seen from the evidence of geneticists and psychologists alike.Is this accelerated state just one random hiccup that will plateau in the near future? Will we continue to evolve at this exponential rate from this point forward? Are we witnessing the physical manifestation of the ancient prophecies of human apotheosis in action?This area remains ripe for investigation, and insofar as the conditions in which this evolution is occurring remain present (population increases, environmental changes, technological and intellectual refining) we should see this effect sufficiently sustained as we enter this new age of evolution and continue to explore this exciting frontier.In 1000 years, we will be literal gods in comparison to our current state. We will have technologies and abilities that we could only dream of right now, and our bodies will be so much more evolved that we will look back a millennium and wonder how ancient man lived such primitive lives with such archaic bodies.Maybe we really are entering the Golden Age of spiritual and physical evolution that so many ancient cultures spoke of.More than 1.1 million health insurance customers have been left vulnerable by a vast data breach, after criminals gained access to a CareFirst database in a “sophisticated cyberattack.”
More than 1.1 million health insurance customers have been left vulnerable by a vast data breach, after criminals gained access to a CareFirst database in a “sophisticated cyberattack,” reports The Register.
The nature of the stolen data appears to be personal records including names, birthdays and email addresses, but the hackers weren’t able to obtain sensitive financial or medical records. The BlueCross BlueShield plan is the third victim of a major breach within the healthcare industry this year, following recent attacks targeting Anthem and Premera.
The New York Times notes that CareFirst has reported the crime to the FBI who are said to be “looking into it,” while the healthcare insurer also issued an apology on its website with an offer of free credit monitoring services.
“CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield has confirmed that cyberattackers gained limited, unauthorized access to a CareFirst database,” reads a statement on the insurer’s website. “We understand that the security of your information is important and we are taking steps to protect members in light of this attack and moving forward.”
The statement concluded: “We are offering two years of free credit monitoring and identity theft protection services for those members affected. If you have been affected, you will receive a letter from CareFirst.”
The biggest immediate threat for CareFirst customers may come from phishing scams, as criminals attempt to use customers’ stolen email addresses to coax them into clicking malicious links or disclosing more sensitive data.
Earlier this year the hack of health insurer Anthem could have affected as many as 80 million customers, while We Live Security’s senior security researcher Stephen Cobb expressed concerns over the state of healthcare IT security last year.
“Unless attitudes change and numbers improve, and unless our government decides to get serious about reducing cybercrime, the outlook is stormy at best,” says Cobb.Google fonts, dafont.com, and other free font websites are such an incredible resource. All the fonts are available as either public domain, free, donation ware, shareware, or demo.
As with user-submitted fonts, there can be some bad fonts. The sort by popularity feature on many of these sites is really handy to bring the best fonts up to the top. Let the thousands of users determine which are the most popular fonts by download count. Brilliant!
Some of these fonts are absolutely amazing. I admire people who create fonts. It takes such time and dedication. Creating each letter, kerning all the letter combinations.
Think about it:
26 lower case letters
26 upper case letters
10 digits
30 symbols
A total of 92 characters makes for 8,464 kerning combinations between each character combination. Yipes!
As you scroll through a particular font category, you can see how the top fonts are pretty good. But then page after page, you start getting into the “uhhh, land” where the designs get a bit sloppy or just strange.
I find myself spending many late nights scrolling through the endless forest of crazy fonts. Sure, there are some pretty trees in this forest, but there are also some really scary trees.
A fun thing to do is jump ahead to the very last page of results to see the least popular result.
I challenge all designers out there to use one of these eight fonts in your next design. Creativity often comes through limits that challenge us. Take something that is considered not popular, and make something really great out of it.
These fonts at the bottom of the list are currently unloved by the font community. Let’s bring some love to these neglected fonts. Discover a hidden quality of a forgotten font and shine a creative light to uplift the overlooked.
Ravi Prakash by Appaji Ambarisha Darbha
Available on Google fonts
Rank: 708th of 708 fonts
Google fonts is arguably the most popular web fonts for website development. Among all the other free font websites out there, Google fonts gives a sense of professionalism and authority. But not all their fonts are going to be popular with designers. The least popular font in their roster is Ravi Prakash, created by Appaji Ambarisha Darbha, a type designer in Hyderabad, India.
Darbha has created at least five other fonts which are available on fonts4free.net. They all utilized forms with thicks and thins with angles. The Ravi Prakash font has the most dramatic thicks and thins.
Despite being the least popular font in Google’s roster, it has been performing better in the past few months. Google offers a statistics tab for each of their fonts that show the total number of times total number of times Ravi Prakash was served by the Google Font API.
To view the last place font in Google fonts, you have to go to the Google fonts page; and scroll, scroll, scroll all the way down. Keep scrolling! And you’ll get to the last one.
Terra Firma by Iconian Fonts
Available on Urban Fonts
Rank: 7,755th of 7,755 fonts
Designed by Dan Zadorozny of Iconian fonts in 2002. A Philadelphia native, now living in Texas, Dan has created over 350 fonts. A very nice bio sits on his website against a background of animated gif stars. I really do miss websites like Dan’s. This is the real internet. Some guy with a family that makes fonts at home as a hobby; and shares his creations with the world.
In a 2001 interview, just a year before he designed Terra Firma, he describes his fontwork as:
While mostly techno/futuristic in style, I have recently delved into other styles, such as dingbats, comic book fonts, handwriting fonts and even historical looking fonts. For the most part, the fonts are basically geometrical – I create a “base glyph” with a certain look and feel and from that extrapolate most of the other characters.
A fun fact about the name of his font foundry, Iconian, came from his AOL screenname in the 90s when he had an interest in icons. Dan’s website also includes a list of 1,613 potential words to use in acronyms for storyline organizations.
Of the 336 fonts he designed available on urbanfonts, the most popular is the Sci-fi Telemarines.
To find the least popular font on urban fonts, simply go to the last past of results.
Shake It Off by weknow
Available on DaFont
Rank: 29,304th of 29,304 fonts
Shake it off is a very… vibratey font.
The creator of this font, Wino Sutarmin Kadir, has an immense amount of links in his dafont profile. He also has an immense amount of fonts on dafont.com, 665 in total. The most popular being a geometric font, Indonesia. Kadir answered 16 questions on ask.fm, one of the questions is: What two animals, if combined, would make for an awesome animal? His answer: hawk and wolf
That combination of animals speaks to the nature of his font designs–A mishmash of geometric shapes.
To see the current least popular font on dafont.com, it’s a bit tricky. Dafont doesn’t offer a master listing of all their fonts. Instead, they offer the rankings only within categories. Take dafont’s largest category, Fancy, and look at the last page of results for Fancy.
DK Astromonkey by Hanoded
Available on 1001 Free Fonts
Rank: 17,074th of 17,074 fonts
We are starting to see that to have the least popular font on any free font website, it certainly helps to create a TON of fonts. DK Astromonkey’s creator, Hanoded, has 240 fonts on 1001freefonts.com.
Behind Hanoded is David Kerkhoff, a tour guide in the Netherlands. The bio on his website reads:
Hanoded is a type foundry based in The Netherlands and run by David Kerkhoff. After finishing his journalism studies, David traveled extensively and ended up in Israel where he stayed for some years. David had a lot of jobs – zookeeper, goldsmith, artist and cook (to name a few), but settled on working as a tour guide and photographer. David specializes in handprinted typefaces and uses brushes, pens, ink and paint to create his fonts. He lives in a slightly dilapidated house with his wife, two kids, several Burmese Buddha statues and a mosque-shaped alarm clock from Oman.
The last place fonts on 1001freefonts.com can be found by going to the last page of results.
Nimbus Mono by URW++
Available on Font Squirrel
Rank: 976th of 976 fonts
In my opinion, Nimbus Mono is actually a nice font. Mono fonts will always have weird spacing, because every letter is the exact same width. This ensures that the letter are mono-spaced, and will all line up on a grid. Nimbus also comes in a Sans face and a Serif face.
The designer, URW++ is a font agency in Germany that creates custom fonts for corporations. In fact, on myfonts.com, URW++ sells. Their 5th best-selling font is Nimbus.
Finding the least popular fonts on Font Squirrel is a bit tricky, as their popular list has no pagination at the bottom. When you scroll to the bottom of their 50 fonts, there’s nothing else to click. But by doing some playing around with their URL structure, I was able to find a way to get all their fonts listed by popularity. Here’s the last page of results.
Pie by cheese
Available on Font Space
Rank: 28,493rrd of 28,493 fonts
This font is so illegible, that I couldn’t just simply list it as “Pie”, because you can’t really read the p. If you are looking for a font that is completely messy, then maybe Pie would work. I’m imagining the designer’s 3-year-old child wrote these letters. The designer’s profile on Font Space is very confusing. His name is anuraghsundar, which I’m assuming is Anuragh Sundar. However, not much can be found online for Anuragh Sundar’s font career. The rest of his fonts are pretty much like Pie. I really want to be positive about everything, but Pie just leaves me wanting cake instead.
Their site doesn’t allow you to sort all their fonts by popularity, but they do let you look at the fonts by year. The year with the most fonts on Font Space is 2013, so we go to the last page of results for 2013.
Roid Rage
Available on Search Free Fonts
Rank: 3,312nd of 3,312 fonts
Roid Rage is the type of font you’d expect to see at the bottom of font lists. It’s a complete mashup of several different styles of fonts. Some letters are very rectangular—to the point of being a bunch of squares, where other letters are all 70s swirly hypnotic style. If you are writing a ransom note, then Roid Rage would work very well. This font is designed by the same guy who did Terra Firma, Dan Zadorozny of Iconian fonts.
SearchFreeFonts.com doesn’t have a master list of their fonts sorted by popularity, so use one of the larger categories to find the least-popular font. For this one, I used the decorative category.
Crack Man
Available on Be Fonts
Rank: 2,915th of 2,915 fonts
And now, probably my most favorite of all the unpopular fonts, Crack Man. As I was building this list, I almost stopped at Roid Rage on searchfreefonts.com. But I found the website befonts.com, and this beloved spoof of Pac-Man. The font foundry, Hypodermic Fonts is professional one-man shop run by Ray Larabie, a Canadian type designer living in Japan. His about page gives his story:
I’m Ray Larabie, from Ottawa, Canada. When I was very young, my grandmother brought me stacks of dry-transfer lettering (Letraset) from work. I learned the names of fonts and became an instant font junkie. When I got my first computer, the TRS-80, I got into font editing software and started making my own fonts. After attending a few years of art school, I went to college and got a Classical Animation Diploma. I ended up as an art director in the video game business but never lost my love for fonts. In the late 1990’s, I started making free fonts and releasing them on my site Ray Larabie Freeware Typeface of the Week. I changed the site name to Larabie Fonts and made fonts by the hundreds. In 2001, I started a commercial font venture. Two years later, I was able to quit my day job to work on fonts full time. I moved to Japan in 2008 and I continue making fonts to this day. My company is Typodermic Fonts Inc. based in the city of Nagoya, Japan.
Ray describes this font as “Crack Man is an art deco style, counterless headliner with an early 1980’s video game slant.” Interesting that he sees it more as an art deco font, rather than the Pac-Man font. He’s probably trying to avoid copyright infringements.
To get to the bottom of the barrel on befonts.com, head to their last page of results.
↓ Transcript Header: FONT CHALLENGE
Etym: Use the most unpopular font from one of the free font services
[list of 8 logos from all the free font services]
Worm: Almost all the free font websites allow you to sort the fonts by popularity. A great feature to find popular fonts.
Akora: You can also use it to find the least-popular fonts. On the free front website, click to the LAST PAGE of results, and download the last place font.
Ravi Prakash by Appaji Ambarisha Darbha
Available on Google fonts
Rank: 708th of 708 fonts.
Terra Firma by Iconian Fonts
Available on Iconian Fonts
Rank: 7,755th of 7,755 fonts
Shake It Off by weknow
Available on Urban Fonts
Rank: 29,304th of 29,304 fonts
DK Astromonkey by Hanoded
Available on 1001 Free Fonts
Rank: 17,074th of 17,074 fonts
Nimbus Mono by URW++
Available on Font Squirrel
Rank: 976th of 976 fonts
Pie by cheese
Available on Font Space
Rank: 28,493rrd of 28,493 fonts
Roid Rage
Available on Search Free Fonts
Rank: 3,312nd of 3,312 fonts
Crack Man
Available on Be Fonts
Rank: 2,915th of 2,915 fonts
Header: THESE FONTS NEED SOME LOVE
Etym: Take the most unpopular font from a free font service, and try to design something with it!
Worm: Or use one in your next reportHuzzah!Shit got real!We got drunk teenagers, skin-eating fog and DEATH, for-realsies-no-touchbacks death. The 100 is stepping up it’s game, and I am pleased as punch.That being said, awwww… Wells, Adam, random woodland couple, may you rest in peace and get a regular spot on some other teen adventure show.Let’s jump in!We knew the first scene was a flashback because it was chalk full of hazy light and blinding lens flares. Plus, everyone was happy and clean. Oh, and look who was still alive:Is it just me, or did Clarke’s dad look like a melted version of Zeus? No? Yes? Anyway, he seemed like a cool dude, and they were all having a great time being pals.That is, everyone except Shunerbrious.Guys… does the Chancellor have a thing for Clarke’s mom? Follow up question, does Clarke’s mom have a name?Anyway, she told Melted Zeus that someone had results of something, and he very casually high-tailed it outta there.Back on earth, Clarke was trying to keep Jasper alive and all the teen extras were giving her attitude about it. This show loves disembodied voices being jerks. I wonder if it was the same extra who yelled out “that’s the girl who lived under the floor” when Octavia made her grand entrance. They were yelling things like, “just die already!”We also got a pretty significant close-up of Clarke using Melted Zeus’s old watch. Did I miss an episode where Clarke went on a mission to get the watch back from the guards? Or are we supposed to put that together in our minds? I’m cool with it, if we are. In my mind she wears a cat-suit and convinces the guard that he’s dreaming.Anyway, she heard some screams and found a little girl having a nightmare.We learned that her parents were floated, and she was arrested for “losing it” and “assaulting an officer”. Sounds like violent tendencies, but she’s just an adorable kid, so I’m sure it’s nothing.You know what WASN’T nothing? The touching moment between two characters we had never met, and knew were immediately going to die. Just kidding, didn’t care at all, BUT it introduced a new Earth-Terror, so that’s fun!But you know what, those actors gave it their ALL in the half second we got to see them suffering in the death-fog.We got a hilarious scene where Bellamy showed off how amazing he is at throwing things, and the beautiful creepster blamed a dying kid’s wails for his lack of skills. Then Adam showed up and was pretty damn cool about being strung up on a rock.Our beautiful creepster didn’t want him to forget his humiliation, so he made fun of him so hard for making out with a super hot chick.And guys, am I wrong, or is Bellamy getting sexy?I dunno… am I crazy? I’m crazy aren’t I? MOVING ON. They decided to go hunting for some CGI, but after the creepster’s disastrous knife-throwing display, Bellamy did NOT want him coming along.Clarke and Wells shared a tense moment just before she cut into Jasper, then we got another glimpse into the greatest love story of all time.He was NOT havin’ it! I guess being strung up on a rock by your gal’s sadistic older brother can really make a romance fizzle, ya know? While Octavia was confronting Bellamy about it, she heard the unmistakable howls of an adorkable nerd in pain!Clark was cutting that boy UP.Bellamy was all for euthanasia because he |
last eight polls have been shown a Clinton lead of 5 points or less after 8- to 12-point leads were common.
It's game on now as we head into Labor Day weekend, the unofficial true start of the campaign. The debates will ultimately decide everything, particularly the first one in Hempstead, N.Y., on Sept. 26 that at least 80 million will tune in to watch.
But in order for that to matter, Trump needed to be within only a few points to bridge the gap completely. He's almost there now.
"Hillary Clinton should be up by double digits right now against a man who... is all over the place, doesn't follow directions, ignores his staff, ignores his family, ignores his political party," explained Joe Scarborough on MSNBC Wednesday, adding, "And yet, you look at these recent polls, he is within 3 or 4 points... in every single poll," he said.
"There's a reason. She needs to wake up and understand she could still lose."
Running out the clock. It was once a viable option for Clinton, the candidate who really believes in not holding one press conference during an entire year while running for president.
But this new Trump — nothing close to a perfect candidate but far better than the one who existed when August began — is winning week after week via more energy, taking more chances and dominating media relatively positively in the process.
Concha is a media reporter for The Hill.
The views of Contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.The Conservatives need an external resource that can help them develop policies for the future and go beyond variations on Stephen Harper’s agenda.
As we approach the election of a new leader of the Conservative Party of Canada this weekend, this is an opportune moment to examine the health of the policy-making process in the conservative movement in Canada. After all, the modern-day Conservative Party has had no other leader than Stephen Harper, and its platforms and policies have to a large degree reflected his priorities — as informed by party members, the Conservative caucus, and the realities of governing. A new leader and would-be prime minister will need to establish his or her own direction and credibility, in part by developing policy responses to new and changing conditions in Canada and globally.
One advantage of the lengthy leadership campaign is that it has given the candidates time to develop and present their policies to party members. A few have taken advantage of the opportunity, but most have outlined comprehensive platforms that address a range of policy concerns.
The purported frontrunner, Maxime Bernier, has run what he has called a “campaign of ideas,” centred around greater personal and market freedoms and the idea of a more limited government. The former cabinet minister has attracted attention with his proposals to eliminate all corporate subsidies and to end supply management.
Erin O’Toole has presented a particularly detailed and thorough 50-page outline of his vision for Canada, with proposals like Generation Kickstart, which would give students a $100,000-$200,000 basic personal tax exemption over the first few years after they graduate. Former Speaker of the House Andrew Scheer has proposed to remove taxes on home energy costs and ensure free speech on university campuses. Kellie Leitch famously has promised to submit all would-be refugees and immigrants to an in-person interview to make sure they subscribe to “Canadian values.” Lisa Raitt has outlined national strategies to address autism and dementia. Michael Chong has proposed to double the Working Income Tax Benefit to assist low-income Canadians.
There has been no shortage, then, of policy ideas or debate during the leadership race. The problem — if we can call it that — is that many of the candidates’ platforms represent relatively minor variations on the Harper agenda: lower taxes for individuals and businesses; direct support for families, seniors and veterans; investment in infrastructure; expanded free trade; reorientation of the immigration system toward economic needs; concrete measures to fight crime and terrorism; careful management of government finances; respect for provincial jurisdiction; and principled stances in support of our global allies.
Very little new thinking in the party is on offer around challenges such as the impact of automation on workers, the use (and misuse) of big data, regulation of new business models, the mismatch between skills training and available jobs, social program sustainability in the context of an aging population, who Canada should be trading with if the US is unreliable and China is untrustworthy, and how best to support innovation and economic diversification. Similarly, apart from Erin O’Toole’s platform, there has been little substantive discussion of issues that Conservatives have not traditionally campaigned on, but that must be addressed by any prime minister in waiting, such as the toxic relationship between government and Indigenous people, and balancing economic development with preservation of the environment (Michael Chong’s luckless carbon tax proposal aside). And, there has certainly been no real discussion of “third rail” topics like health care (again, except by O’Toole), employment insurance and pension reform.
With few exceptions, then, the candidates have taken a cautious approach to policy development, one that stays within the boundaries established during the Harper era. Only Bernier has tried to break out of the box to any significant degree, and the problem with many of his proposals is that they are unworkable from a fiscal perspective. Bernier’s commitment to balance the budget within two years will require major reductions in federal spending, given the deficit-oriented direction set by the current government. It will simply not be possible for him to fulfill his other eye-wateringly expensive promises, including eliminating the capital gains tax, reducing the corporate tax rate from 15 percent to 10 percent, implementing a two-tier personal income tax system, and raising the basic personal exemption amount. In fact if, as expected, Bernier is the successful candidate on Saturday, one of his biggest challenges will be to rescope his platform so that it meshes with fiscal reality and can also meet his supporters’ considerable expectations.
The policy proposals on offer...do not respond to voters’ expectations that a government-in-waiting is anticipating and developing responses to current and upcoming policy challenges.
To be clear, there is nothing wrong with the candidates’ focus on lowering taxes, balancing the budget, developing our resources responsibly, or keeping Canadians safe. The policy proposals on offer cover a waterfront large enough to attract a significant constituency of electoral support and to govern the country well and credibly. But they do not represent the full scale of policy challenges that any future leader of this country will face, and they do not respond to voters’ expectations that a government-in-waiting is anticipating and developing responses to current and upcoming policy challenges.
There are a number of reasons for the too-conservative approach to Conservative policy-making.
The nature of leadership races
During leadership contests, candidates focus on appealing to a core group of committed party members who want to be reassured that a new leader will address certain issues of particular importance to them. For Conservative candidates, that means, among other things, assurances that tax rates will not be raised to fund government programs of dubious value, that the rights of criminals will not override those of victims, that Canada’s security will not be compromised, that the needs and priorities of rural and northern communities will not be ignored, and that we will stand with our allies on the international stage. In that sense, during a leadership race, the candidates are reaffirming their conservative bona fides rather than presenting a comprehensive agenda for governing.
Policy-making from the bottom up
The Conservative party has historically been more “bottom up” than “top down” in terms of policy development. Any party member can, through his or her electoral district association, bring forward a policy proposal that may ultimately be voted on at the party’s national policy convention. Overall this grassroots approach to policy-making is a good thing, because it means the party is responding to the concerns of its members and supporters and is not becoming detached from members’ priorities, in opposition or in government. The Liberal Party, on the other hand, tends to impose policy direction from the top down through a small, hand-picked elite, which is partly why it has more difficulty raising money from individual members.
The Conservative nature
Conservatives are, by nature, conservative, and properly suspicious of so-called “big ideas.” For many conservatives, “big ideas” is code for bigger government and higher taxes to support bigger government. However, apart from a few recalcitrant public policy problems and daily irritations, major and minor, our country generally works well as it is. It is, for good reason, the envy of the developed world. As a mature and healthy democracy that is functioning well, Canada has reached the stage where an incremental approach to policy-making is appropriate. That means tweaking existing programs rather than embarking on wholesale change, particularly when government budgets are already under pressure to fund existing entitlements. In other words, we should be improving what we have in place already, rather than starting anew. Therefore, any political desire for a policy “legacy,” or media desire for something new and exciting to write about, should rightly be regarded with alarm. For many Conservatives, the best legacy is good and competent government that serves citizens well and maintains Canada’s enviable standing internationally.
An absence of policy-making organizations
In the conservative movement in Canada, unlike that in the US, there are no specific bodies or organizations devoted to thinking about public policy challenges and developing explicitly conservative responses to them. There are some market-oriented think tanks that produce good work on (mostly) fiscal issues, but they are not agile or responsive enough to be truly useful resources. Other conservative policy voices are few and far between, and there is no process for funnelling their ideas to the members for consideration and debate. Members are not well placed to identify upcoming public policy issues and, in any event, it is unrealistic to expect them to generate options in response to complex policy challenges. The Conservatives are unique in this respect — the NDP engages in policy development through the coordinating efforts of the Broadbent Institute, and the Liberals’ connections with the academic and business elite have resulted in an abundance of partisan Liberal think tanks and policy nodes. The Manning Centre in Calgary is well-positioned to take on a policy coordination and oversight role on behalf of the conservative movement, but so far it has chosen not to. Its most recent conference, though well-attended by conservatives across the spectrum, was notably thin on substantive policy discussion.
I do not subscribe to the notion, which some commentators have put forward, that there is a “right” conservative ideology or policy approach — one, for example, that is entirely market-oriented, or rejects populist anxieties as ill-informed and unfounded. Approaches, and even certain principles, must be vigorous debated in the light of economic and electoral realities. Free trade is not an unvarnished good, nor is unrestrained free-market capitalism, nor even are significantly lower tax rates, without due consideration of the competitive landscapes and the services needed.
Similarly, consumer-oriented measures to restrict abusive behaviour by corporations with particular market power should not be anathema to conservatives. That does not mean principles should be matter of political convenience, to be abandoned at the slightest hint of resistance, but it does mean avoiding slavish adherence to ideology, in favour of constantly questioned positions and common-sense solutions.
The gap in conservative policy development capacity does a particular disservice to Conservative Party leadership candidates and the soon-to-be-elected leader, since he or she will need robust and relevant policy advice to be successful in 2019. As former Harper adviser and academic Sean Speer recently pointed out, it is not the role of the Conservative Party itself to engage in policy work. Political parties should be focused on what they are primarily designed to do, which is to fight and win elections. And, from experience, I know that a leader cannot rely on the policy-making capacity within the civil service alone, once he or she has been elected to government; the Trudeau administration’s reliance on external advisory bodies provides ample additional evidence of that.
What the conservative movement in Canada needs now is an organized, consistent, relevant policy voice that can engage in policy debate and coordinate well researched and well argued conservative policy solutions, for the benefit of party members and of Canadians more broadly. Without that kind of policy resource, conservative candidates for office will largely continue to offer variations on the Harper agenda, which provided good and appropriate policies during the Harper years but will not, on their own, be sufficient to provide a truly credible alternative to the Trudeau government.
Photo: Conservative leadership candidates shake hands following the Conservative Party of Canada leadership debate in Toronto on Wednesday April 26, 2017. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette
Do you have something to say about the article you just read? Be part of the Policy Options discussion, and send in your own submission. Here is a link on how to do it. | Souhaitez-vous réagir à cet article? Joignez-vous aux débats d’Options politiques et soumettez-nous votre texte en suivant ces directives.The Miami Dolphins have finalized a trade with the Oakland Raiders to send the 12th overall pick and their second rounder (42nd overall) in exchange for the third overall pick. With their new pick, the Dolphins selected Dion Jordan, outside linebacker from Oregon.
With the pick, the Dolphins have landed one of the best defensive players in the draft -- Jordan was rated ninth on Dan Kadar's big board.
It was widely expected when the trade was announced that the Dolphins would take the third-best offensive tackle in the draft, Lane Johnson from Oklahoma -- but the decision to take Jordan was one of the first big surprises on the opening night of the NFL draft. It remains to be seen how Miami plans to address their left tackle spot after losing Jake Long to free agency.
More from SB Nation:
• Our final NFL mock draft has a new No. 1 pick
• Rules for the NFL draft drinking game
• Spencer Hall: Scouting the draft scouts
• Top 9 NFL draft storylines
• The worst NFL draft picks of the century
• What does your team need? Breaking down every teamRegardless of whether Russia’s national team takes control of its Euro 2012 qualifying ambitions by defeating the Republic of Ireland at the Luzhniki Stadium on Tuesday, football in Russia has become more than just a game.
It has become a political football in the truest sense. Winning the race to host the 2018 World Cup was a victory on the global stage for prime minister Vladimir Putin, but the power of football is now being harnessed, from Siberia to Chechnya, Tatarstan to Dagestan, with oligarchs, state governments and powerful companies all ‘encouraged’ to channel their wealth into clubs across the country.
Eto’o’s remarkable transfer from Inter Milan to Anzhi Makhachkala last month — a move that makes the Cameroon forward the world’s best-paid footballer with a salary of £350,000 a week — has lifted the lid on the power-play now being directed by the federal government.
The recent emergence of Anzhi (Dagestan), Terek Grozny (Chechnya) and Rubin Kazan (Tatarstan) has been fuelled by vast investment from regional governments, with Anzhi also benefiting from the £5.5 billion fortune of owner Suleiman Kerimov, who is bank-rolling the salaries of Eto’o, Carlos and the former Chelsea defender Yuri Zhirkov.
Kazan’s title successes in 2008 and 2009 were funded by the state government in order to claim regional pride through the achievements of a previously unheralded football team.
The perception within the Kremlin that natives will be less restless if their regional identity can be attached to a successful football team has yet to prove wholly successful, however.
Such is the delicate situation in Chechnya and Dagestan, where separatist movements remain linked to terrorism, both Terek and Anzhi base their squads away from their volatile home cities.
Terek’s players live and train 150 miles away, while Eto’o and his Anzhi team-mates are based in Moscow, only taking the 900-mile flight to Makhachkala for home fixtures.
Ireland midfielder Aiden McGeady, who has spent the past year with Russia’s biggest club, Spartak Moscow, admits that trips to the Caucasus are rarely trouble-free for clubs from the capital.
“During a game against Anzhi, we had a corner and I was making my way up that side of the pitch and there was a big riot,” McGeady said. “I saw the Anzhi fans running up to the Spartak fans, tearing out seats and throwing them at the our supporters.
“It’s a different world out there, but my team-mates were telling me that it’s normal for teams in that region.”
Crowd violence and racism remain a stain on the Russian game, one which the authorities are determined to eradicate as the country prepares to host the 2014 Winter Olympics at Sochi. By the time the World Cup arrives in 2018, racism is expected to be a distant memory.
Last year, Lokomotiv Moscow fans unfurled a banner showing a banana directed at Nigerian striker Peter Odemwingie, now with West Bromwich, while in March, Zenit St Petersburg were fined £6,000 after one of their fans offered a banana to Carlos at a pre-match ceremony.
Brazilian defender Carlos threatened to leave Russia earlier this summer when he walked off the pitch in protest after a banana was thrown from the crowd during a game against Krylya Sovetov.
Carlos earns £4.2 million a year at Anzhi, with Zhirkov benefiting from similar generosity from owner Kerimov. The big wages are not restricted to newly-rich clubs from the regions, however.
Zenit, funded by Russia’s biggest company, Gazprom, are believed to have hired former Roma coach Luciano Spalletti on a £4 million a year contract, while their star player Aleksandr Kerzhakov earns in excess of £100,000 a week.
Joey Barton was offered a £100,000-a-week deal by Zenit, a figure made more attractive by the 13 per cent tax rate applied to footballers in Russia, before instead leaving Newcastle for Queens Park Rangers. McGeady left Celtic for a £50,000 a-week package at Spartak.
CSKA Moscow, a club with close connections to Roman Abramovich, also afford generous salaries for goalkeeper Igor Akinfeev and Japanese midfielder Keisuke Honda.
But while 60,000 attended Moscow’s ‘classic’ derby between Spartak and CSKA last week, top-flight fixtures are rarely sold-out, with the exception of Zenit home games.
Siberian clubs Amkar Perm and Tom Tomsk both face severe financial difficulties, while Moscow has endured a five-year wait for the league title to return from the provinces.
Viewing figures for ESPN’s weekly broadcast of live action from the RPL are growing, however, and the presence of Eto’o and others is only likely to see the profile of Russian football grow.
Whether the game will achieve what the politicians have failed to pull off by ensuring peace and prosperity beyond Moscow is another matter, though.The Bangkok Shutdown will be shut down this weekend but the fight to oust the Yingluck Shinawatra government is far from over, protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban announced on Friday night.
All of the People's Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC) rally stages will be dismantled and blocked roads cleared, and all activities will then be moved to Lumpini Park, said the PDRC secretary-general.
Only five of the original seven rally stages remain: at Pathumwan, Asok, Silom, Ratchaprasong and Chaeng Watthana.
But Luang Pu Buddha Issara, who is in charge of the Chaeng Watthana rally site, said shortly after Mr Suthep's announcement that he would keep running the stage.
"The stage here will remain no matter what. I will not dismantle or move it anywhere," the senior monk declared.
Mr Suthep's decision brings to an end six weeks of major disruptions at strategic locations across the capital as PDRC campaigners sought to force the caretaker government's resignation.
"The PDRC would like to return traffic lanes to our Bangkok brothers and sisters," Mr Suthep told the crowd at the Pathumwan intersection on Friday night.
Lumpini Park will be more "comfortable" for protesters, especially those who have come to Bangkok from the provinces, Mr Suthep says.
"My sincere apologies to all Bangkokians for the inconvenience. It's just something we had to do."
He said nobody had forced the PDRC to dismantle the sites, not even the "incompetent" caretaker Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and her deputy Chalerm Yubamrung.
"We decided to stop the 'Bangkok Shutdown' but we'll continue to close down government offices and businesses of the Shinawatra family as usual and our fight will be more intense," Mr Suthep said.
"I'm determined to end this by March so we can start national reform, so please be patient."
The former Democrat Party powerbroker said he planned to get pro-PDRC musicians to perform many concerts at the Lumpini rally site. The money earned from the shows will be given to relatives of those who have died in the political violence.
Twenty people have been killed and around 700 injured since the protests started at the end of October.
Mr Suthep said the protesters would help clean up the Pathumwan, Asok, Silom and Ratchaprasong areas before moving to Lumpini on Monday.
The PDRC decided to gather at Lumpini only because many buildings and conference halls were situated there, and the group could hold meetings and seminars to exchange views from various sides, he said.
As well, he said, the park would be "more comfortable" for people who travelled from the provinces to take part in the rallies and needed a place to camp overnight.
When the shutdown began on Jan 13, PDRC organisers set up seven rally stages at high-profile locations in the capital: Lumpini, Asok-Sukhumvit, Ratchaprasong, Pathumwan, Victory Monument, Lat Phrao and the Chaeng Watthana Government Complex.
In the early days of the campaign, speeches and other activities on each of the stages attracted thousands of people every evening. But attendance has fallen markedly in the last two weeks or so.
"We will raise the level of our rallies after we return the roads to Bangkok people," Mr Suthep said. "I personally hope the game will be over by March.
"I hope that after we return the roads to you, Bangkok people will rethink how important what we are doing is for the country and join us."
Responding to the government's plan to invite United Nations Secretary-general Ban Ki-moon to Thailand to help solve the political crisis, Mr Suthep said he believed the UN did not understand Thailand's situation the way Thai people do.
In any case, he said, Ms Yingluck could not communicate well in English and that could pose a problem during negotiations.Microsoft made one of the blockbuster IT industry acquisition deals of the year with the announcement of its intention to acquire Skype for $8.5 billion. All across the industry, opinions are flying over whether the software giant's decision to acquire a company outside of its core competencies is really a good idea. Some say it paid too much for a firm that will deliver too little for Microsoft's bottom line.
But such opinions are shortsighted. Microsoft's desire for Skype might seem rather odd at first glance for a company that is still mainly a producer of enterprise software. But when one considers all the many benefits that could go along with this move, it quickly becomes clear that Microsoft made the right choice. Even the $8.5 billion price tag isn't all that bad, considering the growth potential that Skype could bring to Microsoft's operation along with the strategic imperative pressing on the software giant to move deeper into the communications field.
So perhaps it's time to give Microsoft some credit. It was able to outbid two entrenched competitors and steal away what could be the most important VOIP (voice-over-IP) provider in the industry. Not bad.
Read on to find out why Microsoft's Skype acquisition makes perfect sense.
1. The price is right
There is much debate over whether or not Microsoft should have paid $8.5 billion for a company that was turning a profit in the low millions of dollars. Those folks say that Skype was worth no more than a few billion dollars. But what they don't realize is that the competitive landscape was such that Microsoft was forced to pay a premium. Both Facebook and Google were reportedly trying to acquire Skype. Moreover, if Microsoft can properly integrate Skype into its many services, the company will likely turn the VOIP provider's relatively small revenue figures into a major contributor to its earnings. In a few years, one might look back and realize Microsoft bought Skype at a bargain rate.
2. Microsoft can afford it
One must also consider the fact that Microsoft can more than afford to dole out $8.5 billion for a company that's worth the investment. The software giant generates billions of dollars in revenue and profits each quarter. In fact, during its last reported quarter ended March 31, it made $5.2 billion on more than $16.4 billion in revenue. In other words, it will be able to make up its Skype acquisition in just six months. Not bad.
3. Consider Kinect
Microsoft's Kinect platform, which allows gamers to play titles with only the movement of their bodies, is integral to the software giant's plans with Skype. With Kinect and Skype working together, users will be able to have video chats with others right from within an integrated platform. Separate accessories can bring the feature to the Xbox 360 when there isn't a Kinect present. Simply put, Skype could have a profound impact on Microsoft's increasingly important gaming operation.
4. It's now a FaceTime battle
When Apple first launched FaceTime, its video-chatting service, on the iPhone 4, some wondered if it would have any sustainability in an increasingly crowded marketplace. But now that FaceTime is available on the iPad, as well as Macs, it's clear that Apple is on to something with its multiplatform communication service. Moreover, it put Microsoft behind. With Skype's help, Microsoft can now allow for a FaceTime-like level of communication not only through its many operating systems, including Windows 7, but through other platforms as well. It might turn out to be better than FaceTime.But Mises, more so than most any other economist, wanted to be clear; This is the foundation of what we're doing. Let's be clear on what economics is before we just jump right into the interesting stuff, because if you don't have a good foundation, the whole thing can crumble." - Robert Murphy The question that I want to address is, what is the status of economic propositions? Is economics some axiomatic deductive science, or is it what is now a days called an empirical science, or to formulate it somewhat differently, are economic propositions logically derived from some firmly established starting point and hence, provided that no flaw occurs in the course of logical deductions, statements are absolutely true, or as Mises said, apodictically true? Or are economic propositions hypothetical statements that require some sort of empirical testing? And I want to show that contrary to widespread beliefs, these types of methodological questions are of utmost importance and have fundamental implications, depending on what the answer to this riddle is." - Hans-Hermann Hoppe
Mainstream Economics
Real economics is not only, not even primarily, the calculation of statistics, the working of formulas, the tweaking of interest rates, or fancy graphs of national output. Over time, economics, as we have come to know it from the mainstream sources (schools, media & government), has become this pseudo-scientific calculation and statistic based field. When most people think of economics, they think of how they learned it in school and what they see on TV; formulas, variables, calculations, national outputs, averages, and graphs predicting future growth using complicated models. But, does this sort of economics make any sense? Does their methodology produce good results? And are their results accurate or helpful for understanding what is going on in the world?
It might seem like they're making sense, but their methods are flawed, their premises are faulty, and their results are usually flat out wrong. But, it's okay to be wrong, if everyone sees this as the only way to think about economics. So, when mainstream economists come up with terrible prescriptions for the economy, or when they fail to predict coming collapses, or when they hand out head-scratching advice to governments and individuals alike, we give them a big collective pass. Everyone just says, "Well, economics isn't perfect", "Who would have seen that coming?", or they'll just assume the methods were correct, but next time we need to tweak some government control one way or another, then we'll get the magical results the economists have predicted.
The Austrians
The truth is, there are people who often see things coming and who are dishing out very rational and helpful economic advice; the thing is, no one is listening. Even though these people are correct more often than standard economists, they are dismissed as being "unscientific." They are written off as radical and not worth listening to. (As an aside, we can see the same phenomenon in other areas of study and more easily understand this way that acceptable, mainstream views are promulgated, and alternative views are kept in the dark. I'm thinking here of "alternative" (real) medicine, alternative views on history, climate change, terrorism, etc. There is always the comfortable, state-approved, official way of looking at things, and anything else gets names thrown at it. They'll marginalize the idea, call it racist, call it unscientific, call it anti-social, undemocratic, unpatriotic, and so on. A general rule I go by, the harder the mainstream slanders a particular viewpoint, the more of a chance there is some truth there waiting to be uncovered and understood.) So who are these people, and why are their economic recommendations and conclusions so different from the mainstream; from what we think economics is all about?
Generally, these people are economists and philosophers of the "Austrian School" of economics. For anyone not familiar with the term; they are not all from some school in Austria. It refers to a "school of thought," or tradition of thought, which originated in Austria in the mid to late 1800s. Their founder is a man named Carl Menger; but the most well-known representatives of Austrian thinking are Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich A. Hayek, and Murray N. Rothbard. Today the tradition is continued on by many others, including Hans-Hermann Hoppe and Robert Murphy, who were both quoted at the beginning of this article.
Why Mainstream Economics Is What It Is
You might ask, why would these people be so often dismissed if their economics makes more sense than the mainstream. Well, the answer is pretty simple. Mainstream economic's purpose is not to practice good economics. Its purpose is to legitimize what governments wanted to do anyway. Their purpose is to create excuses for politicians and cronies; to give some sort of scientific backing to the actions of governments, central banks, the IMF, the World Bank, and crony corporations. A "good" economist will parrot the government line. They'll tell us the latest Fed or congressional decision was a good move. Or they'll recommend that a certain action be taken to "improve" the economy, then shortly thereafter that action is put into practice by the government. For example, in the early 2000s, the top court economist, Paul Krugman, was recommending that the Fed inflate a housing bubble. (Yeah, sorry people, that whole 2008 thing; not caused by the "free market.")
As with politics, we are also fed a safe spectrum of economic ideas. We're given two candidates, and even though their underlying philosophies are pretty similar and their governing would look basically the same, we would be told they are drastically different and (as always) the election is to be "the most important of our lifetime." Same with economics; we'll be given various economic plans, ideas and proposals put forth by groups that are supposedly polar opposites. But are these economic ideas fundamentally any different from one another? Not really. One might be the liberal sort of plan; the other the conservative, Reagan sort of plan. But there won't be any fundamental difference. One might propose to raise taxes by 5% and increase government spending by 10%. NPR will tell us it is a quite reasonable, moderate plan. Fox News will tell us it is a radical, socialist plan. Then a proposal will be forth by another group. They'll say the government should raise taxes by 3% and government spending should increase by 7%. NPR will tell us this is trickle-down economics that never works, and the reduction to the increase in spending amounts to austerity! Meanwhile, Fox News will tell us this is a good, conservative plan. Or take, for example, possible proposals from the Fed. They could raise interest rates, lower them, keep them the same, or even make them negative (yes that's being debated now).
The point is, the way economics is portrayed to us, we get no fundamentally alternative viewpoints. It's pro-state or more pro-state. For example, regarding the Fed, if you were to say, lets completely abolish the Fed because we shouldn't have a crony super-bank artificially manipulating interest rates; that would not be an acceptable viewpoint in mainstream economic discourse. It's only acceptable to wait with bated breath how the overlords will change interest rates, and how much money they'll slosh out to the biggest mega-banks. (Yes, the real "trickle-down" is the very system most statists support; cheering on the Fed as an indispensable curator of the economy, as they create massive amounts of "money" out of thin air, to "loan" out to the biggest crony banks at virtually 0% interest.)
Mainstream economics, like many other professions, works in a way to over complicate the subject matter, put up barriers to entry, and generally make it out like you must be one of them to understand economics at all. Real economics is actually a very comprehensible subject, but we're given the message that you must have a certain degree from certain acceptable schools, and hold certain specific views about things; otherwise, you'd better leave the important matters to your wise overlords at the White House, the Commerce Department, the Federal Reserve and the New York Times.
The reason then, that the Austrian economists, their methods, and most importantly their recommendations aren't taken seriously by the mainstream, is that they do not parrot the government line. They do not express only the acceptable opinions. They don't get asked to give recommendations because the powers-that-be who try to micromanage the economy don't want to be told everything they're doing is wrong, and that their newest proposed law is only going to make things worse. They want a profession of court economists to rubber stamp what they're doing. The more "sciency" the economic wizards can sound, the more they can lend credibility to what politicians want to do. The same goes for many other industries. It's sort of the same concept as regulatory capture, with a revolving door of government that wants economists to back them up, and economists who want to be in the favor of government, media, and academia. It becomes a self-perpetuating cycle.
Conclusion
Austrian economics, guided by examining the purposeful action of individuals, does not fall into that cycle. This study of human action is called Praxeology and this is what sets Austrians apart from other economic schools of thought. Austrians look at everyone as individuals, trying to logically take into account all the subjective preferences, desires, goals, ambitions and skills of every person within an economy. It all starts with this understanding; just simply recognizing individuals, and that they act purposefully. Mainstream economists don't do this, though. They look at everyone as one big collective. Everyone, and everything they do, gets turned into statistics, averages, and one size fits all solutions. The logical result of a praxeological framework is to leave people alone, let them be free to pursue their own interests, and that no centralized economic "planning" is necessary. The mainstream econometricians, on the other hand, seek to convince us that they are what makes an economy function; that without their lever pulling, manipulating, averaging of everyone, and passing of new bills, nothing would function, and no one would know what to do with themselves.
For further reading, you'll find several links and excerpts below to learn more about this unique methodology. As Hoppe pointed out in one of our opening quotes, it is important to consider differences in how we approach and think about economics. Economics, practiced correctly, can teach us a great deal about people and society. When practiced as the mainstream does, the results can be disastrous. When it comes down to it, everything is economics. Economics is not merely some decision from some government bureaucrat. Economics is the everyday decisions of millions of individuals. And it's a fascinating prospect to consider it in this way. It brings it back down to earth, back to a comprehensible, logical way of looking at the world.
To learn more about economics from this point of view visit Mises.org. For some good specific resources, continue on below.
This is a great talk by Robert Murphy on the basics of human action. The quote at the beginning of the article comes from this talk:
The Hoppe quote at the beginning of the article comes from the talk below called Praxeology: The Method of Economics
Free Full Download of Human Action by Ludwig von Mises
Free Abridged Download of Human Action
The following is possibly the best introduction I've ever read to what economics really is. For that reason, I'm reposting the entirety below. For the original, see here Economics Is About Scarcity, Property, and Relationships
The other day I was having coffee with a new friend, a retired businessman who had customized luxury cars in California. I mentioned I had recently retired from owning an investment firm and had studied economics for many years, especially Austrian economics.
Like so many people, he said, “I really don't understand economics and always have been confused by it.”
To which I surprised him with, “Of course you understand economics; it is the thought process you use every day to deal with three things: scarcity, property, and relationships.”
His eyes got big and he said, “Whoa! Say that again.”
“OK,” I said, “Everything in human life is organized around how we make decisions about three things: scarcity, property, and relationships.
“First let’s talk about scarcity which you’ve known about all of your life — you notice when something is missing or about to be missing; it is how you decide when it’s time go to the grocery store, do your laundry or whether you should drive your car faster so not to be late for an appointment.
“Every human being is an expert in the decision process of scarcity. It is something we all naturally do whenever we act and choose — which, by the way, we are doing all the time, every day, all day long.”
I smiled, “I could go on and on. |
the residence of a number of artists. He subsequently planned the redevelopment of the Corpus Christi waterfront; the plan failed,[why?] although a model for a statue of Christ intended for it was later modified by his son and erected on a mountaintop in South Dakota. While living and working in Texas, Borglum took an interest in local beautification. He promoted change and modernity, although he was berated by academicians.[38]
A fascination with gigantic scale and themes of heroic nationalism suited his extroverted personality. His head of Abraham Lincoln, carved from a six-ton block of marble, was exhibited in Theodore Roosevelt's White House and can be found in the United States Capitol Crypt in Washington, D.C. A "patriot," believing that the "monuments we have built are not our own," he looked to create art that was "American, drawn from American sources, memorializing American achievement," according to a 1908 interview.[citation needed] Borglum was highly suited to the competitive environment surrounding the contracts for public buildings and monuments, and his public sculptures are found all around the United States.
In 1908, Borglum won a competition for a statue of the Civil War General Philip Sheridan to be placed in Sheridan Circle in Washington, D.C. A second version of General Philip Sheridan was erected in Chicago, Illinois, in 1923. Winning this competition was a personal triumph for him because he won out over sculptor J.Q.A. Ward, a much older and more established artist and one whom Borglum had clashed with earlier in regard to the National Sculpture Society. At the unveiling of the Sheridan statue, one observer, President Theodore Roosevelt (whom Borglum was later to include in the Mount Rushmore portrait group), declared that it was "first rate"; a critic wrote that "as a sculptor Gutzon Borglum was no longer a rumor, he was a fact." (Smith:see References)[full citation needed]
Stone Mountain [ edit ]
Borglum was initially involved in the carving of Stone Mountain in Georgia. Borglum's nativist stances made him seem an ideologically sympathetic choice to carve a memorial to heroes of the Confederacy, planned for Stone Mountain, Georgia. In 1915, coinciding with the Klan-glorifying, highly successful Birth of a Nation, he was approached by the United Daughters of the Confederacy with a project for sculpting a 20-foot (6 m) high bust of General Robert E. Lee on the mountain's 800-foot (240 m) rockface. Borglum accepted, but told the committee, "Ladies, a twenty-foot head of Lee on that mountainside would look like a postage stamp on a barn door."[39]
Borglum's ideas eventually evolved into a high-relief frieze of Lee, Jefferson Davis, and 'Stonewall' Jackson riding around the mountain, followed by a legion of artillery troops. Borglum agreed to include a Ku Klux Klan altar in his plans for the memorial to acknowledge a request of Helen Plane in 1915, who wrote to him: "I feel it is due to the KKK that saved us from Negro domination and carpetbag rule, that it be immortalized on Stone Mountain".[35]
After a delay caused by World War I, Borglum and the newly chartered Stone Mountain Confederate Monumental Association set to work on this monument, the largest ever attempted. Many difficulties slowed progress, some because of the sheer scale involved. After finishing the detailed model of the carving, Borglum was unable to trace the figures onto the massive area on which he was working, until he developed a gigantic magic lantern to project the image onto the side of the mountain.
Carving officially began on June 23, 1923, with Borglum making the first cut. At Stone Mountain he developed sympathetic connections with the reorganized Ku Klux Klan, who were major financial backers of the monument. Lee's head was unveiled on Lee's birthday January 19, 1924, to a large crowd, but soon thereafter Borglum was increasingly at odds with the officials of the organization. His domineering, perfectionist, authoritarian manner brought tensions to such a point that in March 1925 Borglum smashed his clay and plaster models. He left Georgia permanently, his tenure with the organization over. None of his work remains, as it was all cleared from the mountain's face for the work of Borglum's replacement Henry Augustus Lukeman. In his abortive attempt however, Borglum had developed the necessary techniques for sculpting on a gigantic scale that made Mount Rushmore possible.[40]
Mount Rushmore [ edit ]
His Mount Rushmore project, 1927–1941, was the brainchild of South Dakota state historian Doane Robinson. His first attempt with the face of Thomas Jefferson was blown up after two years. Dynamite was also used to remove large areas of rock from under Washington's brow. The initial pair of presidents, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson was soon joined by Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.
Ivan Houser, father of John Sherrill Houser, was assistant sculptor to Gutzon Borglum in the early years of carving; he began working with Borglum shortly after the inception of the monument and was with Borglum for a total of seven years. When Houser left Gutzon to devote his talents to his own work, Gutzon's son, Lincoln, took over as Assistant-Sculptor to his father.
Borglum alternated exhausting on-site supervising with world tours, raising money, polishing his personal legend, sculpting a Thomas Paine memorial for Paris and a Woodrow Wilson memorial for Poznań, Poland (1931).[41] In his absence, work at Mount Rushmore was overseen by his son, Lincoln Borglum. During the Rushmore project, father and son were residents of Beeville, Texas. When he died in Chicago, following complications of surgery, his son finished another season at Rushmore, but left the monument largely in the state of completion it had reached under his father's direction.
Other works [ edit ]
In 1909, the sculpture Rabboni was created as a grave site for the Ffoulke Family in Washington, D.C. at Rock Creek Cemetery. [42]
In 1912, the Nathaniel Wheeler Memorial Fountain was dedicated in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Memorial to Robert Louis Stevenson at Baker Cottage, Saranac Lake, New York. Unveiled in 1915.
In 1918, he was one of the drafters of the Czechoslovak declaration of independence.[43]
One of Borglum's more unusual pieces is the Aviator completed in 1919 as a memorial for James R. McConnell, who was killed in World War I while flying for the Lafayette Escadrille. It is located on the grounds of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia.[44]
Four public works by Borglum are in Newark, NJ: Seated Lincoln (1911), Indian and Puritan (1916), Wars of America (1926), and a bas-relief, First Landing Party of the Founders of Newark (1916).[45]
In 1922, he crafted a sculpture of William D. Hoard in what is now the Henry Mall Historic District on the campus of the University of Wisconsin.
His sculpture of Harvey W. Scott was completed in 1933 and stands at the peak of Mt. Tabor.
Borglum sculpted the memorial Start Westward of the United States, which is located in Marietta, Ohio (1938).
He built the statue of Daniel Butterfield at Sakura Park in Manhattan (1918).[46]
He created a memorial to Sacco and Vanzetti (1928), a plaster cast of which is now in the Boston Public Library.[47][48][49][50][51]
Another Borglum design is the North Carolina Monument on Seminary Ridge at the Gettysburg Battlefield in south-central Pennsylvania. The cast bronze sculpture depicts a wounded Confederate officer encouraging his men to push forward during Pickett's Charge. Borglum had also made arrangements for an airplane to fly over the monument during the dedication ceremony on July 3, 1929. During the sculpture's unveiling, the plane scattered roses across the field as a salute to those North Carolinians who had fought and died at Gettysburg.
Death [ edit ]
Borglum died in 1941 of a heart attack and is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California in the Memorial Court of Honor.[52] His second wife, Mary Montgomery Williams Borglum (1874–1955) is interred alongside him.
In popular culture [ edit ]
Publications [ edit ]
Gallery [ edit ]
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References [ edit ]We are just two weeks out from the start of the 2014-2015 NHL season and the Arizona Coyotes are ready to show the league that they are a playoff contender. The Coyotes have not made the playoffs since their historic 2012 playoff run to the Western Conference Final but 2014 will likely break that drought. With new management, an experienced coach, a captain with the drive and motivation, and a team that is willing to fight their way to victory; the time is now. Each player on the Arizona Coyotes roster provides a unique piece to the team puzzle and Howlin’ Hockey wants to know who you think is going to be the player that leads the pack this year. Which Arizona Coyote will be the team’s most valuable player this coming season?
The Candidates:
Shane Doan
Captain Coyote himself has been with the team since the humble begins. As a prominent ambassador for the sport of hockey and a loyal leader to his squad, Shane Doan is ready to cap his career off with his name etched into Lord Stanley’s Cup. Doan turns 38 this season so his time on the ice is coming to a close as he enters his 18th season in a Coyotes sweater. His leadership propels the team to its full potential as he motivates his team on and off the ice. Even with his old age Shane Doan can attribute to the stat sheet as last season he accumulated 47 points through 69 games played. Will our fearless leader produce those same numbers this season? Only time will tell.
Keith Yandle
Keith Yandle enters his 9th season with the Arizona Coyotes and is looking to put up the same numbers he did last season. Yandle led the team in points with 53 as one of the most electrifying offensive defensemen in this league. With quick hands, a powerful slap shot, and the ability to separate opposing players from the puck; Keith Yandle is the real deal. Whether your opinion is to trade him or keep him, Yandle is a pivotal component of how the Arizona Coyotes team operates. Do not be surprised if he leads the team in points for a third consecutive season.
Mike Smith
As the last line of defense for the Arizona Coyotes, Mike Smith is someone that you can never forget. Whether its his ability to play the puck, make acrobatic saves, or defend his teammates in heated exchanges; this guy is fun to watch. Injuries have limited Smitty’s playing time the past couple seasons but he is back and healthier than ever for the puck drop two weeks from now. Smith is looking to improve on his 2.64 GAA and.915 SV% from just a year ago to launch his team into the playoffs. Vezina trophy candidate? We will just have to see.
Oliver Ekman-Larsson
Ekman-Larsson solidified himself as the future franchise player for the Arizona Coyotes after inking a six year deal in March of 2013. His presence near the blue line is felt across the league as he has become one of the top defensmen in the NHL. At the ripe age of 23, OEL has a long and promising career ahead of him. Oliver is looking to build from his 44 point season last year and contribute to this Coyotes team in more ways than before. It won’t be long before Oliver Ekman-Larsson adds “Norris Trophy Winner” to his resume.
Mikkel Boedker
As the highest Danish player to be drafted in the NHL, Mikkel Boedker has a lot to prove. Boedker seemed like a draft bust in his first couple seasons with the Coyotes but proved to the team that he is ready to compete after scoring 51 points last year. Boedker is looking to be a first line winger for the Coyotes and produce a fifty point effort for the team again this season. With fluent skating abilities and an accurate wrist shot, this sniper is ready to score.
Now its time for your voice to be heard! Who do you think will be the MVP this year?
Who will be the MVP for the Arizona Coyotes this Season? Shane Doan
Keith Yandle
Mike Smith
Oliver Ekman-Larsson
Mikkel Boedker
Other View ResultsWhen 21-year old Mahdi Bahrami took the stage at this year's Experimental Gameplay Workshop, the audience was entranced by his game Engare.
Projected onto a large screen to a crowd of hundreds of people, Bahrami showed solutions to his geometric, ancient Iranian art-influenced puzzle game. "So you have an object on a table," he said to the audience, pointing to a screen where a rectangle sat on the edge of a desk. "Now if you draw a point somewhere on that object, what kind of line would it make if it fell?" He placed a dot on the corner of the rectangle. He hit "play." The rectangle tumbled off the table, leaving behind a squiggly line.
In the early build of Engare Bahrami showed, at the start of each level players were shown a line they had to replicate by placing a dot on a moving object. Perhaps it was a hook-like curve they had to recreate. Perhaps it was something that resembled the McDonald's golden arches. Each of these puzzles was mind boggling on their own. Then Bahrami got meta: what if you drew a dot on the game's menu tab so when you pulled up the menu, it created a line? And then what if you got rid of the menu and the table and the moving objects and just allowed the line to replicate itself again and again and again?
The audience was mesmerized. The line replicated itself to form a beautiful, intricate pattern. After a while, it stopped. On the screen was a mandala-like creation. The audience erupted in applause.
RECONNECTING WITH ESFAHAN
Mahdi Bahrami was born in Esfahan, Iran. His father was an electrical engineer who encouraged him to learn how to code. His mother was a homemaker who, in her youth, weaved carpets. He grew up watching his older brother play video games.
With help from his father, he learned to code in C++ and C# when he was 11.
"I was very interested in mathematics when I was young, and I knew that to do coding with mathematics I would need to know how to program," he told Polygon. "In our school, there were competitions for students to make software that involved mathematics, and I wanted to win, so I made something, and I won. And because of that, I decided to study programming more."
The prize-winning software Bahrami created as an 11-year old was a basic calculation program. He says it wasn't a particularly impressive piece of software, but the win motivated him to continue on his path to become a programmer.
In his teens he learned of the connection between games and mathematics. When he turned 19, he moved to The Netherlands to continue his education. It was here that he connected games and mathematics with culture.
"When I first came to The Netherlands, I felt disconnected from my country," he said. "When I came here, I didn't feel part of this country. The culture was so different; I couldn't connect with people.
"When I came here I couldn't drink beer, I didn't like it, and that's a big part of Dutch culture," he said. "So I couldn't connect with the people or the culture, and on the other hand I was far from my city and my family, and I was like why did I come here? Why am I staying here? Was it worth it? What am I going to do here if all my friends and family are very far? The culture, the language, everything... I was unsure why I came to The Netherlands."
In an attempt to feel connected with his home, Bahrami spent his free time making a game that reminded him of home. His first game project while in The Netherlands, Farsh, was a puzzle game that used Persian carpets as its central motif. Players would furl and unfurl carpets to connect and create pathways.
He made the game in two weeks and uploaded it to the internet. "I got really good feedback from people," he said. "The interesting thing is people in Iran were really interested in the game. I heard from a teacher in Iran who said he liked the game and was going to give it to his students so they could solve the puzzles. I felt connected to my people."
ENGARE
Engare is Bahrami's latest creation, which was accepted into this year's Experimental Gameplay Workshop. "It's about how shapes are drawn and what patterns are."
The idea for Engare came during a high school geometry class when Bahrami's teacher posed the question of what kind of shape would be made if a point was drawn on a ball, and the ball rolled. "Everyone was so fascinated by this question, even those who didn't know geometry wanted to know the answer to the question. I thought this question was so interesting I wanted to make a game about it."
While Engare was not designed to have a connection to Islamic art, the pattern making process explored through the geometric puzzles mirrored that of Islamic art making. Seeing this strong connection, Bahrami said it made sense to play it up in the game.
"Islamic art is all about mathematics," he said. "There are many different types of Islamic art, but the architecture and tiling, most of those principles are based on mathematics. When you see the architecture, you completely understand that the people who made it knew mathematics."
EXPERIMENTAL PUZZLES
Host of the Experimental Gameplay Workshop and co-founder of game studio Funomena Robin Hunicke first heard of Bahrami more than four years ago.
"Mahdi submitted his first prototype of Engare, which he called Everything Can Draw, to the 2010 Experimental Gameplay session at GDC. I was instantly struck by the core mechanic and the cleverness of the puzzles, which really twisted your brain and made you think to solve them," Hunicke said. "And when I realize the submission was from a 16-year old kid from halfway around the world, I was really blown away."
According to Hunicke, one of the first thing many people notice about Bahrami's games like Farsh and Engare is the Islamic theme, but his games are interesting even without the cultural veneer.
"As you look at Mahdi's current body of work, that drive to explore experimental mechanics is at its very core," she said. "At first glance, you may notice the gentle way he weaves his cultural heritage into the setting and music and visuals of the game. But when you begin playing, you are immediately swept into the puzzles themselves. It's this craft that makes his designs compelling."
For Bahrami, he says he has ideas for his next game projects, none of which are related to Islamic art. "I want my games to be interesting because they're interesting, not because they're related to Islamic art," he said.
As he completes his studies in The Netherlands, he says his long-term plans are to go back to Iran and start his own game development studio. For now, he no longer feels disconnected from his home, he's settled into The Netherlands, and he's content to keep making mind-bending puzzlers. "I just want to make games," he said. "I just want to make interesting games."The White Stripes’ Icky Thump turns 10 today, and to celebrate, Third Man Records announced that a deluxe reissue of the album will be out soon. The colored vinyl (pictured above) was pressed at Third Man’s plant, and it comes with a 12″ of all nine non-album B-sides recorded around the same time that Icky Thump was released, including a live cover of Hank Williams’ “Tennessee Border” as well as the Beck-produced “It’s My Fault For Being Famous.” A full run of Icky Thump demos will also be included with the reissue.
Aside from musical components, the Third Man Icky Thump reissue also comes with an “exclusive polaroid photo book” of the band as well as a series of what are being called “mystery art prints” by Rob Jones. Two enamel pins featuring the horse skeleton artwork found on the original “Rag And Bone” 7″ will also be included. The entire deluxe reissue is packaged in a telescoping box stamped with St. Andrew’s cross (so, basically the letter “X”).
The reissue is a part of Third Man’s Vault subscription series. If you’d like to own it, you can sign up here by 7/31. Check out images of the goods below.Milos Teodosic is one of the best and most exciting players in Europe in the last 5 years.
Fans around the world always asking – why he is not playing in the NBA? Look at his assists, he is the European Jason “White Chocolate” Williams, but in my opinion, he is the better player because Milos has a great three-point shot and he already has medals with Serbian National Team and Euroleague with CSKA Moscow.
Three years ago, Memphis tried to sign him, according to the ESPN.
The Memphis Grizzlies tried to sign star European point guard Milos Teodosic in the summer of 2013, but the architect of Serbia’s near-upset of Team USA at the Rio Games rebuffed that chance to come to the NBA, according to league sources. Sources confirmed to ESPN that the Grizzlies offered Teodosic a two-year deal in the $5 million range in an attempt to lure him to the NBA.
Teodosic is a free agent next season (2017), and he will finally want to play in the NBA.
In the past I felt that playing in the NBA was not something really close to me. Now, I think about it. I want to travel to the States, play in the NBA and compete against the best players in the world. Maybe now I am more ready mentally and also on the court. I know what I can do it, I believe in myself and I ehave no doubts or second thoughts. I am in the best phase of my career, I play for the Euroleague champs and I enjoy the most important thing for me since I was a kid, playing on open courts. I enjoy basketball. I will not risk losing that, because this is the only thing that I really need. I want to feel that an NBA team knows my game, has a plan for me and can use me in a unit with real chemistry, while having high goals and being competitive. I want to win, to be motivated and to feel that the coaches and the organization trust me. It’s important when you play to have high goals. That’s what I’ve been doing since I was a kid, I was chasing championship titles. I want to go to the NBA and I know that I can establish myself there and really contribute. I will not sign anywhere just to be able to say that I played in the NBA. I need the whole package that will excite me. So it depends on what offers I get as a free agent and the way the teams approach and talk to me. Ιf I end up in the NBA, I just want to be able to be myself. The spaces on the court are bigger compared to Europe, traps on defense and hedge outs to guards are rare, while there are many great shooters and big men who can finish the pick and roll. I think that those are keys for my game, I could adjust easily and produce high quality basketball. I don’t care about my numbers, that’s not the point. The point is to play the basketball that I can and really influence the game of my team, help it be more effective. (Via EuroHoops.net)
He is a great player and he should play in the NBA next season, but the question is where is the best destination for him?
3. Houston Rockets
Mike D’Antoni likes run and gun, and Milos Teodosic knows how to find his teammates in the first 10 seconds of the offense. He could be the same player like Steve Nash was in Phoenix Suns.
Assists, three-pointers and intelligence on the court. The Rockets have Patrick Beverly (he played with Teodosic in Olympiacos), and they can use Milos with James Harden, Ryan Anderson and Eric Gordon on the court.
Just imagine that run and gun basketball with four players who can score from the downtown. And Mike D’Antoni likes that.
The problem could be if James Harden often uses isolation play, but Teodosic could help him after pick and roll with Anderson, so they can spread the floor and Harden will have more spaces to play in the offense.
2. Sacramento Kings
Peja Stojakovic was there and he is one of the best three-point shooters in the NBA history. Vlade Divac is there. He is also from Serbia and he is a legend of Sacramento Kings. Bogdan Bogdanovic will be there, and Teodosic could have the agreement with Sacramento in 5 minutes.
DeMarcus Cousins and Milos Teodosic. Just imagine this combination on the court. After their pick, Teodosic can find DeMarcus Cousins in the Manhattan if he wants.
Sacramento Kings have to find a good point guard, and if they don’t send the offer to Washington Wizards, they should send a good offer to Milos Teodosic and that is it.
Sactown could be finally on the NBA Playoffs map after 10 year
1. San Antonio Spurs
“The San Antonio Spurs, since it is a team that has developed a style close to the so called ‘European’ basketball,” said Teodosic in the EuroHoops article. “The plays have a lot of extra passes etc. Also the Utah Jazz. Their coach Quin Snyder is a former assistant to Ettore Messina (in 2012/2013 CSKA Moscow) and someone with a phenomenal attitude. He is a great man, one of the most promising coaches in USA right now. And he really knows me well. So I think I’d be a very good fit there, knowing him and his system of work. Also the composition of the Jazz is quite solid, they have a lot of young and athletic players”. Before becoming an assistant coach under Gregg Popovich, Messina was coaching CSKA in the Euroleague and coached Teodosic during part of his time there. So, the familiarity with the Spurs and Jazz makes sense from Teodosic’s perspective.
I really don’t believe the Jazz can sign Milos Teodosic because they already have George Hill and Dante Exum.
But, the Spurs will be the best destination for Milos Teodosic.
Gregg Popovich knows how to use players from Europe, and he develops a style very similar to the European basketball.
Tedosic will have the ideal game plan on the court. Every player in the Spurs has the extra assist in the pocket.
Tony Parker is 34-years old, and Milos Teodosic has 29. It’s time to have a younger player on the court, and he can fit with LaMarcus Aldridge and Kawhi Leonard.
I didn’t forget Pau Gasol and Davis Bertans, as well.
Manu Ginobili and Milos Teodosic together can hide the ball from their opponents.
The Spurs will be the ideal destination for Teodosic and I hope so he will sign with them next season.
Check this video… and you will have a better idea where is the best destination for Milos Teodosic. Enjoy.Fort Worth police are continuing their investigation into an officer-involved shooting death of 72-year-old Jerry Waller. (Published Wednesday, May 29, 2013)
Police were "trigger happy" when at least one officer shot and killed a 72-year-old homeowner while responding to a burglar alarm across the street, the man's wife said Tuesday.
Kathy Waller said she and her husband, Jerry, noticed bright lights from outside their bedroom window at about 1 a.m. Tuesday.
He grabbed a.38-caliber pistol and went outside to see what was going on.
"He probably thought it was a group of yuckos out there or something messing around," she said.
Wife of 72-Year-Old Man Killed by Police Wants Answers
Kathy Waller, the wife of a 72-year-old man shot and killed by Fort Worth police, spoke to NBC 5 about the moments before her husband was shot. (Published Tuesday, May 28, 2013)
It was police responding to a burglar alarm, which wasn't at their house, but across the street.
"I'm just curious as hell how it happened," she said. "I heard he was shot six times in the chest by a Glock, I guess, or whatever the police use. I'm disgusted."
Police offered few details about the shooting but promised a thorough investigation.
Fort Worth police spokeswoman Cpl. Tracey Knight said two officers -- each with less than a year on the force -- responded to a burglar alarm call and feared for their lives when they encountered the armed homeowner.
Knight would not say whether Jerry Waller raised his weapon or refused an order to drop it or if one or both of the officers opened fire. She also would not name the officers involved but said they were on routine leave pending the investigation.
"This is a tragedy for everybody," Knight said. "A family lost a loved one, and you can never replace that loved one, and we know that. It is a horrible tragedy. And an officer went through an incident that no officer ever wants to go through."
Kathy Waller said she would like more answers from police.
"Married 46 years and somebody gets a little trigger happy and away they go, you know," she said.
It was unclear why the officers were behind the Waller home because the call was at a neighbor's directly across the street.
Kathy Waller said officers told her they thought the alarm call came from her residence.
Still in her bedroom, she heard yelling at about the same time she heard gunshots, she said.
Her husband, who had apparently just opened the garage door, was shot and killed by at least one officer.
"It happened in less than five minutes," she said.
She ran downstairs and saw her husband lying at the edge of their garage and driveway.
"I looked down and saw he was gone," she said.
At first, she said she thought her husband had been killed by a burglar.
Paramedics took Kathy Waller to the hospital because her blood pressure was high.
At the hospital, a detective told her what had happened, she said.
"I have to tell you the truth," she quoted the detective as saying. "It was one of our officers."
Kathy Waller said she responded, "I appreciate you telling me but I'm very angry. He's a very good person."
She and her husband had been married for 46 years. He operated a tire recycling business in Seagoville, she said.
The couple has three children and four grandchildren.
"He would give you the shirt off his back, and he was loving, and he was a wonderful husband," Kathy Waller said. "I think the police made a terrible mistake."
More Local Stories:According to Ehang co-founder and CMO Derrick Xiong, his company has been mobilizing "a few" 184s that have so far accumulated over 200 test flights -- some were apparently fully autonomous -- in China. There's no detail on the actual number of vehicles nor test flight hours, but the company claims it's already gathered plenty of data to improve the drone's flight accuracy plus overall stability. One of those units is actually lurking around in the US (likely the same one we saw at CES), but without specifying reasons, Xiong confirmed to Engadget that his company has yet to perform test flights there.
In addition to test flights, the drone itself has already gone through two iterations in terms of propeller, motor, motor driver and battery design, thus resulting in a supposedly quieter, more efficient, more powerful and more reliable vehicle. But the bigger news here is the unveiling of Ehang's flight command center, which has actually been up and running in Guangzhou for two months. This converted building is where Ehang will monitor live data -- including speeds, altitude, individual propeller power, location, drone camera feed and video feed of the passenger -- plus communicate with passengers and schedule air traffic.
As impressive as it sounds, many questions remain. For one, it doesn't appear that the flight command center is fully operational just yet. In the press photos we received, the large monitor was showing placeholders for many of the drone stats, to which we were told it was because the team was still debugging the dashboard. In a recent interview with Chinese news portal Huanqiu, Xiong revealed that he had personally controlled a Ghost -- Ehang's consumer line of drones -- that was 10 km away via the command center, which suggests he has yet to do the same with a 184.
Speaking of, Xiong also attacked the rumor claiming Ehang shipped as few as 200 Ghost drones a month. The exec told Huanqiu that this year his company has already shipped over 10,000 units, most of which were headed to Europe and the US -- the latter boosted by the drone's availability at Best Buy. Xiong admitted that it's been tough fighting the price war, but he promised to continue updating current drones as well as releasing new models.
Given the circumstances, Ehang will definitely need to make a big push in 2017 to prove itself. We've yet to come across photos or videos of a 184 carrying a human passenger, let alone seeing a live public demo, so we're still not entirely convinced that this project will make it in the end. Hopefully we're wrong. We certainly don't want to see this ambitious company ending up in the same ditch as the struggling Faraday Future or the seemingly dead Transit Elevated Bus.Saturday night’s 0-0 stalemate in the Sydney Derby was the Western Sydney Wanderers’ first clean sheet of the season, which was the biggest positive from the match for coach Tony Popovic.
By contrast, though, it was the seventh clean sheet in this campaign for their neighbours in Sky Blue. Keeping their opponents scoreless was a breakthrough moment for the Wanderers; a run-of-the-mill event for Graham Arnold’s team.
Sydney’s defensive record this season is astonishing. They have conceded just seven goals in fifteen games. In the FFA Cup, they were breached only once (in the final against Melbourne City). They average just three shots conceded per game, easily the lowest in the league. So how do you score against such a mean, stingy defence?
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Sydney’s defensive strategy can be broken down into two broad components. The first is their ability to press opponents high up the pitch, something Arnold constantly applauds when saying “our defence starts from the front.”
Sydney play a 4-2-3-1 formation that becomes a 4-4-2 without the ball. The front two, Alex Brosque and Bobo, form the first pressing line. Their exact starting position varies, but it is typically around the opposition’s deepest midfield player, as Sydney’s first priority defensively is to stop teams progressing the ball through central areas.
Depending on their overall tactics for a match, this first pressing line might be higher or deeper. However, the key principle – that the front two form the first line of defence, and position to force passes from the back wide – is always consistent.
To ensure the side has great horizontal compactness, the wide players, Filip Holosko and Milos Ninkovic, drop back into a position between the front two and the two central midfielders, blocking the passing lane into opposition midfielders. Often, this means they must leave the pass from opposition centre-back to full-back free and open – which is fine, because it fits into Sydney’s focus on forcing opponents wide when building up from the back.
Importantly, however, if the opposition does play a pass into the feet of a full-back, Sydney’s wingers spring into life. They press the ball aggressively, looking to force a backwards pass.
When this occurs, the entire defensive block moves forward collectively, lead by Brosque and Bobo. Sydney are unrelenting when teams pass backwards, with Brosque tireless in his efforts to maintain pressure on the ball.
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Sydney will often press high based on a number of ‘triggers’ – including, but not limited to, backwards passes, poor first touches or poor passes. Regardless of the trigger, the resulting press is always collective. This means as the first pressing line moves forward, so does the rest of the defensive block, ensuring pressure on the ball is always consistent, and minimal space is conceded between the lines.
Beating this press is the first challenge of breaking down Sydney defensively. Several teams have tried in vain this season, to varying success. An interesting example was in the Sydney Derby. Popovic instructed Kearyn Baccus, one of two deep midfielders, to position himself in between Bobo and Brosque, in an attempt to separate the front two.
If Baccus could receive the ball between the two Sydney players and dribble forward, he could remove Sydney’s press from the equation, and give the Wanderers a chance to progress forward into the final third while still being in control of possession.
The problem is, even if you get into the middle third, the second component of Sydney’s defensive strategy is equally formidable. When teams have control of the ball inside the middle or front third, the wide players drop back alongside the central midfielders, and the front two drop goal side of the ball. This creates a solid defensive block.
Crucially, the defensive effort is still collective. If the ball shifts wide, the whole team shifts with it. If a central midfielder steps forward to close down an opponent, the players behind him squeeze horizontally and reduce the space. It is an extremely well-oiled machine.
This has been a hallmark of Arnold’s teams, including the 2012 Championship-winning Central Coast Mariners. Interestingly, however, this current Sydney team is more aggressive in trying to win the ball back. For example, Arnold encourages the full-backs to step up quickly to try and intercept passes into opposition wingers.
This was obvious in the Derby, when Rhyan Grant ran into some trouble with the referee when trying to rob Jaushua Sotirio of the ball from behind. While Grant has defended well in this manner throughout the season, it is a possible route of attack for opponents.
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Drawing the |
825.65 April 17, 1964 827.33 May 6, 1964 828.18 May 7, 1964 830.17 June 26, 1964 830.99 June 30, 1964 831.50 July 1, 1964 838.06 July 2, 1964 841.47 July 6, 1964 844.24 July 7, 1964 844.94 July 8, 1964 845.45 July 10, 1964 847.51 July 17, 1964 851.35 September 8, 1964 851.91 September 9, 1964 855.57 September 10, 1964 859.50 September 11, 1964 867.13 September 17, 1964 868.67 September 21, 1964 871.58 September 22, 1964 872.47 September 24, 1964 872.98 September 25, 1964 874.71 September 28, 1964 875.46 September 29, 1964 875.74 October 5, 1964 877.15 October 9, 1964 878.08 October 20, 1964 881.50 November 17, 1964 885.39 November 18, 1964 891.71
1965 (39 record closes) [ edit ]
Date of Record Closing Level January 18, 1965 895.21 January 19, 1965 896.27 January 25, 1965 896.46 January 26, 1965 897.84 January 27, 1965 899.52 January 28, 1965 900.95 January 29, 1965 902.86 February 1, 1965 903.68 February 2, 1965 903.77 February 3, 1965 906.30 April 12, 1965 906.36 April 13, 1965 908.01 April 14, 1965 912.86 April 22, 1965 915.06 April 23, 1965 916.41 April 26, 1965 916.86 April 27, 1965 918.16 April 28, 1965 918.86 April 30, 1965 922.31 May 4, 1965 928.22 May 5, 1965 932.22 May 6, 1965 933.52 May 12, 1965 934.17 May 13, 1965 938.87 May 14, 1965 939.62 October 11, 1965 942.65 October 18, 1965 945.84 October 19, 1965 947.76 October 20, 1965 948.47 October 21, 1965 950.28 October 22, 1965 952.42 October 26, 1965 956.32 October 27, 1965 959.50 October 29, 1965 960.82 November 3, 1965 961.13 November 4, 1965 961.85 December 22, 1965 965.86 December 23, 1965 966.36 December 31, 1965 969.26
1966 (8 record closes) [ edit ]
Date of Record Closing Level January 5, 1966 981.62 January 6, 1966 985.46 January 7, 1966 986.13 January 11, 1966 986.85 January 14, 1966 987.30 January 17, 1966 989.75 January 18, 1966 994.20 February 9, 1966 995.15
1967–1971 (0 record closes) [ edit ]
1972 (12 record closes) [ edit ]
Date of Record Closing Level November 10, 1972 995.26 November 13, 1972 997.07 November 14, 1972 1,003.16 November 16, 1972 1,003.69 November 17, 1972 1,005.57 November 21, 1972 1,013.25 November 22, 1972 1,020.54 November 24, 1972 1,025.21 December 4, 1972 1,027.02 December 6, 1972 1,027.54 December 7, 1972 1,033.26 December 11, 1972 1,036.27
1973 (4 record closes) [ edit ]
Date of Record Closing Level January 3, 1973 1,043.80 January 5, 1973 1,047.49 January 8, 1973 1,047.86 January 11, 1973 1,051.70
1974–1981 (0 record closes) [ edit ]
1982 (2 record closes) [ edit ]
Date of Record Closing Level November 3, 1982 1,065.49 December 27, 1982 1,070.55
1983 (30 record closes) [ edit ]
Date of Record Closing Level January 6, 1983 1,070.92 January 7, 1983 1,076.07 January 10, 1983 1,092.35 February 14, 1983 1,097.10 February 24, 1983 1,121.81 March 1, 1983 1,130.71 March 2, 1983 1,135.06 March 3, 1983 1,138.06 March 4, 1983 1,140.96 March 7, 1983 1,141.74 March 24, 1983 1,145.90 April 13, 1983 1,156.64 April 14, 1983 1,165.25 April 15, 1983 1,171.34 April 18, 1983 1,183.24 April 20, 1983 1,191.47 April 22, 1983 1,196.30 April 26, 1983 1,209.46 April 28, 1983 1,219.52 April 29, 1983 1,226.20 May 6, 1983 1,232.59 June 15, 1983 1,237.28 June 16, 1983 1,248.30 September 20, 1983 1,249.19 September 22, 1983 1,257.52 September 26, 1983 1,260.77 October 6, 1983 1,268.80 October 7, 1983 1,272.15 October 10, 1983 1,284.65 November 29, 1983 1,287.20
1984 (0 record closes) [ edit ]
1985 (36 record closes) [ edit ]
Date of Record Closing Level January 29, 1985 1,292.62 February 13, 1985 1,297.92 March 1, 1985 1,299.36 May 20, 1985 1,304.88 May 21, 1985 1,309.70 May 31, 1985 1,315.41 June 5, 1985 1,320.56 June 6, 1985 1,327.28 June 27, 1985 1,332.21 June 28, 1985 1,335.46 July 1, 1985 1,337.14 July 11, 1985 1,337.70 July 12, 1985 1,338.60 July 16, 1985 1,347.89 July 17, 1985 1,357.97 July 19, 1985 1,359.54 October 16, 1985 1,368.50 October 17, 1985 1,369.29 October 30, 1985 1,375.57 November 1, 1985 1,390.25 November 5, 1985 1,396.67 November 6, 1985 1,403.44 November 8, 1985 1,404.36 November 11, 1985 1,431.88 November 12, 1985 1,433.60 November 14, 1985 1,439.22 November 18, 1985 1,440.02 November 21, 1985 1,462.27 November 22, 1985 1,464.33 November 27, 1985 1,475.69 December 4, 1985 1,484.40 December 9, 1985 1,497.02 December 10, 1985 1,499.20 December 11, 1985 1,511.70 December 13, 1985 1,535.21 December 16, 1985 1,553.10
1986 (30 record closes) [ edit ]
Date of Record Closing Level January 7, 1986 1,565.71 January 31, 1986 1,570.99 February 3, 1986 1,594.27 February 6, 1986 1,600.69 February 7, 1986 1,613.42 February 10, 1986 1,626.38 February 12, 1986 1,629.93 February 13, 1986 1,645.07 February 14, 1986 1,664.45 February 18, 1986 1,678.78 February 21, 1986 1,697.71 February 24, 1986 1,698.28 February 27, 1986 1,713.99 March 11, 1986 1,746.05 March 13, 1986 1,753.71 March 14, 1986 1,792.74 March 20, 1986 1,804.24 March 26, 1986 1,810.70 March 27, 1986 1,821.72 April 16, 1986 1,847.97 April 17, 1986 1,855.03 April 21, 1986 1,855.90 May 28, 1986 1,878.28 May 29, 1986 1,882.35 June 6, 1986 1,885.90 June 30, 1986 1,892.72 July 1, 1986 1,903.54 July 2, 1986 1,909.03 September 4, 1986 1,919.71 December 2, 1986 1,955.57
1987 (55 record closes) [ edit ]
Date of Record Closing Level January 5, 1987 1,971.32 January 6, 1987 1,974.83 January 7, 1987 1,993.95 January 8, 1987 2,002.25 January 9, 1987 2,005.91 January 12, 1987 2,009.42 January 13, 1987 2,012.94 January 14, 1987 2,035.01 January 15, 1987 2,070.73 January 16, 1987 2,076.63 January 19, 1987 2,102.50 January 20, 1987 2,104.47 January 22, 1987 2,145.67 January 27, 1987 2,150.45 January 28, 1987 2,163.39 February 2, 1987 2,179.42 February 4, 1987 2,191.23 February 5, 1987 2,201.49 February 17, 1987 2,237.49 February 18, 1987 2,237.63 February 19, 1987 2,244.09 March 4, 1987 2,257.45 March 5, 1987 2,276.43 March 6, 1987 2,280.23 March 17, 1987 2,284.80 March 18, 1987 2,286.93 March 19, 1987 2,299.57 March 20, 1987 2,333.52 March 23, 1987 2,363.78 March 24, 1987 2,369.18 March 26, 1987 2,372.59 April 3, 1987 2,390.34 April 6, 1987 2,405.54 June 16, 1987 2,407.35 June 18, 1987 2,408.13 June 19, 1987 2,420.85 June 22, 1987 2,445.51 June 25, 1987 2,451.05 July 8, 1987 2,463.97 July 14, 1987 2,481.35 July 15, 1987 2,483.74 July 16, 1987 2,496.97 July 17, 1987 2,510.04 July 28, 1987 2,519.77 July 29, 1987 2,539.54 July 30, 1987 2,567.44 July 31, 1987 2,572.07 August 6, 1987 2,594.23 August 10, 1987 2,635.84 August 11, 1987 2,680.48 August 13, 1987 2,691.49 August 17, 1987 2,700.57 August 20, 1987 2,706.79 August 21, 1987 2,709.50 August 25, 1987 2,722.42
1988 (0 record closes) [ edit ]
1989 (8 record closes) [ edit ]
Date of Record Closing Level August 24, 1989 2,734.64 August 28, 1989 2,743.36 September 1, 1989 2,752.09 October 3, 1989 2,754.56 October 4, 1989 2,771.09 October 5, 1989 2,773.56 October 6, 1989 2,785.52 October 9, 1989 2,791.41
1990 (15 record closes) [ edit ]
Date of Record Closing Level January 2, 1990 2,810.15 May 14, 1990 2,821.53 May 15, 1990 2,822.45 May 17, 1990 2,831.71 May 21, 1990 2,844.68 May 22, 1990 2,852.23 May 23, 1990 2,856.26 May 29, 1990 2,870.49 May 30, 1990 2,878.56 June 1, 1990 2,900.97 June 4, 1990 2,935.19 June 15, 1990 2,935.89 July 12, 1990 2,969.80 July 13, 1990 2,980.20 July 16, 1990 2,999.75
1991 (11 record closes) [ edit ]
Date of Record Closing Level April 17, 1991 3,004.46 May 31, 1991 3,027.50 June 3, 1991 3,035.33 August 23, 1991 3,040.25 August 28, 1991 3,055.23 October 16, 1991 3,061.72 October 18, 1991 3,077.15 December 26, 1991 3,082.96 December 27, 1991 3,101.52 December 30, 1991 3,163.91 December 31, 1991 3,168.83
1992 (22 record closes) [ edit ]
Date of Record Closing Level January 2, 1992 3,172.41 January 3, 1992 3,201.48 January 7, 1992 3,204.83 January 9, 1992 3,209.53 January 14, 1992 3,246.20 January 15, 1992 3,258.50 January 17, 1992 3,264.98 January 28, 1992 3,272.14 February 4, 1992 3,272.81 February 12, 1992 3,276.83 February 20, 1992 3,280.63 February 24, 1992 3,282.42 February 26, 1992 3,283.32 March 3, 1992 3,290.25 April 14, 1992 3,306.13 April 15, 1992 3,353.76 April 16, 1992 3,366.50 May 4, 1992 3,378.13 May 11, 1992 3,397.58 May 19, 1992 3,397.99 May 28, 1992 3,398.43 June 1, 1992 3,413.21
1993 (33 record closes) [ edit ]
Date of Record Closing Level February 4, 1993 3,416.74 February 5, 1993 3,442.14 March 8, 1993 3,469.42 March 9, 1993 3,472.12 March 10, 1993 3,478.34 April 16, 1993 3,478.61 May 12, 1993 3,482.31 May 19, 1993 3,500.03 May 20, 1993 3,523.28 May 26, 1993 3,540.16 May 27, 1993 3,554.83 July 21, 1993 3,555.40 July 26, 1993 3,567.70 August 9, 1993 3,576.08 August 11, 1993 3,583.35 August 17, 1993 3,586.98 August 18, 1993 3,604.86 August 19, 1993 3,612.13 August 20, 1993 3,615.48 August 24, 1993 3,638.96 August 25, 1993 3,652.09 October 25, 1993 3,673.61 October 28, 1993 3,687.86 November 1, 1993 3,692.61 November 2, 1993 3,697.64 November 16, 1993 3,710.77 December 7, 1993 3,718.88 December 8, 1993 3,734.53 December 10, 1993 3,740.67 December 13, 1993 3,764.43 December 27, 1993 3,792.93 December 28, 1993 3,793.77 December 29, 1993 3,794.33
1994 (12 record closes) [ edit ]
Date of Record Closing Level January 5, 1994 3,798.82 January 6, 1994 3,803.88 January 7, 1994 3,820.77 January 10, 1994 3,865.51 January 14, 1994 3,867.20 January 17, 1994 3,870.29 January 19, 1994 3,884.37 January 20, 1994 3,891.96 January 21, 1994 3,914.48 January 27, 1994 3,926.30 January 28, 1994 3,945.43 January 31, 1994 3,978.36
1995 (69 record closes) [ edit ]
Date of Record Closing Level February 15, 1995 3,986.17 February 16, 1995 3,987.52 February 23, 1995 4,003.33 February 24, 1995 4,011.74 March 10, 1995 4,035.60 March 14, 1995 4,048.75 March 16, 1995 4,069.15 March 17, 1995 4,073.65 March 20, 1995 4,083.68 March 23, 1995 4,087.83 March 24, 1995 4,138.66 March 27, 1995 4,157.34 March 29, 1995 4,160.80 March 30, 1995 4,172.56 April 4, 1995 4,201.61 April 6, 1995 4,205.41 April 13, 1995 4,208.18 April 20, 1995 4,230.66 April 21, 1995 4,270.08 April 24, 1995 4,303.98 April 27, 1995 4,314.70 April 28, 1995 4,321.27 May 2, 1995 4,328.88 May 3, 1995 4,373.14 May 8, 1995 4,383.86 May 9, 1995 4,390.78 May 10, 1995 4,404.62 May 11, 1995 4,411.19 May 12, 1995 4,430.55 May 15, 1995 4,437.47 May 24, 1995 4,438.16 May 31, 1995 4,465.14 June 1, 1995 4,472.75 June 5, 1995 4,476.55 June 6, 1995 4,485.20 June 14, 1995 4,491.08 June 15, 1995 4,496.26 June 16, 1995 4,510.79 June 19, 1995 4,553.67 June 22, 1995 4,589.64 July 5, 1995 4,615.23 July 6, 1995 4,664.00 July 7, 1995 4,702.73 July 12, 1995 4,727.28 July 13, 1995 4,727.48 July 17, 1995 4,736.29 September 12, 1995 4,747.21 September 13, 1995 4,765.52 September 14, 1995 4,801.80 October 19, 1995 4,802.45 November 2, 1995 4,808.59 November 3, 1995 4,825.57 November 8, 1995 4,852.66 November 9, 1995 4,864.22 November 10, 1995 4,870.37 November 13, 1995 4,872.89 November 15, 1995 4,922.75 November 16, 1995 4,969.36 November 17, 1995 4,989.95 November 21, 1995 5,023.55 November 22, 1995 5,041.61 November 24, 1995 5,048.84 November 27, 1995 5,070.87 November 28, 1995 5,078.10 November 29, 1995 5,105.56 December 4, 1995 5,139.52 December 5, 1995 5,177.45 December 6, 1995 5,199.13 December 13, 1995 5,216.47
1996 (44 record closes) [ edit ]
Date of Record Closing Level January 22, 1996 5,219.36 January 24, 1996 5,242.84 January 26, 1996 5,271.74 January 29, 1996 5,304.98 January 30, 1996 5,381.21 January 31, 1996 5,395.30 February 1, 1996 5,405.05 February 5, 1996 5,407.58 February 6, 1996 5,459.61 February 7, 1996 5,492.12 February 8, 1996 5,539.45 February 9, 1996 5,541.62 February 12, 1996 5,600.14 February 13, 1996 5,601.23 February 22, 1996 5,608.45 February 23, 1996 5,630.49 March 5, 1996 5,642.41 March 18, 1996 5,683.60 April 3, 1996 5,689.74 May 20, 1996 5,748.82 May 22, 1996 5,778.00 September 13, 1996 5,838.52 September 16, 1996 5,889.19 September 23, 1996 5,894.74 October 1, 1996 5,904.90 October 2, 1996 5,933.97 October 4, 1996 5,992.85 October 14, 1996 6,010.00 October 16, 1996 6,020.80 October 17, 1996 6,059.19 October 18, 1996 6,094.22 November 6, 1996 6,177.71 November 7, 1996 6,206.03 November 8, 1996 6,219.82 November 11, 1996 6,255.60 November 12, 1996 6,266.03 November 13, 1996 6,274.23 November 14, 1996 6,312.99 November 15, 1996 6,348.03 November 19, 1996 6,397.59 November 20, 1996 6,430.02 November 22, 1996 6,471.76 November 25, 1996 6,547.79 December 27, 1996 6,560.90
1997 (39 record closes) [ edit ]
Date of Record Closing Level January 6, 1997 6,567.17 January 7, 1997 6,600.65 January 9, 1997 6,625.67 January 10, 1997 6,703.79 January 13, 1997 6,709.18 January 14, 1997 6,762.28 January 16, 1997 6,765.36 January 17, 1997 6,833.09 January 20, 1997 6,843.87 January 21, 1997 6,883.89 February 12, 1997 6,961.63 February 13, 1997 7,022.43 February 18, 1997 7,067.46 March 10, 1997 7,079.39 March 11, 1997 7,085.16 May 5, 1997 7,214.48 May 6, 1997 7,225.32 May 12, 1997 7,292.74 May 15, 1997 7,333.54 May 23, 1997 7,345.90 May 27, 1997 7,383.40 June 6, 1997 7,435.77 June 9, 1997 7,478.49 June 10, 1997 7,539.27 June 11, 1997 7,575.82 June 12, 1997 7,711.46 June 13, 1997 7,782.03 June 20, 1997 7,796.51 July 3, 1997 7,895.80 July 8, 1997 7,962.30 July 15, 1997 7,975.70 July 16, 1997 8,038.88 July 22, 1997 8,061.64 July 23, 1997 8,088.35 July 24, 1997 8,116.92 July 28, 1997 8,121.10 July 29, 1997 8,174.52 July 30, 1997 8,254.89 August 6, 1997 8,259.30
1998 (30 record closes) [ edit ]
Date of Record Closing Level February 10, 1998 8,295.61 February 11, 1998 8,314.54 February 12, 1998 8,369.59 February 13, 1998 8,370.09 February 17, 1998 8,398.49 February 18, 1998 8,451.05 February 25, 1998 8,457.77 February 26, 1998 8,490.66 February 27, 1998 8,545.71 March 2, 1998 8,550.44 March 3, 1998 8,584.82 March 10, 1998 8,643.11 March 11, 1998 8,675.75 March 16, 1998 8,718.84 March 17, 1998 8,749.98 March 18, 1998 8,775.39 March 19, 1998 8,803.04 March 20, 1998 8,906.42 April 2, 1998 8,986.64 April 6, 1998 9,033.22 April 14, 1998 9,110.19 April 15, 1998 9,162.26 April 17, 1998 9,167.49 April 21, 1998 9,184.93 May 4, 1998 9,192.65 May 13, 1998 9,211.83 July 14, 1998 9,245.54 July 16, 1998 9,328.18 July 17, 1998 9,337.97 November 23, 1998 9,374.27
1999 (35 record closes) [ edit ]
Date of Record Closing Level January 6, 1999 9,544.97 January 8, 1999 9,643.32 March 5, 1999 9,736.07 March 10, 1999 9,772.84 March 11, 1999 9,897.44 March 15, 1999 9,958.77 March 18, 1999 9,997.62 March 29, 1999 10,006.78 April 5, 1999 10,007.33 April 7, 1999 10,085.31 April 8, 1999 10,197.70 April 12, 1999 10,339.51 April 13, 1999 10,395.01 April 14, 1999 10,411.66 April 15, 1999 10,462.72 April 16, 1999 10,493.89 April 21, 1999 10,581.42 April 22, 1999 10,727.18 April 27, 1999 10,831.71 April 28, 1999 10,845.45 April 29, 1999 10,878.38 May 3, 1999 11,014.69 May 7, 1999 11,031.59 May 13, 1999 11,107.19 July 2, 1999 11,139.25 July 7, 1999 11,187.37 July 9, 1999 11,193.70 July 12, 1999 11,200.98 July 16, 1999 11,209.85 August 23, 1999 11,299.76 August 25, 1999 11,326.04 December 23, 1999 11,405.76 December 28, 1999 11,476.71 December 29, 1999 11,484.67 December 31, 1999 11,497.12
2000 (4 record closes) [ edit ]
Date of Record Closing Level January 7, 2000 11,522.56 January 10, 2000 11,572.20 January 13, 2000 11,582.44 January 14, 2000 11,722.98
2001–2005 (0 record closes) [ edit ]
2006 (22 record closes) [ edit ]
Date of Record Closing Level October 3, 2006 11,727.34 October 4, 2006 11,850.61 October 5, 2006 11,866.69 October 10, 2006 11,867.17 October 12, 2006 11,947.70 October 13, 2006 11,960.51 October 16, 2006 11,980.60 October 18, 2006 11,992.68 October 19, 2006 12,011.73 October 23, 2006 12,116.91 October 24, 2006 12,127.88 October 25, 2006 12,134.68 October 26, 2006 12,163.66 November 8, 2006 12,176.54 November 14, 2006 12,218.01 November 15, 2006 12,251.71 November 16, 2006 12,305.82 November 17, 2006 12,342.56 December 14, 2006 12,416.76 December 15, 2006 12,445.52 December 19, 2006 12,471.32 December 27, 2006 12,510.57
2007 (34 record closes) [ edit ]
Date of Record Closing Level January 11, 2007 12,514.98 January 12, 2007 12,556.08 January 16, 2007 12,582.59 January 24, 2007 12,621.77 February 1, 2007 12,673.68 February 14, 2007 12,741.86 February 15, 2007 12,765.01 February 16, 2007 12,767.57 February 20, 2007 12,786.64 April 18, 2007 12,803.84 April 19, 2007 12,808.63 April 20, 2007 12,961.98 April 25, 2007 13,089.89 April 26, 2007 13,105.50 April 27, 2007 13,120.94 May 1, 2007 13,136.14 May 2, 2007 13,211.88 May 3, 2007 13,241.38 May 4, 2007 13,264.62 May 7, 2007 13,312.97 May 9, 2007 13, |
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